Ontogeny of postcranial robusticity among Holocene hunter-gatherers of southernmost Africa

Abstract

Ontogenetic patterns in postcranial robusticity are analysed in the skeletons of eighty-two juvenile Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers with estimated ages at death ranging from infancy to late adolescence. Robusticity is quantified from cross-sectional geometric properties of diaphyses at sixteen sites throughout the skeleton, using radiography and casting methods. (1925 -2005) and Susan Joyce Robbins (1953Robbins ( -2007 iv AcknowledgementsA great many people provided support and encouragement toward the preparation of this thesis. I thank the curators of the skeletal remains that form the basis of this research for giving me the opportunity to study the collections under their care: Drs.

Bioarchaeological Evidence for the Basis of Small Adult Stature in Southern Africa

“…Where dental development could not be observed, age at death has been estimated from long bone length. Regression equations for estimating dental age at death from long bone lengths were generated from within the sample (Harrington 2010). Of the 134 individuals studied, 81 estimates of age at death (60%) are based on dental development.…”

“…The growth of immature Later Stone Age skeletons has been approached as a cross-sectional sample (Harrington and Pfeiffer 2008), and juvenile remains have been described and analyzed in bioarchaeological descriptions and analyses (Harrington 2010;Pfeiffer and van der Merwe 2004;Sealy et al 2000). A data set from these studies can be used as a basis for examining questions about mortality risk and the response of the comiTiunity to the death of a child.…”

Tibial cortical and trabecular variables together can pinpoint the timing of impact loading relative to menarche in premenopausal females

“…This is the same pattern documented among adults (Stock & Macintosh, 2016), interpreted as evidence that Early Neolithic juveniles may have been foraging and/or traveling in groups with adult individuals. Similarly, among Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers living in Southern Africa, adolescents exhibited patterns of humeral cortical bone asymmetry comparable to adults (Cameron & Pfeiffer, 2014;Harrington, 2010;Stock & Pfeiffer, 2004). This similarity was taken to reflect adolescent initiation of adult sex-specific subsistence behaviors including the use of digging sticks, spears, and bows (Stock & Pfeiffer, 2004).…”

“…Though the skeletons of children and adolescents are rare in the archeological record, their study has shed light on the ontogeny of limb bone structural geometry (Cowgill, 2010; Harrington, 2010; Mizushima et al, 2016; Osipov et al, 2016) and the mobility patterns and subsistence behaviors of children and adolescents in the past (Harrington, 2010; Osipov et al, 2020). For example, juvenile (<16 years of age) hunter‐gatherers from the Early Neolithic period, living in the Cis‐Baikal region of Siberia, appear to have been traveling long distances on foot regularly, significantly more so than their Late Neolithic counterparts (Osipov et al, 2020).…”

The endostructural pattern of a middle pleistocene human femoral diaphysis from the Karain E site (Southern Anatolia, Turkey)

“…Over the past 15 years, postcranial robusticity and shape have become accessible through the quantification of geometric cross‐sectional properties and these parameters are now frequently used for the analysis of hominin fossils (e.g., Ruff et al, ; Holt, ; Trinkaus and Ruff, ; Marchi et al, ; Shackelford, ; Cowgill, ; Marchi, ; Ruff, ; Harrington, ; Puymerail et al, ,b; Bleuze, ; Chevalier, ; Shaw and Stock, ). These properties supplement the abundant compilation of more traditionally used external data.…”