Earliest evidence of modern human life history in North African early Homo sapiens.

ABSTRACT: Recent developmental studies demonstrate that early fossil hominins possessed shorter growth periods than living humans, implying disparate life histories. Analyses of incremental features in teeth provide an accurate means of assessing the age at death of developing dentitions, facilitating direct comparisons with fossil and modern humans. It is currently unknown when and where the prolonged modern human developmental condition originated. Here, an application of x-ray synchrotron microtomography reveals that an early Homo sapiens juvenile from Morocco dated at 160,000 years before present displays an equivalent degree of tooth development to modern European children at the same age. Crown formation times in the juvenile's macrodont dentition are higher than modern human mean values, wher

SUBMITTER: Smith TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1828706 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature