Anthropology Department Proseminar Series Faculty Presentation, Thierra Nalley, Ph.D.: Ontogeny of the Hominin Vertebral Column: Timing, Modularity, and the Evolution of the Bipedal Spine
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Office/Remote Location
Description
Many of the most important fossils for understanding how our ancestors came to walk upright belonged to children, raising a basic question: how do we read adult behavior from a skeleton that was still growing? Drawing on fossils from Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa alongside growth series of living apes and humans, this talk shows that early hominins developed adultlike lower backs remarkably early in childhood, as modern humans do and chimpanzees do not. The neck tells a different story, suggesting that the spine is built from semi-independent units that evolve on their own developmental schedules. The talk closes with new juvenile fossils from Drimolen, South Africa, and new research on how the skull and spine grow together, both of which ask when, and why, the human body plan takes shape during growth.
Admission Information
Open to all.