Zeitschrift fur Morphologie und Anthropologie最新文献

Dental measurements and 23 anatomical dental features are observed on 151 Pan troglodytes and 69 Pan paniscus of both sexes, preserved in the Museum of Tervuren (Belgium). Odontometric investigations confirm the reality of the two species in the genus Pan, but do not show any difference between subspecies in Pan troglodytes. Correspondence analysis demonstrates that the qualitative anatomical features are differently distributed in the two chimpanzee species.

Dental developmental status of the permanent canines, premolars and second molars were studied in one hundred and two twelve-year-old Southern Chinese girls born and brought up in Hong Kong. Eruption of these teeth were defined as gingival emergence during the clinical examination while the root development was assessed from orthopantomographs. Root resorption pattern of the primary canines and molars were also studied with the aid of the orthopantomographs. Two-thirds of girls presented with permanent dentition stage. The root resorption patterns of the primary teeth were different from their order of exfoliation. The mandibular permanent teeth were in advanced in both eruption and root development than the corresponding maxillary teeth, except the first premolars.

Current Gd- gene distribution in Sardinia is analyzed using data on a sample of 4300 Sardinian males examined at the time of their pre-military checkup from 1983 to 1986, as well as data in the literature. Also examined is the relationship of current G-6-PD deficit distribution to probable malarial morbidity and mortality during the first half of this century. From data on deficit distribution by altitude analyzed for 100 villages of the island, the authors suggest the possibility of using altitude above sea level to replace incidence of malaria, which was used in the past only as an indicative, rather than substitutive, parameter. The authors also corroborate the hypothesis that G-6-PD deficit distribution is basically a consequence of selection caused by malarial endemicity, although several other factors may have interacted to influence Gd- gene incidence and distribution.

Hair samples of a female orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) suffering from Trisomy 22 and three healthy orang-utans had been investigated in regard of their resilience, colour, medulla, cross sectional view, shaft diameter and cuticula structure. There were no characters noticed concerning the orang's hair with Trisomy only. The remarkable sex-specific differences found out in hair shaft diameters have been interpreted as a manifestation of the considerable sexual-dimorphism in orang-utans. The hair samples of all four individuals contain some with an anomaly of the cuticula-structure, which may be seen as an expression of the not species-specific environment in zoos.

Most theories of human canine evolution are unicausal and only purport to explain size and related shape changes in human canines. The present work tests whether one of the morphological changes, dulling of the distal edge of the maxillary canine, can be entirely explained as a byproduct of changes in the overall shape of the canine. The data show that the distal edge of maxillary canines of A. afarensis became far duller than would be predicted from changes in crown shape. The greater than expected dullness of the distal edge can be explained by evolutionary changes in the genetic field for cheek tooth morphology. This suggests that human canine evolution is complex and cannot be accounted for by unicausal theories.

The patterns of sexual dimorphism as well as the differences in amount between the populations were studied on a sample of 162 male and 159 female left femora, which were classified as Zulu, Sotho, Xosa and South Africans of European extraction. Multivariate analyses revealed that even adjacent African tribes exhibit a different pattern of sexual dimorphism, but there were similarities between Zulu and European femora. Furthermore, relative size differences, i.e. shape, discriminated more clearly between the sexes than did absolute size. Bicondylar width yielded a statistically significant higher degree of sexual dimorphism in Europeans when compared to African populations. This finding was interpreted in terms of the biomechanical demands on the femur under different living conditions. On the other hand, sexual dimorphism of femoral length did not differ among the populations. This was unexpected since femoral length correlates highly with stature, which was reported to show a lesser degree of sexual dimorphism in Africans than in Europeans. Detailed analyses of the results of the present study led to suggest that different living conditions may affect bones in complex ways of which linear growth is only one aspect.

Correlations among the twelve palm and sole interdigital ridge-counts were calculated for samples of Europeans of German, Austrian, Finnish and Polish ancestry, for Bantu speaking Black Africans from Angola and the Republic of South Africa, for Japanese and Tibetans and for Indians and Coloureds from the Republic of South Africa. Canonical correlation and factor analyses were used to discern patterning in the correlations. Generally, within palm and within sole correlations are stronger than palm-sole correlations. However, the results show an unequivocal positive relationship between palm and sole ridge-counts. A consistent feature was a stronger relationship of palm c-d counts to sole a-b counts. We suggest that this pattern of correlation may reflect early morphogenetic pattern formation prior to commitment of cells to hands and feet.

The objective of our work was to investigate whether the side-different use of the upper extremities due to handedness produces detectable differences in bone-mineral content (BMC) and bone width (BW). For this purpose 251 recent individuals whose handedness was established, were examined by means of the 125I-photon-absorption technique. Highly significant right-left differences in BMC and BW were found on the midshaft and distal radius. Discrimination functions based on BMC and BW were carried out, allowing for the classification into the appropriate handedness categories. Applying the same method we tried to diagnose the handedness of the skeletal material of 40 medieval and 27 neolithic individuals.

Dentine root transparency (RDT) has been measured on 70 histological sections of teeth from 46 individuals of known sex and age. In order to obtain the estimates of individual chronological age, Bang & Ramm (1970) equations have been applied to the value obtained by the measurements. Using the percentage ratio hx100/H (after Lemendin & Cambray 1981)--were h is the extension of the root transparency zone (in mm) and H is the total root length (in mm), some regression functions have been elaborated. The error of the age estimates obtained following Bang & Ramm was quite high in percentage, being comprised between +/- 5 years only in 21.13% of the cases.

Southern Chinese girls aged 11 years 9 months to 12 years 3 months in Hong Kong have a mean skeletal age of 12.57 years assessed from the left hand and wrist radiographs by the Greulich and Pyle Atlas Method. Significant secular trend of earlier skeletal maturation was demonstrated with p less than or equal to 0.001. Such difference was contributed by improved socio-economic, nutritional and socio-hygienic conditions during the past decades.