Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 3 September 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5689, pp. 1450 - 1453
DOI: 10.1126/science.1098807
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

External and Internal Morphology of the BAR 1002'00 Orrorin tugenensis Femur

K. Galik,1 B. Senut,2 M. Pickford,3 D. Gommery,4 J. Treil,5 A. J. Kuperavage,6 R. B. Eckhardt6*

Late Miocene fossils from the Lukeino Formation in Kenya's Tugen Hills are assigned to Orrorin tugenensis. Of 20 fossils recovered there to date, 3 are proximal femurs. One of these, BAR 1002'00, preserves an intact head connected to the proximal shaft by an elongated neck. Although this fossil is comparable in size to Pan troglodytes, computerized tomography scans of the neck-shaft junction of BAR 1002'00 reveal that the cortex is markedly thinner superiorly than inferiorly, differing from the approximately equal cortical thicknesses observed in extant African apes, approaching the condition in later hominids, and indicating that O. tugenensis was bipedal.

1 Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory, Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA 15212, USA.
2 Département Histoire de la Terre, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, UMR 5143 du CNRS, Case Postale 38, 57, rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
3 Chaire de Paléoanthropologie et de Préhistoire, Collège de France, et UMR 5143 du CNRS, Département Histoire de la Terre, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, UMR 5143 du CNRS, Case Postale 38, 57, rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
4 UPR 2147 CNRS, 44, rue de l'Amiral-Mouchez, 75014 Paris & GDR 983 du CNRS, 8, rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France.
5 Service du Radiologie, UMR 8555 du CNRS et Service de Radiologie, Clinique Pasteur, 45, Avenue de Lombez, 31300 Toulouse, France.
6 Laboratory of Comparative Morphology and Mechanics, Department of Kinesiology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: eyl{at}psu.edu

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Orrorin tugenensis Femoral Morphology and the Evolution of Hominin Bipedalism.
B. G. Richmond and W. L. Jungers (2008)
Science 319, 1662-1665
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)