Appendicular robusticity and the paleobiology of modern human emergence
Abstract
The emergence of modern humans in the Late Pleistocene, whatever its phylogenetic history, was characterized by a series of behaviorally important shifts reflected in aspects of human hard tissue biology and the archeological record. To elucidate these shifts further, diaphyseal cross-sectional morphology was analyzed by using cross-sectional areas and second moments of area of the mid-distal humerus and midshaft femur. The humeral diaphysis indicates a gradual reduction in habitual load levels from Eurasian late archaic, to Early Upper Paleolithic early modern, to Middle Upper Paleolithic early modern hominids, with the Levantine Middle Paleolithic early modern humans being a gracile anomalous outlier. The femoral diaphysis, once variation in ecogeographically patterned body proportions is taken into account, indicates no changes across the pre-30,000 years B.P. samples in habitual locomotor load levels, followed by a modest decrease through the Middle Upper Paleolithic.
Footnotes
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↵ * To whom reprint requests should be addressed at: Department of Anthropology, Campus Box 1114, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130. e-mail: trinkaus{at}artsci.wustl.edu.
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This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected on April 30, 1996.
- ABBREVIATIONS:
- kyr,
- thousands of years;
- BIB,
- bi-iliac breadth;
- FL,
- femoral length
- Copyright © 1997, The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
