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Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba

Hominin birth mechanics have been examined and debated from limited and often fragmentary fossil pelvic material. Some have proposed that birth in the early hominin genus Australopithecus was relatively easy and ape-like, while others have argued for a more complex, human-like birth mechanism in aus...

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Autores principales: Laudicina, Natalie M., Rodriguez, Frankee, DeSilva, Jeremy M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6750590/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31532788
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221871
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author Laudicina, Natalie M.
Rodriguez, Frankee
DeSilva, Jeremy M.
author_facet Laudicina, Natalie M.
Rodriguez, Frankee
DeSilva, Jeremy M.
author_sort Laudicina, Natalie M.
collection PubMed
description Hominin birth mechanics have been examined and debated from limited and often fragmentary fossil pelvic material. Some have proposed that birth in the early hominin genus Australopithecus was relatively easy and ape-like, while others have argued for a more complex, human-like birth mechanism in australopiths. Still others have hypothesized a unique birth mechanism, with no known modern equivalent. Preliminary work on the pelvis of the recently discovered 1.98 million-year-old hominin Australopithecus sediba found it to possess a unique combination of Homo and Australopithecus-like features. Here, we create a composite pelvis of Australopithecus sediba to reconstruct the birth process in this early hominin. Consistent with other hominin species, including modern humans, the fetus would enter the pelvic inlet in a transverse direction. However, unlike in modern humans, the fetus would not need additional rotations to traverse the birth canal. Further fetal rotation is unnecessary even with a Homo-like pelvic midplane expansion, not seen in earlier hominin species. With a birth canal shape more closely associated with specimens from the genus Homo and a lack of cephalopelvic or shoulder constraints, we therefore find evidence to support the hypothesis that the pelvic morphology of Australopithecus sediba is a result of locomotor, rather than strictly obstetric constraints.
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spelling pubmed-67505902019-09-27 Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba Laudicina, Natalie M. Rodriguez, Frankee DeSilva, Jeremy M. PLoS One Research Article Hominin birth mechanics have been examined and debated from limited and often fragmentary fossil pelvic material. Some have proposed that birth in the early hominin genus Australopithecus was relatively easy and ape-like, while others have argued for a more complex, human-like birth mechanism in australopiths. Still others have hypothesized a unique birth mechanism, with no known modern equivalent. Preliminary work on the pelvis of the recently discovered 1.98 million-year-old hominin Australopithecus sediba found it to possess a unique combination of Homo and Australopithecus-like features. Here, we create a composite pelvis of Australopithecus sediba to reconstruct the birth process in this early hominin. Consistent with other hominin species, including modern humans, the fetus would enter the pelvic inlet in a transverse direction. However, unlike in modern humans, the fetus would not need additional rotations to traverse the birth canal. Further fetal rotation is unnecessary even with a Homo-like pelvic midplane expansion, not seen in earlier hominin species. With a birth canal shape more closely associated with specimens from the genus Homo and a lack of cephalopelvic or shoulder constraints, we therefore find evidence to support the hypothesis that the pelvic morphology of Australopithecus sediba is a result of locomotor, rather than strictly obstetric constraints. Public Library of Science 2019-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6750590/ /pubmed/31532788 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221871 Text en © 2019 Laudicina et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Laudicina, Natalie M.
Rodriguez, Frankee
DeSilva, Jeremy M.
Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba
title Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba
title_full Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba
title_fullStr Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba
title_full_unstemmed Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba
title_short Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba
title_sort reconstructing birth in australopithecus sediba
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6750590/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31532788
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221871
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