.2016 Jul 5;371(1698):20150236.

doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0236.

Morphological variation in Homo erectus and the origins of developmental plasticity

Susan C Antón¹, Hannah G Taboada², Emily R Middleton³, Christopher W Rainwater², Andrea B Taylor⁴, Trudy R Turner⁵, Jean E Turnquist⁶, Karen J Weinstein⁷, Scott A Williams²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA susan.anton@nyu.edu.
² Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
³ Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri, M263 Medical Science Building, Columbia, MO 65212, USA.
⁴ Department of Orthopaedics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC 27708, USA Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
⁵ Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
⁶ Caribbean Primate Research Center and Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology (Retired), University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA.
⁷ Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013, USA.

PMID:27298467
PMCID: PMC4920293
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0236

Morphological variation in Homo erectus and the origins of developmental plasticity

Susan C Antón et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci.2016.

.2016 Jul 5;371(1698):20150236.

doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0236.

Authors

Susan C Antón¹, Hannah G Taboada², Emily R Middleton³, Christopher W Rainwater², Andrea B Taylor⁴, Trudy R Turner⁵, Jean E Turnquist⁶, Karen J Weinstein⁷, Scott A Williams²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA susan.anton@nyu.edu.
² Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
³ Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri, M263 Medical Science Building, Columbia, MO 65212, USA.
⁴ Department of Orthopaedics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC 27708, USA Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
⁵ Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
⁶ Caribbean Primate Research Center and Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology (Retired), University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA.
⁷ Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013, USA.

PMID:27298467
PMCID: PMC4920293
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0236

Abstract

Homo erectus was the first hominin to exhibit extensive range expansion. This extraordinary departure from Africa, especially into more temperate climates of Eurasia, has been variously related to technological, energetic and foraging shifts. The temporal and regional anatomical variation in H. erectus suggests that a high level of developmental plasticity, a key factor in the ability of H. sapiens to occupy a variety of habitats, may also have been present in H. erectus. Developmental plasticity, the ability to modify development in response to environmental conditions, results in differences in size, shape and dimorphism across populations that relate in part to levels of resource sufficiency and extrinsic mortality. These differences predict not only regional variations but also overall smaller adult sizes and lower levels of dimorphism in instances of resource scarcity and high predator load. We consider the metric variation in 35 human and non-human primate 'populations' from known environmental contexts and 14 time- and space-restricted paleodemes of H. erectus and other fossil Homo Human and non-human primates exhibit more similar patterns of variation than expected, with plasticity evident, but in differing patterns by sex across populations. The fossil samples show less evidence of variation than expected, although H. erectus varies more than Neandertals.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.

Keywords: climatic adaptation; ecogeography; hominin dispersal; phenotypic variation; resource availability; sexual dimorphism.

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Figures

**Figure 1.**
The geographic distribution of Arctic human populations used in this study. Adapted and redrawn from Seltzer and Stefansson [70]. Point Hope archaeological sample from AD 1200 to 1700. Wainwright population measured in 1967–1968. All other populations measured between 1906 and 1912 in the specified regions.

**Figure 2.**
Comparative CV values for (a) postcranial somatometrics for male, Kenyan vervets from Naivasha (open circle),*M. mulatta* from Cayo Santiago (filled square) andM. fuscata from Wakasa (open square) and (b) femur length for fossil paleodemes and postcranial human samples including twentieth-century skeletal samples from the USA (CMNH, Erie) and an archaeological Arctic sample from Point Hope; 95% confidence intervals included. Note that the relative fossil CV values follow the prediction that shortest interval paleodemes (Atapuerca/Trinil) will have the lowest values. However, differences are not significant and both values seem artificially low compared to extant values. (c) Comparative mean values across fossil paleodemes for cranial length (GOL) with 95% confidence intervals.

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Morphological variation in Homo erectus and the origins of developmental plasticity

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