%0 Journal Article
%A Carretero, José Miguel
%A Rodríguez García, Laura
%A García González, Rebeca
%A Arsuaga Ferreras, Juan Luis
%A Gómez Olivencia, Asier
%A Lorenzo Merino, Carlos
%A Bonmatí, Alejandro
%A Gracia Téllez, Ana
%A Martínez Mendizábal, Ignacio
%A Quam, Rolf
%T Stature estimation from complete long bones in the Middle Pleistocene humansfrom the Sima de los Huesos, Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain)
%D 2012
%@ 0047-2484
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44373
%X Systematic excavations at the site of the Sima de los Huesos (SH) in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos,Spain) have allowed us to reconstruct 27 complete long bones of the human species Homo heidelbergensis.The SH sample is used here, together with a sample of 39 complete Homo neanderthalensislong bones and 17 complete early Homo sapiens (Skhul/Qafzeh) long bones, to compare the stature ofthese three different human species. Stature is estimated for each bone using race- and sex-independentregression formulae, yielding an average stature for each bone within each taxon. The mean length ofeach long bone from SH is significantly greater (p < 0.05) than the corresponding mean values in theNeandertal sample. The stature has been calculated for male and female specimens separately, averagingboth means to calculate a general mean. This general mean stature for the entire sample of long bones is163.6 cm for the SH hominins, 160.6 cm for Neandertals and 177.4 cm for early modern humans. Despitesome overlap in the ranges of variation, all mean values in the SH sample (whether considering isolatedbones, the upper or lower limb, males or females or more complete individuals) are larger than those ofNeandertals. Given the strong relationship between long bone length and stature, we conclude that SHhominins represent a slightly taller population or species than the Neandertals. However, compared withliving European Mediterranean populations, neither the Sima de los Huesos hominins nor the Neandertalsshould be considered ‘short’ people. In fact, the average stature within the genus Homo seems tohave changed little over the course of the last two million years, since the appearance of Homo ergaster inEast Africa. It is only with the emergence of H. sapiens, whose earliest representatives were ‘very tall’,that a significant increase in stature can be documented.
%~