Ecomorphology in Kenya's Koobi Fora Formation: Reconstructing Early Pleistocene hominin paleoenvironments with 3D geometric morphometric analyses of bovid metapodials.

This research presents a new method of ecological morphology (ecomorphology) analysis using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to quantify shape variation in extant bovid metapodials with known habitat preferences. Extant data were used to create a model for classifying bones into distinct habitat categories and to test functional hypotheses related to locomotor behavior in different habitats. The model was then applied to fossils from the Koobi Fora Formation, Kenya, to assess the environmental context during important events in hominin evolution.

The large mammal fossil fauna of the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa: a review.

South Africa's Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site has remained the single richest source of hominin fossils for over ninety years. While its hominin specimens have been the subject of extensive research, the same is not true for its abundant faunal assemblages, despite their value in Plio-Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Moreover, precise ages and depositional histories have been historically difficult to assess, though advancements in both relative and absolute dating techniques are changing this.

Gradual exacerbation of obstetric constraints during hominoid evolution implied by re-evaluation of cephalopelvic fit in chimpanzees.

Under the obstetrical dilemma hypothesis, sexual dimorphism in pelvic shape is a solution to accommodate high fetopelvic constraints. It is therefore unclear why chimpanzees display a human-like pattern of pelvic sexual dimorphism despite having easier births enabled by small neonates and capacious pelvic canals. Here we reassessed chimpanzee fetopelvic fit using three-dimensional simulations, revealing a similarly constricted midpelvis as in humans, with even narrower outlet dimensions.

Obstetrical Constraints and the Origin of Extended Postnatal Brain Maturation in Hominin Evolution.

The origin of difficult birth is still a matter of debate in obstetrics. Recent studies hypothesized that early hominins already experienced obstructed labor even with reduced neonatal head sizes. The aim of this work is to test this hypothesis using an extant obstetrical sample with known delivery outcomes.

The influence of lumbosacral transitional vertebrae on lumbar lordosis and the angle of pelvic incidence.

Pelvic incidence and lumbar lordosis have only normative values for spines comprising five lumbar and five sacral vertebrae. However, it is unclear how pelvic incidence and lumbar lordosis are affected by the common segmentation anomalies at the lumbo-sacral border leading to lumbosacral transitional vertebrae, including lumbarisations and sacralisations. In lumbosacral transitional vertebrae it is not trivial to identify the correct vertebral endplates to measure pelvic incidence and lumbar lordosis because ontogenetically the first sacral vertebra represents the first non-mobile sacral segment in lumbarisations, but the second segment in sacralisations.