Morphological variation in Homo erectus and the origins of developmental plasticity

Homo erectus was the first hominin preciso exhibit extensive range expansion. This extraordinary departure from Africa, especially into more temperate climates of Eurasia, has been variously related esatto technological, energetic and foraging shifts. The temporal and regional anatomical variation sopra H. erectus suggests that a high level of developmental plasticity, verso key factor per the ability of H. sapiens sicuro occupy verso variety of habitats, ental plasticity, the ability puro modify development con response esatto environmental conditions, results con differences durante size, shape and dimorphism across populations that relate sopra part puro levels of resource sufficiency and extrinsic mortality. These differences predict not only regional variations but also overall smaller adult sizes and lower levels of dimorphism sopra instances of resource scarcity and high predator load. We consider the metric variation durante 35 human and non-human alto prelato ‘populations’ from known environmental contexts and 14 time- and space-restricted paleodemes of H. erectus and other fossil Homo. Human and non-human primates exhibit more similar patterns of variation than expected, with plasticity evident, but per differing patterns by sex across populations. Continuarea →