Provider: Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic TY - JOUR JO - Anthropologie (Brno) TI - Orientation of the Foramen Magnum in Late Miocene to Extant African Apes and Hominids AU - Pickford M Y1 - 2005 VL - 43 IS - 2-3 PB - Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic SN - 0323-1119 SP - 103 EP - 110 KW - Hominoids KW - Foramen magnum plane (FM) KW - Orbital plane (OP) KW - FM-OP angle KW - Occlusal plane KW - Miocene to recent KW - Bipedal posture N2 - N2 - The postcranial skeleton of the Late Miocene hominoid Sahelanthropus tchadensis is unknown; because of this the possibility of bipedal posture and locomotion has been based on cranial features, an interpretation that has not been accepted by all paleoanthropologists. Part of the evidence includes the orientation of the foramen magnum relative to the orbital plane (FM-OP angle), an acute angle being said to characterise more pronograde postures such as that of the chimpanzee, and more obtuse angles to characterise orthograde humans, australopithecines and Sahelanthropus. This paper examines the soundness of the FM-OP evidence used to infer the likelihood of bipedal posture in Sahelanthropus. ER -