Dental evidence for extended growth in early Homo from Dmanisi.

ABSTRACT: Human life history is characterized by an extended period of immaturity during which there is a disjunction between cerebral and somatic growth rates¹. This mode of ontogeny is thought to be essential for the acquisition of advanced cognitive capabilities in a socially complex environment while the brain is still growing². Key information about when and how this pattern evolved can be gleaned from the teeth of fossil hominins because dental development informs about the pace of life history^3-5. Here we show that the first evolutionary steps towards an extended growth phase occurred in the genus Homo at least 1.77 million years ago, before any substantial increase in brain size. We used synchrotron phase-contrast tomography⁶ to track the microstru

SUBMITTER: Zollikofer CPE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11602720 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature