Ricerc@Sapienza

At least six different Homo species populated the World during the latest Pliocene to the Pleistocene. The extinction of all but one of them is currently shrouded in mystery, and no consistent explanation has yet been advanced, despite the enormous importance of the matter. Here, we use a recently implemented past climate emulator and an extensive fossil database spanning 2,754 archaeological records to model climatic niche evolution in Homo. We find statistically robust evidence that the three Homo species representing terminating, independent lineages, H. erectus, H.

The presence of large and near-identical inverted repeat sequences (called palindromes) is a common feature of the constitutively haploid sex chromosomes of different species. Despite the fact palindromes originated in a non-recombining context, they have evolved a strong recombinational activity in the form of abundant arm-to-arm gene conversion. Their independent appearance in different species suggests they can have a profound biological significance that has yet to be fully clarified.

The exceptionally well-preserved Neanderthal skeleton discovered in October 1993 within the Lamalunga cave near Altamura (Puglia, Italy) has been recently dated to a late Middle Pleistocene chronology, bracketed between 128.2 and 187.0 ka. Although the skeleton is still sealed in situ, in 2009 and 2015 a large part of its fragmentary right scapula was removed from the cave in three pieces, following a protocol aimed at preventing any biological contamination prior to aDNA extraction and analysis.

Objectives: We present two new automatic tools, developed under the R environment, to repro-
duce the internal and external structures of bony elements. The first method, Computer-Aided
Laser Scanner Emulator (CA-LSE), provides the reconstruction of the external portions of a 3D
mesh by simulating the action of a laser scanner. The second method, Automatic Segmentation
Tool for 3D objects (AST-3D), performs the digital reconstruction of anatomical cavities.
Materials and methods: We present the application of CA-LSE and AST-3D methods to different

The Murgia plateau (Apulia, southern Italy) is a geographic area rich of karstic formations such as dolines, blind valleys and caves. One of these formation is the Lamalunga cave, part of a wider karstic complex. During a speleological survey in 1993, in a small chamber, delimited by speleothemes, speleologists found a hominin specimen with the skull stuck in the walls of the chamber and other bones laying on the ground and covered by calcareous concretions.

Reproducing cranial endocasts is the main goal for researchers interested in vertebrate brain evolution. Recent developments in 3D digital modelling enabled to overcome the complex and somewhat risky manual production of physical casts. Yet, even the most recent, cutting-edge methods still require somewhat long processing times and usually cannot deal with complex-shaped endocranial cavities. These problems limit both the statistical power and phylogenetic scope of brain shape and size evolutionary investigations.

While morphological differences between H. sapiens , i.e. Anatomically Modern Humans, and Neanderthals are well known in adults, it is much less clear when and how they arise during ontogeny [1, 2, 3, 4]. While most workers agree that major aspects of their differences are already established in neonates, there is some disagreement about whether differences are further accentuated through divergence and changes in length of postnatal ontogenetic trajectories [5]. Beyond this, how regions of the developing cranium interact during ontogeny in both species and how they differ is limited.

The position (FMP) and orientation (FMO) of the foramen magnum have been used as proxies for locomotion and posture in extant and extinct primates. Several indices have been designed to quantify FMP and FMO but their application has led to conflicting results. Here, we test six widely used indices and two approaches (univariate and multivariate) for their capability to discriminate between postural and locomotor types in extant primates and fossil hominins. We then look at the locomotion of australopithecines and Homo on the base of these new findings.