Earliest evidence of modern human life history in North African early Homo sapiens.

Full Abstract

Recent developmental studies demonstrate that early fossil hominins possessed shorter growth periods than living humans, implying disparate life histories. Analyses of incremental features in teeth provide an accurate means of assessing the age at death of developing dentitions, facilitating direct comparisons with fossil and modern humans. It is currently unknown when and where the prolonged modern human developmental condition originated. Here, an application of x-ray synchrotron microtomography reveals that an early Homo sapiens juvenile from Morocco dated at 160,000 years before present displays an equivalent degree of tooth development to modern European children at the same age. Crown formation times in the juvenile's macrodont dentition are higher than modern human mean values, whereas root development is accelerated relative to modern humans but is less than living apes and some fossil hominins. The juvenile from Jebel Irhoud is currently the oldest-known member of Homo with a developmental pattern (degree of eruption, developmental stage, and crown formation time) that is more similar to modern H. sapiens than to earlier members of Homo. This study also underscores the continuing importance of North Africa for understanding the origins of human anatomical and behavioral modernity. Corresponding biological and cultural changes may have appeared relatively late in the course of human evolution.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Smith, Tanya M (TM); Tafforeau, Paul (P); Reid, Donald J (DJ); Grün, Rainer (R); Eggins, Stephen (S); Boutakiout, Mohamed (M); Hublin, Jean-Jacques (JJ);

Affiliation: Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany. tsmith(-atsign-)eva.mpg.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Apr; vol 104 (issue 15) : pp 6128-33

Dates: Created 2007/04/11; Completed 2007/10/17; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 17372199, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Apr 10;104(15):6093-4. (PMID: 17404213)

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Paleodontology - methods; statistics & numerical data
Synchrotrons
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
Tooth - growth & development; ultrastructure
Tooth Eruption - physiology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.