RT Journal Article
T1 Stature estimation from complete long bones in the Middle Pleistocene humansfrom the Sima de los Huesos, Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain)
A1 Carretero, José Miguel
A1 Rodríguez García, Laura
A1 García González, Rebeca
A1 Arsuaga Ferreras, Juan Luis
A1 Gómez Olivencia, Asier
A1 Lorenzo Merino, Carlos
A1 Bonmatí, Alejandro
A1 Gracia Téllez, Ana
A1 Martínez Mendizábal, Ignacio
A1 Quam, Rolf
AB 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.
PB Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam
SN 0047-2484
YR 2012
FD 2012
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44373
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44373
LA eng
DS Docta Complutense
RD 15 dic 2025