Is the Narmada hominid an Indian <i>Homo erectus</i>?

Kennedy, Kenneth A. R.; Sonakia, A.; Chiment, John; Verma, Kamlesh

doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330860404

Cited by 59 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…Traditionally the Narmada fossil hominin has been allocated as a member of a late Homo erectus grade (Sonakia, 1984(Sonakia, , 1985Sonakia & Biswas, 1998;de Lumley & Sonakia, 1985a, 1985b; see also partly Sankhyan, 1997). Kennedy et al (1991) and Kennedy (1999), however, suggest that this specimen should be allocated to an 'archaic' or pre-H. sapiens group. The Narmada Valley deposits of central India are widely known for their mammalian fauna and Stone Age artifacts (see Figure 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The phylogenetic significance of the Middle Pleistocene Narmada hominin cranium from central India

Cameron

Patnaik

Sahni

2004

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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A parsimony analysis of the Narmada cranium from central India and a number of other demes and species of Homo concludes that the Narmada hominin shares a closer relationship with the European Steinheim specimen, than with Asian H. erectus or H. pekinensis. This suggests that the population represented by the Narmada cranium is likely to have had its origins in Europe rather than in Asia. Overall the available evidence supports an 'Out of Africa' scenario, as the early Asian hominins belong to a distinct clade which has no extant descendants and thus appear to represent an evolutionary 'dead end'. The later African and European hominins are defined by a clade including early H. sapiens from Africa. The main difference between these two distinct clades is that the H. erectus lineage is defined by increasing degrees of neuro-orbital disjunction associated with increased anterior cranial base extension, while the lineage leading to early H. sapiens is characterized by the opposite condition of reduced neuro-orbital disjunction associated with increased anterior cranial base flexion. While there is also evidence of differential patterns of head and neck musculature between these two clades, they are of secondary importance. Preliminary dating of bovid remains found in association with the hominin cranium by the gamma spectrometric U-series dating technique suggests a tentative minimum age of not less than 236,000 years. This is in agreement with evidence from biostratigraphical studies of the Boulder Conglomerate, which place these deposits in the Middle Pleistocene.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The phylogenetic significance of the Middle Pleistocene Narmada hominin cranium from central India

Cameron

Patnaik

Sahni

2004

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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“…Wu, 1981;R. Wu, 1988) and the older Hathnora calvaria from the Narmada Valley, India (de Lumley and Sonakia, 1985;, now most frequently included in H. heidelbergensis or Archaic H. sapiens (e.g., Kennedy et al, 1991;Li and Etler, 1992;Wu and Poirier, 1995;Wood and Richmond, 2000;Stringer, 2002).…”

Section: Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural history ofHomo erectus

Antón

2003

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

413

154

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Our view of H. erectus is vastly different today than when Pithecanthropus erectus was described in 1894. Since its synonimization into Homo, views of the species and its distribution have varied from a single, widely dispersed, polytypic species ultimately ancestral to all later Homo, to a derived, regional isolate ultimately marginal to later hominin evolution. A revised chronostratigraphic framework and recent work bearing either directly or indirectly on reconstructions of life-history patterns are reviewed here and, together with a review of the cranial and postcranial anatomy of H. erectus, are used to generate a natural history of the species. Here I argue that H. erectus is a hominin, notable for its increased body size, that originates in the latest Pliocene/earliest Pleistocene of Africa and quickly disperses into Western and Eastern Asia. It is also an increasingly derived hominin with several regional morphs sustained by intermittent isolation, particularly in Southeast Asia. This view differs from several current views, most especially that which recognizes only a single hominin species in the Pleistocene, H. sapiens, and those which would atomize H. erectus into a multiplicity of taxa. Following Jolly ([2001] Yrbk Phys Anthropol 44:177-204), the regional morphs of H. erectus may be productively viewed as geographically replacing allotaxa, rather than as the focus of unresolvable species debates. Such a view allows us to focus on the adaptations and biology of local groups, including questions of biogeographic isolation and local adaptation. A number of issues remain unresolved, including the significance of diversity in size and shape in the early African and Georgian records.

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“…It remains to be seen if future finds will provide additional evidence of individuals of small stature or shed more light on the controversial taxonomic status of the hominin population now represented by only the clavicle and Narmada calvarium. 5,134,135 The first fossils of modern humans in Asia date to about 50 ka BP in China. 127 Humans colonized Austria by at least 50 ka BP 136 and settled many islands of the drowned Sunda Shelf, as well as the Philippines, by around 40 ka BP.…”

Section: Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Postcranial remains and the origin of modern humans

Pearson¹

2000

Evol. Anthropol.

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The purpose of this review is to explore what hominin postcranial remains reveal about the origin of modern humans. Most studies of the fossil evidence for modern human origins have concentrated on changes in cranial morphology. 7,14 -21 In comparison, postcranial fossils have received less attention, although recent work has started to reverse that imbalance. 16 -24 Certainly, a large portion of the work on the postcrania of Neandertals, other late archaic humans, and the earliest modern humans has focused on functional interpretations and stressed the value of differing morphology as an indication of differences in adaptations rather than emphasizing the fact that such differences probably also serve as useful phylogenetic markers. However, postcranial and cranial dimensions appear to be similarly heritable 25 ; both should preserve information about both function and phylogeny. More to the point, as I will emphasize, cranial and postcranial data reveal very similar patterns with regard to the origin of modern humans. MODELS OF MODERN HUMAN ORIGINSMuch of the recent literature on modern human origins has emphasized the difference between the Multiregional model and the Out-of-Africa model, the two primary models for the origin of modern humans. Within the last few years, however, these two models have converged considerably, due in large part to Relethford and Harpending's 26 demonstration that the patterns of genetic and cranial distances among modern populations could be obtained from the Out-of-Africa or the Multiregional model, given the right combination of migration rates and effective population size within each region.Acceptance of the genetic data by the proponents of the Multiregional model means that both the Out-of-Africa and the Multiregional model now accept that, in essence, modern humans of African origin eventually replaced virtually all of the genes of archaic humans throughout Eurasia. Nevertheless, the two models still differ with regard to how this de facto replacement happened. Chris Stringer, one of the chief advocates of the Outof-Africa Model, considers that either no interbreeding transpired between modern humans and archaic Eurasian hominins or that the interbreeding was so limited that it left no genetic or morphological traces in modern populations. 27 Other proponents of the Out-of-Africa model consider that interbreeding did occur and may have left morphological traces, but that the admixture was still small in extent. 28,29 In contrast, the Multiregional model specifies that interbreeding did occur between early modern humans and archaic hominins at least in Central Europe, China, and Indonesia, but that subsequent gene flow from African populations, genetic drift, and selection have erased most, and possibly all, of the genetic signature and many of the morphological traces of this ancient admixture. 10 Multiregionalists consider that many of the early examples of modern humans within each region of Eurasia, particularly in Europe and Australia, bear more morphological tr...

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Is the Narmada hominid an Indian Homo erectus?

Cited by 59 publications

References 50 publications

The phylogenetic significance of the Middle Pleistocene Narmada hominin cranium from central India

The phylogenetic significance of the Middle Pleistocene Narmada hominin cranium from central India

Natural history ofHomo erectus

Postcranial remains and the origin of modern humans

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