Palatal thickening and facial form in Paranthropus: examination of alternative developmental models

Paranthropus is distinctive among hominoids in its possession of a greatly thickened hard palate. Although traditionally considered a structural adaptation to counter high-magnitude masticatory stress, alternative developmental models are equally viable. Three models of palatal thickening were evaluated in this study. A mechanical model interprets palatal thickening as a compensatory response to increased instability of the midpalatal suture effected by an anterior placement of the masseteric muscle mass. This model predicts that palatal thickness is correlated with the length of the palate posterior to the masseteric tubercle. Two non-mechanical models consider the thickness of the hard palate to be structurally related to and therefore correlated with either 1) the degree to which the premaxilla overlaps the hard palate in the subnasal region or 2) the height of the posterior facial skeleton. The correlation of craniofacial variables was assessed intraspecifically in ontogenetic series of great ape and human crania. Tests of correlation were performed for each comparison using both residuals calculated from reduced major axis regression of the variable of interest against a measure of cranial size and shape ratios. A significant correlation of palatal thickness with posterior facial height in Pan suggests that the unusually thick hard palate of Paranthropus is directly related to the increased posterior facial height characteristic of this taxon. Further evaluation suggests that extreme palatal thickening in these specimens occurred by virtue of their possession of a nasal septum morphology in which the vomer extends onto the superior and nasal surface of the premaxilla. Such a morphology would have constrained the palatal nasal lamina to maintain the approximate level of the premaxillary nasal lamina throughout the growth process thereby promoting palatal thickening.