Regular ArticleHip bone trabecular architecture shows uniquely distinctive locomotor behaviour in South African australopithecines
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Challenges and perspectives on functional interpretations of australopith postcrania and the reconstruction of hominin locomotion
2023, Journal of Human EvolutionCitation Excerpt :africanus. Indeed, many studies have grouped gracile and robust australopiths together because the functional signals are similar, including in the ilium (Macchiarelli et al., 1999, 2001), femoral head (Ryan et al., 2018), femoral neck (Ruff and Higgins, 2013; Ruff et al., 2016), and first metacarpal (Skinner et al., 2015). Functional interpretations from P. robustus lower limb cortical and trabecular structure confirm habitual, terrestrial bipedal locomotion but with a slightly different gait compared with modern humans (Macchiarelli et al., 1999, 2001; Bleuze, 2010; Ruff and Higgins, 2013; Ruff et al., 2016), including a more limited range of habitual hip joint postures (Ryan et al., 2018) and increased mechanical loading of the proximal femoral diaphysis (Ruff et al., 1999).
Trabecular organization of the proximal femur in Paranthropus robustus: Implications for the assessment of its hip joint loading conditions
2021, Journal of Human EvolutionCitation Excerpt :Accordingly, the quantitative assessment of how internal bone structure of the proximal femur varies can be used to infer locomotion-related functional demands in extinct taxa. The reconstruction of the positional and locomotor repertoires of the australopiths (the term used here to refer to the taxa Australopithecus and Paranthropus) has progressively integrated information from the mechanosensitive internal structure of the hip joint to the classical studies on the outer skeletal morphology (e.g., Lovejoy, 1988, 2005; Ohman, 1993; Ohman et al., 1997; Macchiarelli et al., 1999, 2001; Ruff et al., 1999, 2016, 2020; Lovejoy et al., 2002; Volpato, 2007; Ruff and Higgins, 2013; Claxton, 2018; Ryan et al., 2018; Cazenave et al., 2019a; Georgiou et al., 2020). Compared to the condition displayed by the extant great apes, australopiths show an absolutely thinner superior cortex of the femoral neck relative to the inferior cortex.
Cortical bone distribution in the femoral neck of Paranthropus robustus
2019, Journal of Human EvolutionA partial Homo pelvis from the Early Pleistocene of Eritrea
2018, Journal of Human Evolution