A reappraisal of the Border Cave 1 cranium (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Amélie Beaudet; d'Errico Francesco d'Errico; Lucinda Backwell; Lyn Wadley; Bernhard Zipfel; Paloma de la Peña; Hugo Reyes-Centeno

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107452

A reappraisal of the Border Cave 1 cranium (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Amélie Beaudet
, d'Errico Francesco d'Errico
, Lucinda Backwell
, Lyn Wadley
, Bernhard Zipfel
, Paloma de la Peña
, Hugo Reyes-Centeno

Producción científica: Article › revisión exhaustiva

11 Citas (Scopus)

Resumen

Besides providing a unique archaeological assemblage that documents the early emergence of complex behaviour in the human lineage, Border Cave (South Africa) is noteworthy for having yielded hominin remains of at least nine individuals, including the partial cranium Border Cave 1. While the exact provenance of Border Cave 1 is unknown, sequence stratigraphy and ESR dating converge towards an age from about 82 ka to 170 ka. Here we present novel information about the brain, braincase and bony labyrinth of Border Cave 1 and discuss related evolutionary implications. We compare Border Cave 1 to specimens of Early and Middle Pleistocene Homo as well as to fossil and extant Homo sapiens. Virtual segmentation techniques were used to reconstruct the brain and bony labyrinth endocasts, assess the distribution of cranial bone thickness, and identify the vascular and sulcal imprints preserved on the inner surface of the braincase. Our results show that the overall morphology of the brain endocast approximates the globular shape of the modern human brain and differs from the long and low brains seen in Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins. The vascular imprints preserved on the right hemisphere indicate that the middle branch derives from the anterior branch, which is a pattern shared with Neanderthals and modern humans. Bone thickness distribution in the Border Cave 1 cranium resembles the patterns seen in Cro-Magnon 1 and Abri Pataud 1, which both share a diffuse distribution of thickened areas over the frontal region. Finally, the relative size and curvature of the semicircular canals of the bony labyrinth conform to the ancestral configuration shared between Early and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins from Africa and the Levant, as well as modern humans, and distinct from the more derived condition documented within Neanderthals. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the biogeography, evolution, and, to some extent, behaviour of fossil Homo sapiens.

Idioma original	English
Número de artículo	107452
Publicación	Quaternary Science Reviews
Volumen	282
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107452
Estado	Published - abr 15 2022

Nota bibliográfica

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Financiación

We thank the Fossil Access Advisory Panel and the Evolutionary Studies Institute (University of the Witwatersrand) for access to Border Cave 1, and Gideon Chinamatira for X-ray microtomographic acquisitions. We sincerely thank the Digital Archive of Fossil Hominoids team (https://www.virtual-anthropology.com/) and the Rising Star team (MorphoSource project ‘Rising Star’ ID 00000C124) for sharing data. We are grateful to the following institutions for their financial support: Bordeaux University, Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour, DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (Genus) (CEOOP 2020-1), National Geographic Society (NGS-54810R-19), Grand Programme de Recherche ‘Human Past’ of the University of Bordeaux Initiative d'Excellence, National Research Foundation of South Africa (#129336), University of Bordeaux Programme Talents (Grant No. 191022–001), Research Council of Norway through its Centre's of Excellence funding scheme, SapienCE (Project No. 262618), and National Science Foundation (#2131940-EduceLab: Infrastructure for Next-Generation Heritage Science). We thank the Editors, Antoine Balzeau and one anonymous reviewer for their comments that contributed to improve the quality of this paper. Ethical clearance for the use of the extant human cranium was obtained from the Main Research Ethics committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria in February 2016. We thank the Fossil Access Advisory Panel and the Evolutionary Studies Institute (University of the Witwatersrand) for access to Border Cave 1, and Gideon Chinamatira for X-ray microtomographic acquisitions. We sincerely thank the Digital Archive of Fossil Hominoids team ( https://www.virtual-anthropology.com/ ) and the Rising Star team (MorphoSource project ‘Rising Star’ ID 00000C124) for sharing data. We are grateful to the following institutions for their financial support: Bordeaux University , Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour , DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (Genus) ( CEOOP 2020-1 ), National Geographic Society ( NGS-54810R-19 ), Grand Programme de Recherche ‘Human Past’ of the University of Bordeaux Initiative d’Excellence, National Research Foundation of South Africa ( #129336 ), University of Bordeaux Programme Talents (Grant No. 191022–001 ), Research Council of Norway through its Centre's of Excellence funding scheme, SapienCE (Project No. 262618 ), and National Science Foundation ( #2131940 -EduceLab: Infrastructure for Next-Generation Heritage Science). We thank the Editors, Antoine Balzeau and one anonymous reviewer for their comments that contributed to improve the quality of this paper. Ethical clearance for the use of the extant human cranium was obtained from the Main Research Ethics committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria in February 2016.

Financiadores	Número del financiador
Bordeaux University, Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour
DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences	CEOOP 2020-1
Rising Star team	00000C124
SapienCE	262618
University of Bordeaux Programme Talents	191022–001
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Science Program	2131940, 2131940-EduceLab
National Geographic Society	NGS-54810R-19
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
National Research Foundation South African Research Chair	129336
University of Pretoria
Norges Forskningsråd

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Global and Planetary Change
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Archaeology
Archaeology
Geology

Acceder al documento

10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107452

Otros archivos y enlaces

Citar esto

@article{a72591207c954988b058ba4f0b9946f8,

title = "A reappraisal of the Border Cave 1 cranium (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)",

abstract = "Besides providing a unique archaeological assemblage that documents the early emergence of complex behaviour in the human lineage, Border Cave (South Africa) is noteworthy for having yielded hominin remains of at least nine individuals, including the partial cranium Border Cave 1. While the exact provenance of Border Cave 1 is unknown, sequence stratigraphy and ESR dating converge towards an age from about 82 ka to 170 ka. Here we present novel information about the brain, braincase and bony labyrinth of Border Cave 1 and discuss related evolutionary implications. We compare Border Cave 1 to specimens of Early and Middle Pleistocene Homo as well as to fossil and extant Homo sapiens. Virtual segmentation techniques were used to reconstruct the brain and bony labyrinth endocasts, assess the distribution of cranial bone thickness, and identify the vascular and sulcal imprints preserved on the inner surface of the braincase. Our results show that the overall morphology of the brain endocast approximates the globular shape of the modern human brain and differs from the long and low brains seen in Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins. The vascular imprints preserved on the right hemisphere indicate that the middle branch derives from the anterior branch, which is a pattern shared with Neanderthals and modern humans. Bone thickness distribution in the Border Cave 1 cranium resembles the patterns seen in Cro-Magnon 1 and Abri Pataud 1, which both share a diffuse distribution of thickened areas over the frontal region. Finally, the relative size and curvature of the semicircular canals of the bony labyrinth conform to the ancestral configuration shared between Early and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins from Africa and the Levant, as well as modern humans, and distinct from the more derived condition documented within Neanderthals. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the biogeography, evolution, and, to some extent, behaviour of fossil Homo sapiens.",

keywords = "Bony labyrinth, Cranial vault thickness, Hominin brain, Middle Stone Age, South African fossil record",

author = "Am{\'e}lie Beaudet and \{Francesco d'Errico\}, d'Errico and Lucinda Backwell and Lyn Wadley and Bernhard Zipfel and \{de la Pe{\~n}a\}, Paloma and Hugo Reyes-Centeno",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Ltd",

year = "2022",

month = apr,

day = "15",

doi = "10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107452",

language = "English",

volume = "282",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - A reappraisal of the Border Cave 1 cranium (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

AU - Beaudet, Amélie

AU - Francesco d'Errico, d'Errico

AU - Backwell, Lucinda

AU - Wadley, Lyn

AU - Zipfel, Bernhard

AU - de la Peña, Paloma

AU - Reyes-Centeno, Hugo

PY - 2022/4/15

Y1 - 2022/4/15

N2 - Besides providing a unique archaeological assemblage that documents the early emergence of complex behaviour in the human lineage, Border Cave (South Africa) is noteworthy for having yielded hominin remains of at least nine individuals, including the partial cranium Border Cave 1. While the exact provenance of Border Cave 1 is unknown, sequence stratigraphy and ESR dating converge towards an age from about 82 ka to 170 ka. Here we present novel information about the brain, braincase and bony labyrinth of Border Cave 1 and discuss related evolutionary implications. We compare Border Cave 1 to specimens of Early and Middle Pleistocene Homo as well as to fossil and extant Homo sapiens. Virtual segmentation techniques were used to reconstruct the brain and bony labyrinth endocasts, assess the distribution of cranial bone thickness, and identify the vascular and sulcal imprints preserved on the inner surface of the braincase. Our results show that the overall morphology of the brain endocast approximates the globular shape of the modern human brain and differs from the long and low brains seen in Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins. The vascular imprints preserved on the right hemisphere indicate that the middle branch derives from the anterior branch, which is a pattern shared with Neanderthals and modern humans. Bone thickness distribution in the Border Cave 1 cranium resembles the patterns seen in Cro-Magnon 1 and Abri Pataud 1, which both share a diffuse distribution of thickened areas over the frontal region. Finally, the relative size and curvature of the semicircular canals of the bony labyrinth conform to the ancestral configuration shared between Early and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins from Africa and the Levant, as well as modern humans, and distinct from the more derived condition documented within Neanderthals. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the biogeography, evolution, and, to some extent, behaviour of fossil Homo sapiens.

AB - Besides providing a unique archaeological assemblage that documents the early emergence of complex behaviour in the human lineage, Border Cave (South Africa) is noteworthy for having yielded hominin remains of at least nine individuals, including the partial cranium Border Cave 1. While the exact provenance of Border Cave 1 is unknown, sequence stratigraphy and ESR dating converge towards an age from about 82 ka to 170 ka. Here we present novel information about the brain, braincase and bony labyrinth of Border Cave 1 and discuss related evolutionary implications. We compare Border Cave 1 to specimens of Early and Middle Pleistocene Homo as well as to fossil and extant Homo sapiens. Virtual segmentation techniques were used to reconstruct the brain and bony labyrinth endocasts, assess the distribution of cranial bone thickness, and identify the vascular and sulcal imprints preserved on the inner surface of the braincase. Our results show that the overall morphology of the brain endocast approximates the globular shape of the modern human brain and differs from the long and low brains seen in Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins. The vascular imprints preserved on the right hemisphere indicate that the middle branch derives from the anterior branch, which is a pattern shared with Neanderthals and modern humans. Bone thickness distribution in the Border Cave 1 cranium resembles the patterns seen in Cro-Magnon 1 and Abri Pataud 1, which both share a diffuse distribution of thickened areas over the frontal region. Finally, the relative size and curvature of the semicircular canals of the bony labyrinth conform to the ancestral configuration shared between Early and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins from Africa and the Levant, as well as modern humans, and distinct from the more derived condition documented within Neanderthals. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the biogeography, evolution, and, to some extent, behaviour of fossil Homo sapiens.

KW - Bony labyrinth

KW - Cranial vault thickness

KW - Hominin brain

KW - Middle Stone Age

KW - South African fossil record

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85126867934

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85126867934#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107452

DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107452

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85126867934

SN - 0277-3791

VL - 282

JO - Quaternary Science Reviews

JF - Quaternary Science Reviews

M1 - 107452

ER -

A reappraisal of the Border Cave 1 cranium (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Resumen

Nota bibliográfica

Financiación

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Acceder al documento

Otros archivos y enlaces

Huella

Citar esto