The primitive wrist of Homo floresiensis and its implications for hominin evolution |
| |
Authors: | Tocheri Matthew W Orr Caley M Larson Susan G Sutikna Thomas Jatmiko Saptomo E Wahyu Due Rokus Awe Djubiantono Tony Morwood Michael J Jungers William L |
| |
Institution: | Human Origins Program, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA. tocherim@si.edu |
| |
Abstract: | Whether the Late Pleistocene hominin fossils from Flores, Indonesia, represent a new species, Homo floresiensis, or pathological modern humans has been debated. Analysis of three wrist bones from the holotype specimen (LB1) shows that it retains wrist morphology that is primitive for the African ape-human clade. In contrast, Neandertals and modern humans share derived wrist morphology that forms during embryogenesis, which diminishes the probability that pathology could result in the normal primitive state. This evidence indicates that LB1 is not a modern human with an undiagnosed pathology or growth defect; rather, it represents a species descended from a hominin ancestor that branched off before the origin of the clade that includes modern humans, Neandertals, and their last common ancestor. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|