1982 Sep;59(1):33-45. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.1330590105. The issue of vault ridges (or keeling) has not been explicitly addressed in most ontogenetic studies of the human cranium. Interestingly, they found the face to be the region with the highest number of significantly heritable traits and highest mean heritability, followed by the cranial base and the neurocranium [82]. We will be providing unlimited waivers of publication charges for accepted research articles as well as case reports and case series related to COVID-19.

[158] who provided a critical evaluation of the character coding and statistical methods employed by Hawks et al. However, in anatomically modern humans with our large brains, including relatively broad and steep frontal lobe [198], angulation of the frontal squama results from the brain being epigenetically forced to grow excessively posteriorly by a narrow cranial base resulting in a long and tall cranium [17, 156, 180, 181]. Lieberman et al. Epigenesis is defined as the developmental interactions among cells, tissues, and their environments [84]. They opined that this difference was best explained by local developmental factors unique to humans such as relative brain size, posture, and locomotion (Factor 3), and facial shape, mainly involving the browridge (Factor 4).

Thus, the regional lineage from this taxon through to Aboriginal Australians was part of a global process, which Howells [36] dubbed the “Candelabra” hypothesis. The cranium is divided along ontogenetic lines into three regions: the cranial base, neurocranium, and face. 2018 Jun;17(2):150-157. doi: 10.1007/s12663-016-0897-3. Cranial index in a modern people of Thai ancestry.

A small part of the lateral cranial base is preserved while the facial skeleton is missing save a fragment of zygomatic bone. It is conceivable that relative lengths of the cervical column might influence population differences in craniocervical posture and craniofacial morphology. Epub 2009 Apr 2. It is argued here that in order to resolve this issue a new program of research should be embraced, one aiming to test the full range of alternative explanations for robust morphology. Long before a human fossil record was known for Australia, various speculative evolutionary sequences were devised linking nonmodern hominins to Aboriginal Australians. According to the functional matrix hypothesis [88], the cranium comprises various functional cranial components (FCC), which are ontogenetically integrated.

Moreover, there are also influences from the growing face although, they are more subtle than those of the basicranium [122, 123, 131, 132, 136, 138–144]. Poosha DV, Byard PJ, Satyanarayana M, Rice JP, Rao DC. Moreover, these and other crania are strongly contrasted in their degree of neurocranial globularity; robust crania exhibiting highly angulated vaults, with receding frontal squamae (Table 1, Figure 2) [2, 8, 9, 11–14, 17, 18, 41–43, 47–49, 51, 52, 151]. [82] show that the cranial base, neurocranium, and face are characterised by similar levels of heritability and also strongly point to an important role for epigenesis in ontogeny (see also [80, 81, 83–86]).

[55].). Figure 4 is a lateral radiograph of WLH50 taken in 2006 by the author and A. Thorne. However, this situation is not universal for superstructures and their development is complex. Midline ridges are found within the clinical spectrum of such cranial deformities [192]. Craniocervical morphology and posture in Australian aboriginals. Premature synostosis of one or more sutures is accompanied by compensatory growth, both in other sutures, and by remodelling (appositional growth) of other parts of the skull [194]. Put simply, Wolff’s law is, “an extension of the old and trusted idea that form is interrelated with and inseparable from function… that bone grows and develops in such a manner that the composite of physiologic forces exerted on it are accommodated by the bone’s developmental processes” [77, page 233]. These “nonmetric” traits were originally selected in order to avoid “duplicating features that seemed to reflect the consequences of the same anatomical variation” [55, page 294].

Although the order of arrivals had to be revised (reversed) once it was established that gracile crania like WLH3 were actually geologically much older than any robust remains recovered from various localities [15, 53].

The origin of Aboriginal Australians has been a central question of palaeoanthropology since its inception during the 19th Century. ). All robust Australians (e.g., Cohuna, KS1, WLH50) exhibit narrow and long crania (Figures 2 and 7) [2, 8–14, 16–18, 41–43, 46–52, 64, 72, 151].

Thus, the cranial base can be thought of as the “skull’s central integrator” [122, 123]. Finally, this approach is applied to some characters used to support the Ngandong ancestry model for Aboriginal Australians. There is, however, considerable evidence that the face and neurocranium are characterised by both integration between regions and considerable modularity, or region-specific integration [77, 80–83, 85, 87, 115, 120–123]. This article covers the history of Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, two broadly defined groups which each include other sub-groups defined by language and culture..

As Enlow has shown [77, 91, 115, 161], the external surface of a bone is frequently shifted from an endosteal position. In 1788, at the beginning of permanent white settlement in Australia, there were at least 200 mutually unintelligible indigenous Australian languages. Instead, they saw Aboriginal Australians as representatives of the most “primitive type” of living H. sapiens and had in mind a global evolutionary sequence in which “Solo Man” (Ngandong) and “Rhodesian Man” (Kabwe) were examples of “proto-Australians,” belonging together to living humans in H. sapiens [29]. In vivo studies [188] found that strain (tension or compression) along sutures was not the result of torsion but rather the localised effects of masticatory actions. Also, Dubois [28, 29] thought that the Wadjak remains he recovered from Indonesia were “Australoid” although they now seem to be terminal Pleistocene in age and are probably not related to Aboriginal Australians [32].

[182] did find statistically significant moderate correlations between a sagittal keel and bregmatic eminence, both features are associated with cranial vault sutures.

Fred Spoor is thanked for providing CT-scans of the Sangiran crania. This supports the findings of Lahr and Wright [156] and, more broadly, the results of Mitteroecker and Bookstein [106]. While there is clearly a strong message in this research for palaeoanthropology in general, its implications for studies of Australian Aboriginal robusticity are particularly acute.

Moreover, the idea that Australians could trace their ancestry to a non-modern Pleistocene population such as Homo erectus in Southeast Asia have existed for more than 100 years, being explicitly linked to cranial robusticity. For example, the shapes of the neurocranium and nose have long been linked to climatic adaptation [93–100] and facial form to diet or masticatory practices (see [101–104]: see below for a more detailed discussion of this idea).

We are committed to sharing findings related to COVID-19 as quickly as possible. Moreover, they seem to have been important influences on the form of this calvaria and other Australian remains. CT-scans of Florisbad and Holocene San remains were undertaken in 2008 at the Bloemfontein MediClinic; thanks to Leanne Carver, other radiographers, and the nursing staff at Drs Van Dyk and Partners.

Moreover, there is sharp disagreement about the possible alternative causes of this variation and its significance to a global understanding of the evolutionary history of modern Homo sapiens [1, 2, 11, 12, 17, 18].

In particular, it was proposed that Pithecanthropus (Homo erectus) or the late-surviving Ngandong population of this species (sometimes referred to H. soloensis [14]) played a role in their origins.