The place of Neanderthal man in human evolution

Howell, F. Clark

doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330090402

Cited by 87 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Trinkaus (1982) argued that the tradition of looking for adaptively significant traits in hominins began postWorld War II in, for example, the work of Howell (1951) on the relationship between Neandertal anatomy and climate. However, only recently have the sample sizes of H. erectus been sufficient to address such issues.…”

Section: A View Of the Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural history ofHomo erectus

Antón

2003

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

412

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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Section: A View Of the Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural history ofHomo erectus

Antón

2003

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

412

154

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“…The structure of the middle face of Steinheim resembles in a general way that of European early Neanderthal peoples. and approaches that of anatomically modern man; it is quite different from the specialized facial structure so characteristic of classic eanderthal folk (Howell 1951). …”

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confidence: 92%

European and Northwest African Middle Pleistocene Hominids

Howell¹

1960

Current Anthropology

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145

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“…These include: cold adaptation (Coon, 1962), possibly in balance with random genetic drift (Howell, 1951(Howell, , 1952Hublin, 1990Hublin, , 1998Hublin, , 2000 and altered growth patterns (Brothwell, 1975;Smith, 1991;Ponce de León and Zollikofer, 2001); respiratory moisture retention in cold and/or arid climates (Sergi, 1962;Franciscus and Trinkaus, 1988); and masticatory biomechanics (Heim, 1976;Smith, 1983;Rak, 1986;Demes, 1987;Trinkaus, 1987;Smith and Paquette, 1989;Antón, 1990Antón, , 1994aCouture, 1993;Spencer and Demes, 1993). In recent years, the last has received by far the most attention in the paleoanthropological literature.…”

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confidence: 99%

Bite force production capability and efficiency in Neandertals and modern humans

O'Connor

Franciscus

Holton

2005

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

102

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Although there is consensus that Neandertal craniofacial morphology is unique in the genus Homo, debate continues regarding the precise anatomical basis for this uniqueness and the evolutionary mechanism that produced it. In recent years, biomechanical explanations have received the most attention. Some proponents of the "anterior dental loading hypothesis" (ADLH) maintain that Neandertal facial anatomy was an adaptive response to high-magnitude forces resulting from both masticatory and paramasticatory activity. However, while many have argued that Neandertal facial structure was well-adapted to dissipate heavy occlusal loads, few have considered, much less demonstrated, the ability of the Neandertal masticatory system to generate these presumably heavy loads. In fact, the Neandertal masticatory configuration has often been simultaneously interpreted as being disadvantageous for producing large bite forces. With rare exception, analyses that attempted to resolve this conflict were qualitative rather than quantitative. Using a three-dimensional digitizer, we recorded a sequence of points on the cranium and associated mandible of the Amud 1, La Chapelle-aux-Saints, and La Ferrassie 1 Neandertals, and a sample of early and recent modern humans (n = 29), including a subsample with heavy dental wear and documented paramasticatory behavior. From these points, we calculated measures of force-production capability (i.e., magnitudes of muscle force, bite force, and condylar reaction force), measures of force production efficiency (i.e., ratios of force magnitudes and muscle mechanical advantages), and a measure of overall size (i.e., the geometric mean of all linear craniofacial measurements taken). In contrast to the expectations set forth by the ADLH, the primary dichotomy in force-production capability was not between Neandertal and modern specimens, but rather between large (robust) and small (gracile) specimens overall. Our results further suggest that the masticatory system in the genus Homo scales such that a certain level of force-production efficiency is maintained across a considerable range of size and robusticity. Natural selection was probably not acting on Neandertal facial architecture in terms of peak bite force dissipation, but rather on large tooth size to better resist wear and abrasion from submaximal (but more frequent) biting and grinding forces. We conclude that masticatory biomechanical adaptation does not underlie variation in the facial skeleton of later Pleistocene Homo in general, and that continued exploration of alternative explanations for Neandertal facial architecture (e.g., climatic, respiratory, developmental, and/or stochastic mechanisms) seems warranted.

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The place of Neanderthal man in human evolution

Cited by 87 publications

References 20 publications

Natural history ofHomo erectus

Natural history ofHomo erectus

European and Northwest African Middle Pleistocene Hominids

Bite force production capability and efficiency in Neandertals and modern humans

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