Postcranial morphology of the middle Pleistocene humans from Sima de los Huesos, Spain

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Publication Date

9-15-2015

Publication Title

PNAS

Volume Number

112

Issue Number

37

Abstract

Significance The middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos (SH) fossil collection provides the rare opportunity to thoroughly characterize the postcranial skeleton in a fossil population, comparable only to that obtained in the study of the Neandertal hypodigm and recent (and fossil) modern humans. The SH paleodeme can be characterized as relatively tall, wide, and muscular individuals, who are less encephalized than both Neandertals and modern humans. Some (but not all) Neandertal derived traits are present, which phylogenetically links this population with Neandertals. Thus, the full suite of Neandertal features did not arise all at once, and the evolution of the postcranial skeleton could be characterized as following a mosaic pattern.

Document Type

Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514828112

Language

English

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