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Dental development in Homo naledi
Zachary Cofran1,2, Christopher S Walker3,4,2
1Anthropology Department, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA zcofran@vassar.edu.
Biology Letters
|September 1, 2017
Summary
The study of Homo naledi
Area of Science:
- Paleoanthropology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Primate Dental Development
Background:
- Human life history and prolonged somatic development are unique among primates, with unclear evolutionary origins.
- Dental development serves as a proxy for reconstructing life history evolution in hominins, suggesting a recent human developmental pattern.
- Homo naledi, a mosaic hominin species, offers insights into primate evolution due to its unique morphology and late survival.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze tooth formation and eruption patterns in Homo naledi.
- To compare Homo naledi's dental development with human and chimpanzee patterns.
- To investigate the implications of Homo naledi's dental development for understanding hominin life history evolution.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of deciduous and permanent tooth formation and eruption sequences in two Homo naledi specimens.
- Comparative analysis of dental development patterns between Homo naledi, modern humans, and chimpanzees.
- Integration of dental development data with Homo naledi's geological age and brain size.
Main Results:
- Deciduous dental development in Homo naledi shows more similarity to humans than chimpanzees, likely reflecting ancestral traits.
- Permanent tooth development in Homo naledi exhibits a mosaic pattern, with some human-like and some chimpanzee-like features.
- The M2 tooth eruption in Homo naledi occurs late, a pattern observed in modern humans and associated with slow life history, which is unexpected for a small-brained hominin.
Conclusions:
- Homo naledi's dental development presents a complex picture, challenging simple correlations between brain size, life history, and dental development.
- The late M2 eruption in Homo naledi suggests a potentially slow life history, raising questions about its evolutionary significance in small-brained hominins.
- The findings highlight the intricate relationship between dental development, life history, and evolutionary pathways within the hominin clade.
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