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Earliest evidence of modern human life history in North African early Homo sapiens
Open accessAbstract
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.
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“Data on dental eruption point to coevolution between brain expansion and maturational delay (45,46), with a fully modern pattern of delayed physical growth not emerging until the origin of anatomically modern humans (47,48).”
From Metabolic costs and evolutionary implications of human brain development (2014) · cites this paper as [47]
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“the teeth of Irhoud 3 were subjected to synchrotron analysis which suggested an age at death of about 8 years, and a modern developmental pattern [42].”
From The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens (2016) · cites this paper as [42]
In the citing paper
“Compared with early Homo specimens at a comparable stage of dental development, El Sidrón J1 is at least 2.7 years older than a ~2 myr Homo habilis specimen, StW 151, (19)(20)(21)(22) but almost identical in age (7.78 years) to a 315 kyr Homo sapiens specimen from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco (23), that shows a prolonged modern humanlike period of dental developmental (24).”
From The growth pattern of Neandertals, reconstructed from a juvenile skeleton from El Sidrón (Spain) (2017) · cites this paper as [24]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Smith, T. M., Tafforeau, P., Reid, D. J., Grün, R., Eggins, S., Boutakiout, M., & Hublin, J.-J.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Newcastle University (GB)
- Australian National University (AU)
- Mohammed V University (MA)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2007-04-10
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 6128-6133
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC1828706
- OpenAlex
- W2064646022
- Cited by
- 316
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 39
- FWCI
- 124.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Newcastle University ePrints (Newcastle Univesity)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- human, life history, tooth development, root development, modern human origins, human evolution, North Africa, synchrotron microtomography
- MeSH terms
- Age Determination by Teeth, Age Factors, Fossils, Humans, Morocco, Paleodontology, Tomography, X-Ray Computed, Tooth, Tooth Eruption, Synchrotrons
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