Biological anthropology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Past global human migration was the result of environmental and cultural factors. Here, the authors develop a statistical approach that combines archaeological, genetic, and palaeoclimate data to identify regional environmental conditions facilitating population expansion routes in northern Eurasia and the Americas.

    • Frédérik Saltré
    • , Joël Chadœuf
    •  & Corey J. A. Bradshaw

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors provide new radiocarbon, U-series, and OSL dates for Homo sapiens fossils from Tongtianyan cave, southern China, placing them at 33-23 thousand years ago and indicating widespread presence of Homo sapiens across eastern Asia in the Late Pleistocene.

    • Junyi Ge
    • , Song Xing
    •  & Qingfeng Shao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pliobates cataloniae is a small-bodied Miocene catarrhine primate with unclear systematic status. Here, the authors present additional dental remains from this species, conducting cladistic analyses that indicate it is a pliopithecoid convergent with apes in elbow and wrist morphology.

    • Florian Bouchet
    • , Clément Zanolli
    •  & David M. Alba

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The timing and chronology of the movement of Homo sapiens after migration out of Africa remains unclear. Here, the authors combine a genetic approach with a palaeoecological model to estimate that the Persian Plateau could have been a hub for migration out of Africa, suggesting the environment may have been suitable for population maintenance.

    • Leonardo Vallini
    • , Carlo Zampieri
    •  & Luca Pagani

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Millions of skeletal remains from South Asia were exported in red markets (the underground economy of human tissues/organs) to educational institutions globally for over a century. It is time to recognize the personhood of the people who were systematically made into anatomical objects and acknowledge the scientific racism in creating and continuing to use them.

    • Sabrina C. Agarwal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The origin of the genus Homo is debated. Here, the authors investigate the morphology of the H. habilis enamel-dentine junction using a sample of 911 hominin and extant ape teeth, finding that H. habilis has more in common with Australopithecus than later members of the genus Homo.

    • Thomas W. Davies
    • , Philipp Gunz
    •  & Matthew M. Skinner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report new human fossils from Tam Pà Ling cave, Laos, consisting of a cranial and a tibial fragment, dated to 68–86 thousand years ago. This find confirms that Homo sapiens were present in Southeast Asia by this time and the shape of the fossils indicates they may have descended from non-local populations.

    • Sarah E. Freidline
    • , Kira E. Westaway
    •  & Fabrice Demeter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors use climate and resource availability, to statistically model the limiting factors in the dynamics of hunter-gatherer population densities in Europe between 21,000 and 8,000 years ago. They find that limiting factors varied spatiotemporally and the effects of these may be visible in the archaeological record.

    • Alejandro Ordonez
    •  & Felix Riede

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of climate on premodern civil conflict and societal instability is debated. Here, the authors combine archeological, historical, and paleoclimatic datasets to show that drought between 1400-1450 cal. CE escalated civil conflict at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula.

    • Douglas J. Kennett
    • , Marilyn Masson
    •  & David A. Hodell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The question of whether women who produce twins are more fertile than other women has been debated. Here, the authors analyze a large dataset of pre-industrial birth outcomes and find evidence against the idea of higher fertility and instead that more births lead to more twinning opportunities.

    • Ian J. Rickard
    • , Colin Vullioud
    •  & Alexandre Courtiol

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evidence for the presence of Homo during the Middle Pleistocene is limited in continental Southeast Asia. Here, the authors report a hominin molar from Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra Cave), dated to 164–131 kyr. They use morphological and paleoproteomic analysis to show that it likely belonged to a female Denisovan.

    • Fabrice Demeter
    • , Clément Zanolli
    •  & Laura Shackelford

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ‘Pre-contact era humans from coastal South America were infected by Mycobacterium pinnipedii, most likely, through contact with infected pinnipeds. Here, the authors investigate the presence of M. pinnipedii in pre-contact era humans from inland South America and explore potential scenarios of human-to-human or animal-mediated transmission.’

    • Åshild J. Vågene
    • , Tanvi P. Honap
    •  & Kirsten I. Bos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is still unclear when and by which route modern humans expanded out of Africa. Here, Beyer et al. use paleoclimate reconstructions and estimates of human precipitation requirements to evaluate the survivability of spatial and temporal migration corridors to Eurasia over the last 300,000 years.

    • Robert M. Beyer
    • , Mario Krapp
    •  & Andrea Manica

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing body and brain size constitutes a key pattern in human evolution, but the mechanisms driving these changes remain debated. Using a large fossil dataset combined with global paleoclimatic reconstructions, the authors show that different environmental variables influenced the evolution of brain and body size in Homo.

    • Manuel Will
    • , Mario Krapp
    •  & Andrea Manica

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania is a key site for understanding early human evolution. Here, the authors report a multiproxy dataset from the Western basin of Oldupai Gorge dating to 2 million years ago, enabling the in situ comparison of lithic assemblages, paleoenvironments and hominin behavioral adaptability.

    • Julio Mercader
    • , Pam Akuku
    •  & Michael Petraglia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-traditional stable isotopes, such as of calcium, have potential to expand our understanding of ancient diets. Here, Martin et al. use stable calcium isotopes recovered from fossil tooth enamel to compare the dietary ecology of hominins and other primates in the Turkana Basin 2-4 million years ago.

    • Jeremy E. Martin
    • , Théo Tacail
    •  & Vincent Balter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Key events in human evolution are thought to have occurred between 3 and 2.5 Ma, but the fossil record of this period is sparse. Here, Alemseged et al. report a new fossil site from this period, Mille-Logya, Ethiopia, and characterize the geology, basin evolution and fauna, including specimens of Homo.

    • Zeresenay Alemseged
    • , Jonathan G. Wynn
    •  & Joseph Mohan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The proximal femur is key for understanding locomotion in primates. Here, the authors analyze the evolution of the proximal femur in catarrhines, including a new Aegyptopithecus fossil, and suggest that Old World monkeys and hominoids diverged from an ancestral state similar to Aegyptopithecus.

    • Sergio Almécija
    • , Melissa Tallman
    •  & Erik R. Seiffert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Late Middle Pleistocene (LMP) hominin fossils are scarce, limiting reconstruction of human evolution during this key period. Here, the authors use phylogenetic modelling to predict the modern human last common ancestor’s morphology and inform hypotheses of human origins by comparison to LMP fossils.

    • Aurélien Mounier
    •  & Marta Mirazón Lahr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether the sequence and timing of early life neurodevelopment varies across human populations, excluding the effects of disease or malnutrition. Here, the authors show that children of healthy, urban, educated mothers show very similar development across five geographically diverse populations.

    • José Villar
    • , Michelle Fernandes
    •  & Stephen Kennedy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Salkhit skull from Mongolia was initially suggested to have archaic hominin characters. Here, Devièse and colleagues date the skull to approximately 34–35 thousand years ago and reconstruct its mitochondrial genome, finding that it falls within modern human haplogroup N found across Eurasia.

    • Thibaut Devièse
    • , Diyendo Massilani
    •  & Tom Higham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How different Neandertal morphology was from that of modern humans has been a subject of long debate. Here, the authors develop a 3D virtual reconstruction of the thorax of an adult male Neandertal, showing similar size to modern humans, yet with greater respiratory capacity due to its different shape.

    • Asier Gómez-Olivencia
    • , Alon Barash
    •  & Ella Been

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fossil taxon Propotto was originally identified as a primate, but is currently widely interpreted as a bat. Here, the authors identify Propotto as a stem chiromyiform lemur and, based on phylogenetic analysis, suggest two independent lemur colonizations of Madagascar.

    • Gregg F. Gunnell
    • , Doug M. Boyer
    •  & Erik R. Seiffert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Storytelling entails costs in terms of time and effort, yet it is a ubiquitous feature of human society. Here, Smith et al. show benefits of storytelling in Agta hunter-gatherer communities, as storytellers have higher reproductive success and storytelling is associated with higher cooperation in the group.

    • Daniel Smith
    • , Philip Schlaepfer
    •  & Andrea Bamberg Migliano

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans is thought to have been due to environmental factors, a selective advantage of modern humans, or both. Here, Kolodny and Feldman develop a neutral model of species drift showing that rapid Neanderthal replacement can be explained parsimoniously by simple migration dynamics.

    • Oren Kolodny
    •  & Marcus W. Feldman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The pattern of body size evolution in hominids can provide insight into historical human ecology. Here, Grabowski and Jungers use comparative phylogenetic analysis to reconstruct the likely size of the ancestor of humans and chimpanzees and the evolutionary history of selection on body size in primates.

    • Mark Grabowski
    •  & William L. Jungers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-human animals are known to exhibit behaviours suggestive of empathy, but the development and maintenance of these traits is unexplored. Here, Webb and colleagues quantify individual consolation tendencies over 10 years across two chimpanzee groups and show evidence of consistent ‘empathetic personalities’.

    • Christine E. Webb
    • , Teresa Romero
    •  & Frans B. M. de Waal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evolution can occur rapidly enough to influence population growth, though this possibility tends to be discounted for human populations. Here, the authors analyse genealogical records and show that evolution of women’s age at first reproduction contributed significantly to the growth of the île aux Coudres population.

    • Fanie Pelletier
    • , Gabriel Pigeon
    •  & Emmanuel Milot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Scythian culture was widespread throughout the Eurasian Steppe during the 1stmillennium BCE. This study provides genetic evidence for two independent origins for the Scythians in the eastern and western steppe with varying proportions of Yamnaya and East Asian ancestry, and gene flow among them.

    • Martina Unterländer
    • , Friso Palstra
    •  & Joachim Burger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A First Nation population declined after European contact, likely as a result of infectious disease. Here, researchers partner with indigenous communities to analyse ancient and modern Native American exomes, and find a shift in selection pressure on immune genes, correlated to European-borne epidemics.

    • John Lindo
    • , Emilia Huerta-Sánchez
    •  & Ripan S. Malhi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hominin fossils reveal high diversity in the types of terrestrial bipedalism. Here, the authors show that the foot of Homo naledifrom South Africa is predominantly human-like in morphology and inferred function and is well adapted for striding bipedalism.

    • W. E. H. Harcourt-Smith
    • , Z. Throckmorton
    •  & J. M. DeSilva

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear to what extent early hominins were adapted to arboreal climbing. Here, the authors show that the nearly complete hand of H. naledifrom South Africa has markedly curved digits and otherwise human-like wrist and palm, which indicates the retention of a significant degree of climbing.

    • Tracy L. Kivell
    • , Andrew S. Deane
    •  & Steven E. Churchill

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The African pygmies are known for their short stature, yet it is unclear when and how this phenotype is acquired during growth. Here the authors show that the pygmies’ small stature results primarily from slow growth during infancy.

    • Fernando V. Ramirez Rozzi
    • , Yves Koudou
    •  & Jérémie Botton

  • Article |

    The emergence of bipedalism in humans is considered to be an evolutionary challenge. In this study, however, the authors show that humans, dogs and chickens create a virtual pivot point above their centre of mass during walking, thereby mimicking an external support.

    • H.-M. Maus
    • , S.W. Lipfert
    •  & A. Seyfarth

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