New Estimates of Femoral Lenght in Early Hominids - Vancata - 1994

Femora and tibiae of 54 early hominids (14 A. afarensis, 13 A. africanus, 3 A. robustus, 14 A. boisei, 10 Homo habilis) and 17 Homo erectus/early Homo sapiens individuals were studied with a goal of the reconstruction of the femoral length of the given individuum. Most of the fossil specimens were studied on casts in Musée de l'Homme, Paris, National Museum, Praha and Anthropos Institute, Brno, rest of them on photographs from original descriptive studies. Original measurements were preferred if possible. Two independent sources of data were used for each case when possible. The length of femur was either reconstructed or estimated by regression methods or both methods were used to ensure the reconstructed values in fossil specimens. Length of femur was estimated by 14 stepwise multiple regression and 4 linear regression models, both L. S. and M. A. (hominoid and hominid models). BMDP 386 and SOLO 4.0 were used for computing the regression models. Our results are basically similar to those published recently by McHenry. The reconstructions based on multiple and head regression of australopithecines gave usually slightly lower values in comparison to head regression published by McHenry. It has probably been caused by different samples for computing of regression equations. A relatively comprehensive sample of femora of Plio-Pleistocene hominids with relatively precisely predicted femoral length seems to represent a basic pattern of early hominid variability. Our new reconstruction of 30 femoral lengths indicates some decreasing of femoral length in Australopithecines on the one hand, and a marked elongation of femur in genus Homo on the other hand.

Keywords

Early hominids - Australopithecus - Homo - Femoral lenght - Comparative reconstruction - Regression estimates

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