Respiratory Adaptation to Climate in Upper Palaeolithic Modern Humans: The Case of Sungir and Mladeč.
When our human ancestors migrated out of Africa, they faced a considerably harsher climate, but the extent to which human cranial morphology has adapted to climate is still debated. In particular, it remains unclear when such facial adaptations arose in human populations. Here, we explore climate-associated features of face shape in a worldwide modern human sample using 3D geometric morphometrics and a novel application of reduced rank regression. Based on these data, we assess climate adaptations in two crucial Upper Palaeolithic human fossils, Sungir and Mladeč, both of which have been archaeologically associated with a boreal-to-temperate climate. We found several aspects of face shape, especially the relative dimensions of the external and internal nose as well as of the maxillary sinuses, that are strongly associated with temperature and humidity, even after accounting for auto-correlation due to geographical proximity of populations. For these features, both fossils revealed adaptations to a dry environment, with Sungir being strongly associated with cold and Mladeč with warm-to-hot temperatures. As both fossils are dated among the earliest recent modern humans in Europe, our results suggest a relatively fast rate of climate adaptation in human respiratory morphology.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. However, the manuscript can be downloaded and accessed as a PDF.
This is a list of supplementary files associated with this preprint. Click to download.
Posted 07 Jan, 2021
On 19 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
Invitations sent on 29 Jan, 2021
On 12 Jan, 2021
On 04 Jan, 2021
On 04 Jan, 2021
On 21 Dec, 2020
Respiratory Adaptation to Climate in Upper Palaeolithic Modern Humans: The Case of Sungir and Mladeč.
Posted 07 Jan, 2021
On 19 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
Received 02 Feb, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
On 31 Jan, 2021
Invitations sent on 29 Jan, 2021
On 12 Jan, 2021
On 04 Jan, 2021
On 04 Jan, 2021
On 21 Dec, 2020
When our human ancestors migrated out of Africa, they faced a considerably harsher climate, but the extent to which human cranial morphology has adapted to climate is still debated. In particular, it remains unclear when such facial adaptations arose in human populations. Here, we explore climate-associated features of face shape in a worldwide modern human sample using 3D geometric morphometrics and a novel application of reduced rank regression. Based on these data, we assess climate adaptations in two crucial Upper Palaeolithic human fossils, Sungir and Mladeč, both of which have been archaeologically associated with a boreal-to-temperate climate. We found several aspects of face shape, especially the relative dimensions of the external and internal nose as well as of the maxillary sinuses, that are strongly associated with temperature and humidity, even after accounting for auto-correlation due to geographical proximity of populations. For these features, both fossils revealed adaptations to a dry environment, with Sungir being strongly associated with cold and Mladeč with warm-to-hot temperatures. As both fossils are dated among the earliest recent modern humans in Europe, our results suggest a relatively fast rate of climate adaptation in human respiratory morphology.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. However, the manuscript can be downloaded and accessed as a PDF.