Laura Shackelford: Postcranial Anatomy of Modern Humans

13,700-year-old burial site excavated at Jebel Sahaba in northern Sudan. Photo from SMU News & Media Relations.	The primary goal of this research is to evaluate the postcranial anatomy of modern humans from the Upper Paleolithic of North Africa and Southeast Asia in light of trends in robusticity known from the European fossil record. These trends include a modest increase in upper limb robusticity and a decrease in lower limb strength, seemingly related to behavioral changes that indicate resource intensification and decreased mobility. It is unknown whether these are regional or global trends of the Upper Paleolithic because of a shortage of fossil material and the low level of paleobiological analysis of modern human remains from geographical areas outside of central and western Europe. To address these questions, I am analyzing data that reflect postcranial robusticity of the upper and lower limbs – cross-sectional geometry, articular robusticity, muscular hypertrophy, and measures of mechanical efficiency.
I am combining existing data for fossils from the Upper Paleolithic of Europe and East Asia with data that I have collected for fossils from the sites of Jebel Sahaba and Wadi Halfa in Sudan; Afalou in Algeria; Taforalt in Morocco; and El Wad and Kebara in the Levant. Additional data come from Tam Hang in northern Laos, a recently rediscovered sample that further expands the geographic range from which Late Upper Paleolithic fossils are currently known. This research includes the biomechanical description and analysis of previously unstudied populations of the Late Upper Paleolithic. Since the terminal Pleistocene is a period of dramatic environmental changes associated with the Last Glacial Maximum, this project will contribute to a more global picture of biobehavioral variation in Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer evolution.