Academic literature on the topic 'Hominin representations'
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Journal articles on the topic "Hominin representations"
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Hashimoto, Teruo, Kenichi Ueno, Akitoshi Ogawa, Takeshi Asamizuya, Chisato Suzuki, Kang Cheng, Michio Tanaka, et al. "Hand before foot? Cortical somatotopy suggests manual dexterity is primitive and evolved independently of bipedalism." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 368, no. 1630 (November 19, 2013): 20120417. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0417.
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People have long speculated whether the evolution of bipedalism in early hominins triggered tool use (by freeing their hands) or whether the necessity of making and using tools encouraged the shift to upright gait. Either way, it is commonly thought that one led to the other. In this study, we sought to shed new light on the origins of manual dexterity and bipedalism by mapping the neural representations in the brain of the fingers and toes of living people and monkeys. Contrary to the ‘hand-in-glove’ notion outlined above, our results suggest that adaptations underlying tool use evolved independently of those required for human bipedality. In both humans and monkeys, we found that each finger was represented separately in the primary sensorimotor cortex just as they are physically separated in the hand. This reflects the ability to use each digit independently, as required for the complex manipulation involved in tool use. The neural mapping of the subjects’ toes differed, however. In the monkeys, the somatotopic representation of the toes was fused, showing that the digits function predominantly as a unit in general grasping. Humans, by contrast, had an independent neurological representation of the big toe (hallux), suggesting association with bipedal locomotion. These observations suggest that the brain circuits for the hand had advanced beyond simple grasping, whereas our primate ancestors were still general arboreal quadrupeds. This early adaptation laid the foundation for the evolution of manual dexterity, which was preserved and enhanced in hominins. In hominins, a separate adaptation, involving the neural separation of the big toe, apparently occurred with bipedality. This accords with the known fossil evidence, including the recently reported hominin fossils which have been dated to 4.4 million years ago.
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Gärdenfors, Peter. "Causal Reasoning and Event Cognition as Evolutionary Determinants of Language Structure." Entropy 23, no. 7 (June 30, 2021): 843. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e23070843.
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The aim of this article is to provide an evolutionarily grounded explanation of central aspects of the structure of language. It begins with an account of the evolution of human causal reasoning. A comparison between humans and non-human primates suggests that human causal cognition is based on reasoning about the underlying forces that are involved in events, while other primates hardly understand external forces. This is illustrated by an analysis of the causal cognition required for early hominin tool use. Second, the thinking concerning forces in causation is used to motivate a model of human event cognition. A mental representation of an event contains two vectors representing a cause as well as a result but also entities such as agents, patients, instruments and locations. The fundamental connection between event representations and language is that declarative sentences express events (or states). The event structure also explains why sentences are constituted of noun phrases and verb phrases. Finally, the components of the event representation show up in language, where causes and effects are expressed by verbs, agents and patients by nouns (modified by adjectives), locations by prepositions, etc. Thus, the evolution of the complexity of mental event representations also provides insight into the evolution of the structure of language.
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Hendershott, Rebecca. "Didactic and artistic representations of prehistoric hominins: Who were we? Who are we now?" Journal of Science & Popular Culture 3, no. 2 (October 1, 2020): 153–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jspc_00018_1.
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The image of the prehistoric hominin is well known: brutish and hairy, the men hunt with impressive weapons, while women tend to children or kneel over a hide. In this article I consider didactic illustrations and re-creations of human relatives in the context of science and art. I argue that these images are laden with symbolic sociopolitical meanings and are heavily biased by not only the newest scientific findings but also ideas about gender roles and civilization/civility in popular culture. Artistic representation in educational materials tends to reflect popular conceptions of ancestral life, more than data-dependent interpretations. For example, there is a bias against artistic depictions of women, children or the elderly and activities typically associated with them. Men and male activities – particularly hunting – are overrepresented. Hairy bodies, stooped posture, acute facial angles, savagery and a lack of material culture function as a symbol of incivility or animality. They are used to code an individual as being sufficiently inhuman to create a comfortable separation between viewer and ‘caveman’, which ultimately reflects our ambiguous relationship to human evolution.
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Adams, Justin W. "Fossil mammals from the Gondolin Dump A ex situ hominin deposits, South Africa." PeerJ 6 (August 6, 2018): e5393. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5393.
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The Gondolin palaeokarstic system, located in the UNESCO Fossil Hominids of South Africa World Heritage Site, has been sporadically excavated since the 1970s. Sampling of ex situ dumpsites in 1997 recovered the only two fossil hominin specimens recovered thus far from Gondolin. While one partial mandibular molar (GA 1) remains unattributed, the complete mandibular second molar (GA 2) represents the largest Paranthropus robustus Broom, 1938 tooth identified to date. While subsequent excavations and research at Gondolin has clarified the geological, temporal, taphonomic, and palaeoecologic context for the in situ deposits, this paper presents the first comprehensive description of the fossil assemblage ‘associated’ with the two ex situ hominins. Analysis of 42 calcified sediment blocks and naturally decalcified sediments excavated from three cubic metres of the Dump A deposits reinforce that the dump contains a heterogeneous aggregation of materials from across the Gondolin sedimentary deposits. A total of 15,250 individual fossil specimens were processed (via sifting or acetic-acid mediated processing of calcified sediment blocks), yielding a faunal record that largely mirrors that described from either (or both) the GD 1 and GD 2 in situ assemblages but includes representatives of four novel mammal groups (Families Cercopithecidae, Felidae, Herpestidae, Giraffidae) not recorded in either in situ sample. While basic assemblage characteristics including primary taphonomic data is presented, analysis and interpretation is limited by the ex situ origin of the sample. Ultimately, these results reinforce that the substantial mining-mediated obliteration of palaeokarstic deposits at Gondolin continue to obscure a clear association between the Gondolin Dump A hominins and any of the sampled and dated in situ deposits.
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Pruetz, J. D., P. Bertolani, K. Boyer Ontl, S. Lindshield, M. Shelley, and E. G. Wessling. "New evidence on the tool-assisted hunting exhibited by chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) in a savannah habitat at Fongoli, Sénégal." Royal Society Open Science 2, no. 4 (April 2015): 140507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.140507.
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For anthropologists, meat eating by primates like chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) warrants examination given the emphasis on hunting in human evolutionary history. As referential models, apes provide insight into the evolution of hominin hunting, given their phylogenetic relatedness and challenges reconstructing extinct hominin behaviour from palaeoanthropological evidence. Among chimpanzees, adult males are usually the main hunters, capturing vertebrate prey by hand. Savannah chimpanzees ( P. t. verus ) at Fongoli, Sénégal are the only known non-human population that systematically hunts vertebrate prey with tools, making them an important source for hypotheses of early hominin behaviour based on analogy. Here, we test the hypothesis that sex and age patterns in tool-assisted hunting ( n =308 cases) at Fongoli occur and differ from chimpanzees elsewhere, and we compare tool-assisted hunting to the overall hunting pattern. Males accounted for 70% of all captures but hunted with tools less than expected based on their representation on hunting days. Females accounted for most tool-assisted hunting. We propose that social tolerance at Fongoli, along with the tool-assisted hunting method, permits individuals other than adult males to capture and retain control of prey, which is uncommon for chimpanzees. We assert that tool-assisted hunting could have similarly been important for early hominins.
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Leece, AB, Anthony D. T. Kegley, Rodrigo S. Lacruz, Andy I. R. Herries, Jason Hemingway, Lazarus Kgasi, Stephany Potze, and Justin W. Adams. "The first hominin from the early Pleistocene paleocave of Haasgat, South Africa." PeerJ 4 (May 11, 2016): e2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2024.
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Haasgat is a primate-rich fossil locality in the northeastern part of the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we report the first hominin identified from Haasgat, a partial maxillary molar (HGT 500), that was recovered from anex situcalcified sediment block sampled from the locality. Thein situfossil bearing deposits of the Haasgat paleokarstic deposits are estimated to date to slightly older than 1.95 Ma based on magnetobiostratigraphy. This places the hominin specimen at a critical time period in South Africa that marks the last occurrence ofAustralopithecusaround 1.98 Ma and the first evidence ofParanthropusandHomoin the region between ∼2.0 and 1.8 Ma. A comprehensive morphological evaluation of the Haasgat hominin molar was conducted against the current South African catalogue of hominin dental remains and imaging analyses using micro-CT, electron and confocal microscopy. The preserved occlusal morphology is most similar toAustralopithecus africanusor earlyHomospecimens but different fromParanthropus. Occlusal linear enamel thickness measured from micro-CT scans provides an average of ∼2.0 mm consistent withAustralopithecusand earlyHomo. Analysis of the enamel microstructure suggests an estimated periodicity of 7–9 days. Hunter–Schreger bands appear long and straight as in someParanthropus, but contrast with this genus in the short shape of the striae of Retzius. Taken together, these data suggests that the maxillary fragment recovered from Haasgat best fits within theAustralopithecus—earlyHomohypodigms to the exclusion of the genusParanthropus. At ∼1.95 Ma this specimen would either represent another example of late occurringAustralopithecusor one of the earliest examples ofHomoin the region. While the identification of this first hominin specimen from Haasgat is not unexpected given the composition of other South African penecontemporaneous site deposits, it represents one of the few hominin localities in the topographically-distinct northern World Heritage Site. When coupled with the substantial differences in the mammalian faunal communities between the northern localities (e.g., Haasgat, Gondolin) and well-sampled Bloubank Valley sites (e.g., Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai), the recovery of the HGT 500 specimen highlights the potential for further research at the Haasgat locality for understanding the distribution and interactions of hominin populations across the landscape, ecosystems and fossil mammalian communities of early Pleistocene South Africa. Such contextual data from sites like Haasgat is critical for understanding the transition in hominin representation at ∼2 Ma sites in the region fromAustralopithecustoParanthropusand earlyHomo.
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Egeland, Charles P., Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Travis Rayne Pickering, Colin G. Menter, and Jason L. Heaton. "Hominin skeletal part abundances and claims of deliberate disposal of corpses in the Middle Pleistocene." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 18 (April 2, 2018): 4601–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718678115.
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Humans are set apart from other organisms by the realization of their own mortality. Thus, determining the prehistoric emergence of this capacity is of significant interest to understanding the uniqueness of the human animal. Tracing that capacity chronologically is possible through archaeological investigations that focus on physical markers that reflect “mortality salience.” Among these markers is the deliberate and culturally mediated disposal of corpses. Some Neandertal bone assemblages are among the earliest reasonable claims for the deliberate disposal of hominins, but even these are vigorously debated. More dramatic assertions center on the Middle Pleistocene sites of Sima de los Huesos (SH, Spain) and the Dinaledi Chamber (DC, South Africa), where the remains of multiple hominin individuals were found in deep caves, and under reported taphonomic circumstances that seem to discount the possibility that nonhominin actors and processes contributed to their formation. These claims, with significant implications for charting the evolution of the “human condition,” deserve scrutiny. We test these assertions through machine-learning analyses of hominin skeletal part representation in the SH and DC assemblages. Our results indicate that nonanthropogenic agents and abiotic processes cannot yet be ruled out as significant contributors to the ultimate condition of both collections. This finding does not falsify hypotheses of deliberate disposal for the SH and DC corpses, but does indicate that the data also support partially or completely nonanthropogenic formational histories.
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Wilkins, Wendy K., and Jennie Wakefield. "Brains evolution and neurolinguistic preconditions." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18, no. 1 (March 1995): 161–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00037924.
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AbstractThis target article presents a plausible evolutionary scenario for the emergence of the neural preconditions for language in the hominid lineage. In pleistocene primate lineages there was a paired evolutionary expansion of frontal and parietal neocortex (through certain well-documented adaptive changes associated with manipulative behaviors) resulting, in ancestral hominids, in an incipient Broca's region and in a configurationally unique junction of the parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes of the brain (the POT). On our view, the development of the POT in our ancestors resulted in the neuroanatomical substrate consistent with the ability for representations in modality-neutral association cortex and, as a result of structure-imposing interaction with Broca's area, the hierarchically structured “conceptual structure.” Evidence from paleoneurology and comparative primate neuroanatomy is used to argue that Homo habilis (2.5–2 million years ago) was the first hominid to have the appropriate gross neuroanatomical configuration to support conceptual structure. We thus suggest that the neural preconditions for language are met in H. habilis. Finally, we advocate a theory of language acquisition that uses conceptual structure as input to the learning procedures, thus bridging the gap between it and language.
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Steele, James, Pier Francesco Ferrari, and Leonardo Fogassi. "From action to language: comparative perspectives on primate tool use, gesture and the evolution of human language." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367, no. 1585 (January 12, 2012): 4–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0295.
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The papers in this Special Issue examine tool use and manual gestures in primates as a window on the evolution of the human capacity for language. Neurophysiological research has supported the hypothesis of a close association between some aspects of human action organization and of language representation, in both phonology and semantics. Tool use provides an excellent experimental context to investigate analogies between action organization and linguistic syntax. Contributors report and contextualize experimental evidence from monkeys, great apes, humans and fossil hominins, and consider the nature and the extent of overlaps between the neural representations of tool use, manual gestures and linguistic processes.
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Falk, Dean. "Brain evolution in Homo: The “radiator” theory." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13, no. 2 (June 1990): 333–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00078973.
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AbstractThe “radiator” theory of brain evolution is proposed to account for “mosaic evolution” whereby brain size began to increase rapidly in the genus Homo well over a million years after bipedalism had been selected for in early hominids. Because hydrostatic pressures differ across columns of fluid depending on orientation (posture), vascular systems of early bipeds became reoriented so that cranial blood flowed preferentially to the vertebral plexus instead of the internal jugular vein in response to gravity. The Hadar early hominids and robust australopithecines partly achieved this reorientation with a dramatically enlarged occipital/marginal sinus system. On the other hand, hominids in the gracile australopithecine through Homo lineage delivered blood to the vertebral plexus via a widespread network of veins that became more elaborate through time. Mastoid and parietal emissary veins are representatives of this network, and increases in their frequencies during hominid evolution are indicative of its development. Brain size increased with increased frequencies of mastoid and parietal emissary veins in the lineage leading to and including Homo, but remained conservative in the robust australopithecine lineage that lacked the network of veins. The brain is an extremely heatsensitive organ and emissary veins in humans have been shown to cool the brain under conditions of hyperthermia. Thus, the network of veins in the lineage leading to Homo acted as a radiator that released a thermal constraint on brain size. The radiator theory is in keeping with the belief that basal gracile and basal robust australopithecines occupied distinct niches, with the former living in savanna mosaic habitats that were subject to hot temperatures and intense solar radiation during the day.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Hominin representations"
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Anderson, Kari. "Hominin representations in museum displays : their role in forming public understanding through the non-verbal communication of science." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/75753.
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Key points:
71 institutions visited.
860 hominin representations assessed.
Earlier hominins are treated differently from H. sapiens and often convey inaccurate scientific information.
Hominin representations in museums and other displays have been used for well over a century to illustrate the people of the past. The popularity of archaeological and forensic facial reconstructions in the media ensures that they will be popular for some time to come. The aim of this work is to ascertain how hominin representations displayed in museums convey to the public interpretations of human evolution, variation and behaviour. These representations are a unique form of museum material culture as they are used as both part of the display and as an artefact that displays scientific knowledge from its era of manufacture. Various institutions (71) in 10 European countries and Australia were visited. Out of those, 55 hold altogether 860 life–sized and three–dimensional hominin representations. Ten representation types were identified: facial reconstructions (n=100), facial reconstructions on a body (n=92), casts (n=158), educational sculptures (n=104), museum mannequins (n=99), standard mannequins (n=87), portrait figures (n=147), medical models (n=27), costume dummies (n=31) and miscellaneous
representations (n=15). These representations were found to be displayed in four different contexts: complete contexts (e.g., dioramas and tableaux), partial contexts (e.g., life–groups), in a series or as a solo figure. The terminology used to classify representations and their context was found to be inconsistent in both the museums and in the literature. The various taxa found included Kenyanthropus, Australopithecus and Homo species. The facial realism of these representations ranged from blank faces to highly detailed faces, which were also extremely realistic. The earlier hominin representations were more highly detailed than the H. sapiens representations, even though many of these details are unknown. Particular facial features (such as eyes, oral cavity and individual eyelashes and brows) were also found to increase the perceived realism of the representation. The body proportions of the earlier hominin taxa were found to be inconsistent within the various taxa and with scientific knowledge. Faces of the earlier hominins were found to be genus specific (i.e., Australopithecus and Homo) rather than species specific: essentially the representations looked either human or pre–human. There was also a range of biases in the sample, for example 66% of the representations were male and 70% were adults (approximately 20–40 years). These findings may enable museums to use hominin representations in the most effective way possible in terms of the intended purpose of the exhibition in which they feature, their expected audience and the museum's economic constraints.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Medical Sciences, 2012
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Pillay, Maganathan. "A critical evaluation of representations of hominin evolution in the museums of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, South Africa." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/8403.
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Abstract
This study will attempt to examine the exhibits in the museums in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa with a view to understanding whether they complement the National Curriculum Statement currently being implemented by the National Department of Education, with specific emphasis on the evolution section of the curriculum for Grade 12 Life Sciences. Human evolution exhibits have also historically been associated with racial and gender stereotypes which can influence the way human evolution is understood by the broader public and by museum visitors like teachers and learners. This will also be discussed in the evaluation of the content of the museums in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site as these limitations continue to influence the way human evolution is understood by the broader public and by museum visitors like teachers and learners.
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Christie, Peter Webb. "Mathematical representation and analysis of articular surfaces: application to the functional anatomy and palaeo-anthropology of the ankle joint." Thesis, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/22532.
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A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of PhilosophyThis thesis is a study of quantifiable variation in the geometric shape of the superior articular surface of the talus of higher primates, with special reference to fossil tali of Plio- Pleistocene hominids. (Abbreviation abstract )
AC2017
Books on the topic "Hominin representations"
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P, Brood, Nieuwland P, and Zoodsma L, eds. Homines novi: De eerste volksvertegenwoordigers van 1795. Amsterdam: Schiphouwer en Brinkman, 1993.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Hominin representations"
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Liska, Jo. "Ritual/representation as the semiogenetic precursor of hominid symbol use." In The Biology of Language, 157. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/z.75.11lis.
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Grine, Frederick E., Marcia M. Delanty, and Bernard A. Wood. "Variation in Mandibular Postcanine Dental Morphology and Hominin Species Representation in Member 4, Sterkfontein, South Africa." In The Paleobiology of Australopithecus, 125–46. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5919-0_8.
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Ciobanu, Estella. "Noah’s Wife in the Flood Plays: The Body of Argument Between Argumentum ad Verecundiam, Argumentum ad Hominem and Argumentum ad Baculum." In Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama, 235–63. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90918-9_6.
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Sorensen, Roy. "The Makapansgat Hominid." In Nothing, 3–11. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199742837.003.0001.
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Absences are present from the beginning of art—which may predate Homo sapiens. Gestalt switches catch the eye of early hominids. Pictorial depiction makes the absent present through a look-alike. The viewer understands without reliance on a common language. Interpretation does rely on some conventions of depiction that are no longer accessible. The earliest representations of nothing picture absences. More speculatively, cave painters distinguish between representations of absences and the absence of representation. Some early art appears to cross the threshold from representing absences to representing the absence of everything. Some artists appear to depict dreams. There is ambiguity between whether the dream depicts an alternative reality or a false representation of the waking world. This ambiguity may have been deliberate.
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Coolidge, Frederick L. "The Parietal Lobes." In Evolutionary Neuropsychology, 114–29. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190940942.003.0005.
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This chapter discusses the parietal lobes, whose primary function is to gather and integrate sensory information to aid the motor cortex in appropriate movements. Damage to the parietal regions in humans often produces a type of agnosia, where patients misidentify their fingers or body parts. The parietal lobes may have expanded in Homo sapiens compared with Neandertals, and this expansion may have occurred within the last 100,000 years. The intraparietal sulcus has, among its many functions, numerosity, which is an appreciation of numbers. The IPS may have groups of neurons or even single neurons that respond to symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers. The supramarginal gyrus plays a major role in inner speech, phonological storage, and emotional processing. The angular gyrus plays a major role in mathematical operations and may serve an important role in 15 other higher cognitive functions. The precuneus is a critical region for episodic memory, Baddeley’s visuospatial sketchpad, and self- and other-representations. The posterior portion of the cingulate cortex is the retrosplenial cortex, which translates egocentric spatial and allocentric spatial viewpoints. This translational responsibility was critical in evolution of hominin navigation. The constructive simulation hypothesis proposes that the episodic memory system may have evolved not for perfect scenario recall but for the ability to manipulate past events for future successes. The parietal lobes are an important part of the default mode network of the brain. The default mode network is active when a human or nonhuman primate is resting and not engaged in a specific mental activity.
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Goldin-Meadow, Susan, and David McNeill. "The role of gesture and mimetic representation in making language the province of speech." In The Descent of MindPsychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution, 155–72. Oxford University Press, 2000. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192632593.003.0009.
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Keel, Terence. "Noah’s Mongrel Children." In Divine Variations. Stanford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.11126/stanford/9780804795401.003.0005.
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Chapter 4 examines how concepts about racial ancestry and the ontological uniqueness of human life from Christian intellectual history have historically informed scientific research on the Neanderthal. These Christian forms are at play in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome and the unanticipated discovery that mating occurred between this hominid group and modern humans around forty thousand years ago. Geneticists claim that evidence of this encounter is found almost exclusively in the genomes of Europeans and Asians. This chapter also shows how scientists in both the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries deployed notions of distinct continental groups and fixed racial traits to draw conclusions about human-Neanderthal relatedness. In both centuries, concepts and reasoning strategies implicitly divinize nature while also framing human ancestry into three original groups that represent the reoccupation of the story of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, into contemporary algorithmic representations of human genetic ancestry.
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Kimbel, William H., Yoel Rak, Donald C. Johanson, Ralph L. Holloway, and Michael S. Yuan. "Elements of the Disarticulated Skull." In The Skull of Australopithecus afarensis. Oxford University Press, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195157062.003.0008.
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The 1970s collection of hominin cranial remains from Hadar is notoriously weak in its representation of the frontal bone. Besides the complete but distorted frontal of the A.L. 333-105 juvenile (Kimbel et al., 1982), only two very incomplete adult specimens provided glimpses of frontal morphology: A.L. 288-1 (Johanson et al., 1982b) and A.L. 333-125 (Asfaw, 1987). With the recovery of the almost complete frontal bone of A.L. 444-2, we are able to fill one of the last remaining gaps in our knowledge of the Hadar hominin adult skull. Another frontal specimen, A.L. 438-1b, contributes important information on the glabellar and supraglabellar regions, which are missing or poorly preserved in A.L. 444-2. The A.L. 444-2 frontal bone features prominent, laterally projecting supraorbital bars, strongly convergent temporal lines, and a transversely broad squama with only moderate postorbital constriction. The minimum distance between the temporal lines (30 mm) in the plane of the postorbital constriction is much smaller than the postorbital constriction itself (77 mm), creating on each side an extensive, almost horizontally inclined facies temporalis that, in coronal section, slopes gradually from the inferior temporal lines to the medial wall of the temporal fossa. In between the temporal lines, the supraglabellar region bears a mild hollow that grades smoothly onto the superior surface of the supraorbital bars. Neither a supratoral sulcus nor a trigonum frontale is present. The supraorbital bars are wide anteroposteriorly, measuring 16 mm at the right lateral break, about 42 mm lateral to the midline. The preserved portions of the anterior supraorbital margins are aligned coronally, forming right angles with the midsagittal line. At the lateral break on each side, the margin actually occupies a slightly more anterior plane than the middle part of the margin, suggesting an anteriorly prominent superolateral corner of the orbit. At the medial break through the left supraorbital, about 22 mm lateral to the midline, the anterior margin begins to swing out toward glabella (this area is damaged on the right side). The extent of anterior glabellar protrusion is suggested by the preserved supraglabellar plate, whose superior surface projects in the midline about 5 mm beyond the anterior supraorbital margins.
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McClanahan, Annie. "Behavioral Economics and the Credit-Crisis Novel." In Dead Pledges. Stanford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.11126/stanford/9780804799058.003.0002.
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Chapter 1 analyzes novelistic representations of the 2008 credit crisis. Focusing on Jonathan Dee’s The Privileges, Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic, and Martha McPhee’s Dear Money, it reads the post-crisis novel’s interest in individual psychology alongside and against the rise of behavioral economics. Behavioral economists understand the financial crisis as a consequence of individual choices and cultural climates: from excessive optimism and irrational exuberance to greed and overweening self-interest. At once mirroring and refuting these explanations, the post-credit-crisis novel reveals a deep ambivalence about the model of psychological complexity that undergirds both novelistic character and behavioralist economics. Exploring these problems through experiments with narrative perspective, these post-crisis novels suggest that the rich, full, autonomous homines economici of both the realist novel and microeconomic theory are bankrupt.
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Röding, Carolin, Julia Zastrow, Heike Scherf, Constantin Doukas, and Katerina Harvati. "Crown outline analysis of the hominin upper third molar from the Megalopolis Basin, Peloponnese, Greece." In Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: DFG Center for Advanced Studies, 13–36. Kerns Verlag, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.51315/9783935751377.001.
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The left upper third molar from the Megalopolis Basin is enigmatic due to its problematic preservation and context. The Megalopolis molar is the only possible human fossil known to date from the Megalopolis Basin. It was found on the surface during geological surveys in 1962-63. Based on the faunal assemblage collected during the same survey, it was proposed to be of Middle Pleistocene age and possibly one of the oldest human fossils in Europe. However, its actual geological age is unknown. In the past, dental crown outline analysis has been successfully used to differentiate between hominin species and populations. We applied the method to upper third molars, attempting to shed light on the affinities of the Megalopolis specimen. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the crown outline shape grouped the Megalopolis molar with our Homo sapiens sample; however, the PCA in form space, including shape plus size, as well as Procrustes distances based on overall shape, grouped it with our Neanderthal comparative sample. We conclude that its most likely identification is as a member of the Neanderthal lineage. However, we urge further analyses with an increased fossil comparative sample to include representatives of Homo heidelbergensis, which is underrepresented in our study. The Megalopolis molar contributes to the scarce Pleistocene human fossil record of Greece and highlights the potential of the Megalopolis Basin for yielding further paleoanthropological finds.
Conference papers on the topic "Hominin representations"
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Maier, W., E. Mair, D. Burschka, and E. Steinbach. "Visual homing and surprise detection for cognitive mobile robots using image-based environment representations." In 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/robot.2009.5152547.
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Patel, Nirdesh D., Ian Grosse, Dan Sweeney, David S. Strait, Peter W. Lucas, Barth Wright, and Laurie R. Godfrey. "An Efficient Method for Predicting Fracture of Hard Food Source." In ASME 2008 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2008-67675.
Full textAbstract:
In this paper we present a fast and reliable method for estimating the bite force required to fracture hard foods. The process involves complementary physical testing and finite element modeling. For physical testing, metal castings of upper or lower teeth are prepared. Metal tooth castings are mounted on a pivoting fixture interfaced to an Instron machine to simulate bite mechanics and thus to fracture hard food specimens. For the finite element model the tooth surfaces are modeled as rigid surface bodies in a nonlinear multi-load step contact analysis, while the food item is modeled as an elastic body. However, because only tooth surface information is needed in the model, we are able to automatically develop the geometry of the tooth surface using a tactile digitizing stylus with stereo lithographic surface profile information directly exported and subsequently imported into the FEA tool. We therefore avoid the need to laser scan tooth geometry which introduces significant “noise” into the surface model representation that must be painstakingly “cleaned” manually using software tools. The physical testing provides the force required to fracture the food item, while the finite element model provides the complete stress and strain state of the food item at the moment of fracture. Using this approach we have simulated the tooth biting mechanics of fossil primates to estimate biting force required to initiate a crack in a hard food source such as a macadamia nut. These analyses are designed to measure how occlusal morphology affects feeding performance, as the bite force needed to initiate a crack may vary according to tooth shape. The bite forces found using this approach will be used as an input for full-skull finite element models of early hominids (extinct fossil relatives of humans). The results of this work will be useful in testing the hypothesis that derived craniodental features in some of these hominids are adaptations for feeding on hard, brittle, seasonally available foods.