Constructing cranial ontogenetic trajectories: A comparison of growth, development, and chronological age proxies using a known-age sample of Macaca mulatta.

Recent morphometric research has generated opposing conclusions regarding the ontogenetic trajectories of catarrhine crania, possibly due to the ontogenetic proxies used to calculate them. Therefore, we used three surrogates: size, molar eruption, and chronological age to generate trajectories in a known-age sample to produce ontogenetic trajectories and determine the similarities and differences between them. Forty-three landmarks from an ontogenetic series of 160 Macaca mulatta crania, with associated ages at death, were used to produce ontogenetic trajectories of cranial shape change. These were computed by sex through multivariate regression of Procrustes aligned coordinates against three surrogates for ontogeny: natural log of centroid size (growth), molar eruption stage (development), and chronological age. These trajectories were compared by calculating the angles between them. Each trajectory was also used to produce simulated adults from juveniles, which were then compared with each other and actual adults. The different trajectories are nearly parallel as each of the surrogates track similar aspects of ontogenetic cranial shape change, but chronological age was the most divergent. Simulated adults produced using the developmental stage trajectories were most similar to actual adults. When simulated adults were produced from opposite sex trajectories, they resembled the sex from which the trajectory was produced, not the sex of the juvenile specimen. We discuss properties of the trajectories produced from each of the surrogates, the possible reasons for previously opposing conclusions, how these properties can inform future investigations, and how our investigation bears on analyses of heterochrony.