 
ERIK TRINKAUS Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor in Arts & Sciences, Physical Anthropology Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1975 314-935-5207 Vita trinkaus[at]artsci.wustl.edu |
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ERIK TRINKAUS Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor in Arts & Sciences, Physical Anthropology Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1975 314-935-5207 Vita trinkaus[at]artsci.wustl.edu |
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My research is concerned with the evolution of the genus Homo as a background to recent human diversity. I have focused on the paleoanthropological study of late archaic and early modern humans, emphasizing biological reflections of the nature, degree and patterning of the behavioral shifts between these two groups of Pleistocene humans. This research includes considerations of the "origins of modern humans" debate, the interpretation of the archeological record, and patterns of recent human anatomical variations. However, it has been principally through the analysis of human fossil remains that I have sought to shed light on these issues. This research involves: the functional (biomechanical) analysis of head and limb remains, considerations of respiratory and thermal adaptations, interpretations of ecogeographical patterning, evaluations of neuroanatomical evolution, assessments of the interrelationships between these anatomically-based patterns, decipherment of life history parameters, and paleopathological analyses to assess differential levels and patterns of stress. As such, this work has involved diverse areas of research, including biomechanics, bone biology, taphonomy, demography, pathology and recent human skeletal biology, in addition to traditional aspects of human paleontological analysis.
Until recently, most of these analyses have been concerned with the Neandertals, employing them as generally indicative of late archaic humans and as a mirror against which to see the emergence of modern human biology. As a result, we now know more about the paleobiology of the Neandertals than we do about earlier Pleistocene hominids or early modern humans. My research has therefore expanded to focus on the complex patterns of human evolutionary change through the Early and especially Middle Pleistocene, and especially on the diversity, paleobiology and behavior of early modern humans.
The analyses of early modern humans includes considerations of thoser from Africa and eastern Asia, but it focuses on those from the Middle Paleolithic of the Near East (Qafzeh and Skhul) and the European earlier Upper Paleolithic. In addition to a series of analyses of specific aspects of their anatomy, this research has involved three projects.
The first project, which resulted in a monograph in 2002, involved the early Upper Paleolithic Paleolithic (ca.25,000 B.P.) child's skeleton from the Abrido do Lagar Velho, Portugal, a specimen which indicates some degree of admixture between the Neandertals and early modern humans in Iberia.
The second project, which is ongoing, concerns the the largest known sample of early modern human remains, those from the sites of Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov in southern Moravia, Czech Republic dated to between 25,000 and 27,000 B.P. A fossil catalogue with measurements of the remains has appeared (The People of the Pavlovian), and a descriptive monograph on the remains is in preparation and will be published by Oxford University Press in 2004.
The third project began in 2002 with the discovery, in southwestern Romania, of early modern human remains in the Pestera cu Oase. These fossils, which were found among cave bear bones in a karstic cave, are dated to ca.35,000 B.P. and represent the earliest modern humans in Europe.
These new discoveries and analyses of existing materials are changing our impressions of early modern human biology, which relate to both the emergence of modern humans and the subsequent evolution of "anatomically modern" humanity.
Human paleontology, Human Functional Anatomy, Paleobiological analysis of skeletal remains, Paleoanthropology, Human Variation, The Neandertal Legacy
Trinkaus, E.
(2006) Modern human versus Neandertal evolutionary distinctiveness. Current Anthropology 47(4), 597-620.
Trinkaus, E. & Svoboda, J.A. (Eds.)
(2005) Early Modern Human Evolution in Central Europe : The People of Dolní Vestonice and Pavlov . Dolní Vestonice Studies 12. New York : Oxford University Press. pp. 489.
Trinkaus, E.
(2005) Early modern humans. Annual Review of Anthropology 34, 207-230 .†
(2005) Anatomical evidence for the antiquity of human footwear use. Journal of Archaeological Science 32, 1515-1526.
(2005) The adiposity paradox in the middle Danubian Gravettian. Anthropologie ( Brno ) 43, 263-271.
Trinkaus, E., Moldovan, O., Milota, S., Bîlgar, A., Sarcina, L., Athreya, S., Bailey, S.E., Rodrigo, R., Gherase, M., Higham, T., Bronk Ramsey, C. & van der Plicht, J.
(2003) An early modern human from the Pestera cu Oase , Romania . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100, 11231-11236.
Zilhão, J. & Trinkaus, E. (Eds.)
(2002) Portrait of the Artist as a Child. The Gravettian Human Skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho and its Archeological Context . Trabalhos de Arqueologia Vol. 22. pp. 609.
Trinkaus, E., & Shipman, P.
(1993) The Neandertals: Changing the Image of Mankind. New York : Alfred A. Knopf Pub. pp. 454.
Trinkaus, E.
(1983) The Shanidar Neandertals. New York : Academic Press. pp. 502.
