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

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Don Reid

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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, whereas root development is accelerated relative to modern humans but is less than living apes and some fossil hominins. The juvenile from Jebel Irhoud is currently the oldest-known member of Homo with a developmental pattern (degree of eruption, developmental stage, and crown formation time) that is more similar to modern H. sapiens than to earlier members of Homo. This study also underscores the continuing importance of North Africa for understanding the origins of human anatomical and behavioral modernity. Corresponding biological and cultural changes may have appeared relatively late in the course of human evolution. © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Smith TM, Tafforeau P, Reid DJ, Grun R, Eggins S, Boutakiout M, Hublin J-J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Year: 2007

Volume: 104

Issue: 15

Pages: 6128-6133

Print publication date: 10/04/2007

ISSN (print): 0027-8424

ISSN (electronic): 1091-6490

Publisher: National Academy of Sciences

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0700747104

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0700747104

PubMed id: 17372199

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