Results support the relationship between mobility and tibial diaphysis morphology as it is generally interpreted in the anthropological literature, with greater levels of mobility associated with increased diaphyseal robusticity and shape variation.
This study provides the first systematic comparison of externally derived measures of postcranial robusticity, with those based upon cross-sectional geometry, and suggests that, regardless of theoretical scaling predictions, external area based robusticity estimates involving the product of diaphyseal diameters are most directly comparable toCross-sectional geometric properties when they are standardized using the products of body mass and bone length.
The genome of an Ethiopian male, “Mota,” who lived approximately 4500 years ago is sequenced to demonstrate that the Eurasian backflow into Africa came from a population closely related to Early Neolithic farmers, who had colonized Europe 4000 years earlier.
Although postcranial robustness appears to be correlated with overall limb function, the results suggest that more proximal elements within the limb may be more responsive to mechanical loading.
The results suggest that more mechanically loaded upper limb elements--unilaterally or bilaterally--are strengthened relative to less mechanically loaded elements, and that differences in mechanical loading may have a more significant effect on proximal compared to distal limb segments.
Investigating variation in robusticity in claviculae, humeri, ulnae, femora, and tibiae among human foragers, relative to climate and habitual behavior suggests that there may be a stronger relationship between observed patterns of diaphyseal hypertrophy and behavioral differences between populations in distal elements.
The cultural and biological developments of the EP period leading up to the Natufian are traced and the long‐term trajectory of culture change, social complexity, and village life in the Near East is considered.
Assessment of the accuracy of published stature estimation equations from worldwide and New World groups applied to archaeological samples from the central Andean coast and highlands of South America shows the mean of three previously published equations is shown to offer minimal bias and the most reliable estimate of body mass in the study samples.
Stature estimates based on skeletal "anatomical" linear measures and on long bone length are compared, along with body mass estimates derived from "morphometric" (bi-iliac breath/stature) and "biomechanical" methods, in a LSA adult skeletal sample from the from coastal and near-coastal regions of South Africa.