MSc Student
Advisor: Barbara Fischer

Unit for Theoretical Biology, Department of Evolutionary Biology
University of Vienna

Abstract

The fossil record of human evolution is incomplete, with most hominin species represented by fragmentary remains and often only single individuals. Especially the pelvis, the most sexually dimorphic part of the human skeleton, is rare in the fossil record and therefore often preserved for only one sex. This limits our ability to interpret evolutionary changes in e.g. locomotion and childbirth.

Recent geometric morphometric research has demonstrated that the patterns of pelvic sex differences are parallel in humans and chimpanzees, differing only in magnitude rather than direction. This suggests that this pattern was likely present in the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees and, consequently, in extinct hominins. Building on these findings, my master’s thesis aims at testing the pelvic morphology of one sex in extinct hominins to predict the pelvic shape of the opposite sex.

By applying landmark-based geometric morphometrics, principal component analysis and sex-difference shape vectors derived from humans and chimpanzees to 3D reconstructions of Homo neanderthalensis and Australopithecus afarensis pelves, I will try to predict opposite-sex pelves of these species. The results will show whether pelvic sex differences in extinct hominins can be predicted in a statistically meaningful way, offering a novel digital approach to reconstructing fossil individuals.