@article{4593ae4828524aa0a0acf9ef62603634,
title = "The vertebrae and ribs of Homo naledi",
abstract = "Hominin evolution featured shifts from a trunk shape suitable for climbing and housing a large gut to a trunk adapted to bipedalism and higher quality diets. Our knowledge regarding the tempo, mode, and context in which these derived traits evolved has been limited, based largely on a small-bodied Australopithecus partial skeleton (A.L. 288-1; “Lucy”) and a juvenile Homo erectus skeleton (KNM-WT 15000; “Turkana Boy”). Two recent discoveries, of a large-bodied Australopithecus afarensis (KSD-VP-1/1) and two Australopithecus sediba partial skeletons (MH1 and MH2), have added to our understanding of thorax evolution; however, little is known about thorax morphology in early Homo. Here we describe hominin vertebrae, ribs, and sternal remains from the Dinaledi chamber of the Rising Star cave system attributed to Homo naledi. Although the remains are highly fragmented, the best-preserved specimens—two lower thoracic vertebrae and a lower rib—were found in association and belong to a small-bodied individual. A second lower rib may belong to this individual as well. All four of these individual elements are amongst the smallest known in the hominin fossil record. H. naledi is characterized by robust, relatively uncurved lower ribs and a relatively large spinal canal. We expect that the recovery of additional material from Rising Star Cave will clarify the nature of these traits and shed light on H. naledi functional morphology and phylogeny.",
keywords = "Australopithecus, Bipedalism, Ribcage, Thorax, Trunk, Vertebral column",
author = "Williams, {Scott A.} and Daniel Garc{\'i}a-Mart{\'i}nez and Markus Bastir and Meyer, {Marc R.} and Shahed Nalla and John Hawks and Peter Schmid and Churchill, {Steven E.} and Berger, {Lee R.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors thank the Editor Sarah Elton, the AE, and reviewers who provided useful and encouraging feedback at this journal and on earlier versions of this manuscript. We thank the many funding agencies that supported this work, in particular the National Geographic Society, the National Research Foundation, the Lyda Hill Foundation, and the Lee R. Berger Foundation for Exploration for particularly significant funding of the discovery, recovery, and analysis of this material. We also thank the University of the Witwatersrand and the Evolutionary Studies Institute, as well as the South African National Centre of Excellence in PalaeoSciences and Bernhard Zipfel for curating the material and hosting the authors while studying the material. Erik Trinkaus made casts of Neandertal vertebrae available to SAW. DGM and MB were funded through CGL2012-37279, MINECO, Spain, and a Leakey Research Grant to DGM. A visit to the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA; Tervuren, Belgium) by DGM was funded by the European Commission's Research Infrastructure Action via the Synthesys Project (BE-TAF-5639). We thank the following individuals for curating and providing access to comparative materials in their care: Stephany Potze and Lazarus Kgasi (Ditsong Museums); Yonas Yilma, Tomas Getachew, Jared Assefa, and Getachew Senishaw (National Museum of Ethiopia and Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage); Eugenia Cunha (Santar{\'e}m collection); Miguel Almeida, Maria Teresa Ferreira, and Sofia Wasterlain (Paseo de Anel Verde Collection); Wim Wendelen and Emmanuel Gilissen (RMCA); Lyman Jellema and Yohannes Haile-Selassie (Cleveland Museum of Natural History); and Eileen Westwig, Eleanor Hoeger, Aja Marcato, and Neil Duncan (American Museum of Natural History). SAW was funded through the New York University Research Challenge Fund. Contributions to mapping the cave system from the Speleological Exploration Club, the Free cavers, and CROSA caving societies are acknowledged. We thank Emma Mbua, Fred Spoor, and the National Museums of Kenya Earth Science Department for providing CT scans of the KNM WT-15000 axial skeleton and Wolfgang Recheis (Medical University, Innsbruck) for modern human data. We thank the South African Heritage Resource Agency for the necessary permits to work on the Rising Star site; the Jacobs family and Lee R. Berger Foundation for Exploration for granting access; our exploration team consisting of Pedro Boshoff, Rick Hunter, and Steve Tucker; excavators K. Lindsay Eaves, Marina Elliot, Elen Feuerriegel, Alia Gurtov, Hannah Morris, and Becca Peixotto; and Wilma Lawrence, Bonita De Klerk, Natasha Barbolini, Merrill Vanderwalt, and Justin Mukanku for their assistance during all phases of the project. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 Elsevier Ltd",
year = "2017",
month = mar,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.11.003",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "104",
pages = "136--154",
journal = "Journal of Human Evolution",
issn = "0047-2484",
publisher = "Academic Press Inc.",
}