Brief communication: An analysis of dental development in Pleistocene <i>Homo</i> using skeletal growth and chronological age

Šešelj, Maja

doi:10.1002/ajpa.23228

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 64 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…Os1b shows a skeletal and dental development (Supplementary Table S1 ) that is more advanced than a modern fetus of the same gestational age, as derived from the present contribution. This evidence reinforces the hypothesis that developmental rates have varied through time 47 . Collectively, these findings support the idea that modern growth standards may be inadequate when analyzing archaeological remains.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

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Virtual histological assessment of the prenatal life history and age at death of the Upper Paleolithic fetus from Ostuni (Italy)

Nava

Coppa

Coppola

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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The fetal remains from the Ostuni 1 burial (Italy, ca 27 ka) represent a unique opportunity to explore the prenatal biological parameters, and to reconstruct the possible patho-biography, of a fetus (and its mother) in an Upper Paleolithic context. Phase-contrast synchrotron X-ray microtomography imaging of two deciduous tooth crowns and microfocus CT measurements of the right hemimandible of the Ostuni 1b fetus were performed at the SYRMEP beamline and at the TomoLab station of the Elettra - Sincrotrone laboratory (Trieste, Italy) in order to refine age at death and to report the enamel developmental history and dental tissue volumes for this fetal individual. The virtual histology allowed to estimate the age at death of the fetus at 31–33 gestational weeks. Three severe physiological stress episodes were also identified in the prenatal enamel. These stress episodes occurred during the last two months and half of pregnancy and may relate to the death of both individuals. Compared with modern prenatal standards, Os1b’s skeletal development was advanced. This cautions against the use of modern skeletal and dental references for archaeological finds and emphasizes the need for more studies on prenatal archaeological skeletal samples.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Variations between skeletal, dental and chronological age have been observed through the whole Pleistocene 46 , 47 . Os1b shows a skeletal and dental development (Supplementary Table S1 ) that is more advanced than a modern fetus of the same gestational age, as derived from the present contribution.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual histological assessment of the prenatal life history and age at death of the Upper Paleolithic fetus from Ostuni (Italy)

Nava

Coppa

Coppola

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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“…Finally, growth analysis based on annual marks is not only possible for trees. The methods of probabilistic age determination presented here could well be extended to study time series of growth marks in roots of perennial herbs [35], fish scales and otoliths, bivalve shells, corals, turtle scutes [36], bones of cervids and primates [37], and dental development data [38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical age determination of tree rings

et al. 2020

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Dendrochronology, the study of annual rings formed by trees and woody plants, has important applications in research of climate and environmental phenomena of the past. Since its inception in the late 19 th century, dendrochronology has not had a way to quantify uncertainty about the years assigned to each ring (dating). There are, however, many woody species and sites where it is difficult or impossible to delimit annual ring boundaries and verify them with crossdating, especially in the lowland tropics. Rather than ignoring dating uncertainty or discarding such samples as useless, we present for the first time a probabilistic approach to assign expected ages with a confidence interval. It is proven that the cumulative age in a tree-ring time series advances by an amount equal to the probability that a putative growth boundary is truly annual. Confidence curves for the tree stem radius as a function of uncertain ages are determined. A sensitivity analysis shows the effect of uncertainty of the probability that a recognizable boundary is annual, as well as of the number of expected missing boundaries. Furthermore, we derive a probabilistic version of the mean sensitivity of a dendrochronological time series, which quantifies a tree's sensitivity to environmental variation over time, as well as probabilistic versions of the autocorrelation and process standard deviation. A computer code in Mathematica is provided, with sample input files, as supporting information. Further research is necessary to analyze frequency patterns of false and missing boundaries for different species and sites.

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“…The principle of demographic uniformitarianism is well-accepted. Critics have questioned whether the use of the uniformitarian assumption is a form of 'self-fulfilling prophecy' [83] that prevents the possibility of identifying unusual or unrecorded demographic behaviour in the past, either because prehistoric populations lived in environments that have no modern analogue, or because there is greater variation across human biological and life-history parameters than is frequently supposed, particularly between Pleistocene and Holocene populations [84,85]. While this possibility cannot be rejected outright, the null hypothesis should be that reconstructions of prehistoric population dynamics and royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstb Phil.…”

Section: Conclusion: Challenges and Lessons For The Use Of The Uniformentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic uniformitarianism: the theoretical basis of prehistoric demographic research and its cross-disciplinary challenges

French

2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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A principle of demographic uniformitarianism underpins all research into prehistoric demography (palaeodemography). This principle—which argues for continuity in the evolved mechanisms underlying modern human demographic processes and their response to environmental stimuli between past and present—provides the cross-disciplinary basis for palaeodemographic reconstruction and analysis. Prompted by the recent growth and interest in the field of prehistoric demography, this paper reviews the principle of demographic uniformitarianism, evaluates how it relates to two key debates in palaeodemographic research and seeks to delimit its range of applicability to past human and hominin populations. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.

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Brief communication: An analysis of dental development in Pleistocene Homo using skeletal growth and chronological age

Cited by 10 publications

References 64 publications

Virtual histological assessment of the prenatal life history and age at death of the Upper Paleolithic fetus from Ostuni (Italy)

Virtual histological assessment of the prenatal life history and age at death of the Upper Paleolithic fetus from Ostuni (Italy)

Statistical age determination of tree rings

Demographic uniformitarianism: the theoretical basis of prehistoric demographic research and its cross-disciplinary challenges

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