O M Pearson
Biographic Data
| ID | 11420 |
|---|---|
| NAME | O M Pearson |
| GIVEN NAMES | O M |
| FAMILY NAME | Pearson |
| SIGNATURE | PEARSON O M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of New Mexico |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1814-7663 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1252 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Hofmeyr: A Late Pleistocene Human Skull from South Africa
Goda Buticha, Ethiopia
Ancient DNA and the European Neolithic: Relations and Descent
An examination of the cross‐sectional geometrical properties of the long bone diaphyses of Holocene foragers from Roonka, South Australia
OBJECTIVES: This study examines long bone diaphyseal rigidity and shape of hunter-gatherers at Roonka to make inferences about subsistence strategies and mobility of inhabitants of semi-arid southeastern Australia. Roonka is a cemetery site adjacent to the Lower Murray River, which contains over 200 individuals buried throughout the Holocene. Archaeological evidence indicates that populations living near this river corridor employed mobile, risk …
A Late Pleistocene human humerus from Rusinga Island, Lake Victoria, Kenya
Does upper limb robusticity and bilateral asymmetry support subsistence intensification at Roonka, South Australia
During the Holocene, what is now the state of South Australia experienced a shift to a drier climate with more frequent droughts c. 4 ka. The ‘intensification model’ in Australian archaeology proposes that Aboriginal people adopted subsistence strategies that exploited resources with high processing costs, while the ‘risk minimization’ model posits that people adopted more flexible foraging strategies. The purpose of this study is to determine wh…
Behavioral Differences Between Near Eastern Neanderthals and the Early Modern Humans from Skhul and Qafzeh: An Assessment Based on Comparative Samples of Holocene Humans
Engraved ostrich eggshell from the Middle Stone Age contexts of Goda Buticha, Ethiopia
Are human hands and feet affected by climate? A test of A llen's rule
OBJECTIVES: In recent years, several studies have shown that populations from cold, high-latitude regions tend to have relatively shorter limbs than populations from tropical regions, with most of the difference due to the relative length of the zeugopods (i.e., radius, ulna, tibia, fibula). This pattern has been explained either as the consequence of long-term climatic selection or of phenotypic plasticity, with temperature having a direct effec…
Cultural change or continuity in the late MSA/Early LSA of southeastern Ethiopia? The site of Goda Buticha, Dire Dawa area
Scratching the surface: A critique of Lucas et al. (2013)'s conclusion that phytoliths do not abrade enamel
Survey and explorations of caves in southeastern Ethiopia: Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age archaeology and Holocene rock art
Hominin Evolution in the Middle-Late Pleistocene: Fossils, Adaptive Scenarios, and Alternatives
Hominins from Europe and Africa shed light on functional adaptations and other aspects of lifeways during the Middle Paleolithic. By the end of that time span, Neanderthals and modern humans clearly differed physically and perhaps behaviorally. Explanations of the anatomical differences have largely focused on adaptation (directional selection) to climate and habitual activity, but it is hard to rule out the alternative of genetic drift. Drift wo…
Neurocranial evolution in modern humans: The case of Jebel Irhoud 1
Jebel Irhoud 1 represents an almost complete cranium from the North African late Middle Pleistocene. Despite the good preservation of most of its anatomical regions, its phylogenetic position is still uncertain, particularly its relationship to the emergence of the modern human lineage. The present paper supplies a basic morphometric description and comparison of the endocast of Jebel Irhoud 1. The endocast's maximum width is large when compared …
Changes in skeletal robusticity in an iron age agropastoral group: The samnites from the Alfedena necropolis (Abruzzo, Central Italy)
Cross‐sectional geometrical (CSG) properties of an Iron Age Samnite group from the Alfedena necropolis (Abruzzo, Italy, 2600–2400 B.P.) are compared with a Ligurian Neolithic sample (6000–5500 B.P.). In the period under examination, Samnites were organized in a tribal confederation led by patrilinear aristocracies, indicating incipient social stratification. In comparison, Neolithic society lacked clear signs of social hierarchy. The subsistence …
Brains versus brawn: An empirical test of Barker's brain sparing model
The Barker model of the in utero origins of diminished muscle mass in those born small invokes the adaptive “sparing” of brain tissue development at the expense of muscle. Though compelling, to date this model has not been directly tested. This article develops an allometric framework for testing the principal prediction of the Barker model—that among those born small muscle mass is sacrificed to spare brain growth—then evaluates this hypothesis …
The importance of accounting for the area of the medullary cavity in cross‐sectional geometry: A test based on the femoral midshaft
In cross‐sectional geometric (CSG) studies, both the subperiosteal and endosteal contours are considered important factors in determining bone bending rigidity. Recently, regression equations predicting CSG properties from a section's external dimensions were developed in a world‐wide sample of human long bones. The results showed high correlations between some subperiosteally derived and actual CSG parameters. We present a theoretical model that…
Ancient Health: Skeletal Indicators of Agricultural and Economic Intensification . Mark Nathan Cohen , Gillian M. M. Crane-Kramer
Statistical and biological definitions of “anatomically modern” humans: Suggestions for a unified approach to modern morphology
Much of the recent literature on the origin of modern humans has been plagued by an inability of the participants in the debate to agree on what constitutes “anatomically modern” morphology. An upshot of this disagreement has been an ongoing set of debates over which specimens are or are not anatomically modern and whether various fossil specimens such as the Florisbad cranium, Vindija Neanderthals, Klasies River Mouth mandibles, or Skhul‐Qafzeh …
Developmental plasticity in fat patterning of Ache children in response to variation in interbirth intervals: A preliminary test of the roles of external environment and maternal reproductive strategi…
A firm link between small size at birth and later more centralized fat patterning has been established in previous research. Relationships between shortened interbirth intervals and small size at birth suggest that maternal energetic prioritization may be an important, but unexplored determinant of offspring fat patterning. Potential adaptive advantages to centralized fat storage (Baker et al., 2008: In: Trevathan W, McKenna J, Smith EO, editors.…
A description of the Omo I postcranial skeleton, including newly discovered fossils
Recent fieldwork in the Kibish Formation has expanded our knowledge of the geological, archaeological, and faunal context of the Omo I skeleton, the earliest known anatomically modern human. In the course of this fieldwork, several additional fragments of the skeleton were recovered: a middle manual phalanx, a distal manual phalanx, a right talus, a large and a small fragment of the left os coxae, a portion of the distal diaphysis of the right fe…
Skeleton Keys: An Introduction to Human Skeletal Morphology, Development, and Analysis . Jeffrey H. Schwartz
Further new hominin fossils from the Kibish Formation, southwestern Ethiopia
Ethnobiology and the Science of Humankind. Roy Ellen
Robusticity and sexual dimorphism in the postcranium of modern hunter‐gatherers from Australia
Throughout much of prehistory, humans practiced a hunting and gathering subsistence strategy. Elevated postcranial robusticity and sexually dimorphic mobility patterns are presumed consequences of this strategy, in which males are attributed greater robusticity and mobility than females. Much of the basis for these trends originates from populations where skeletal correlates of activity patterns are known (e.g., cross‐sectional geometric properti…
Activity, Climate, and Postcranial Robusticity: Implications for Modern Human Origins and Scenarios of Adaptive Change
Postcranial robusticity-the massiveness of the skeleton-figures prominently in the debate over the origin of modern humans. Anthropologists use postcranial robusticity to infer the activity levels of prehistoric populations, and changes in robusticity are often used to support scenarios of adaptive change. These scenarios explain differences in morphology as the result of a change in lifestyle (habitual activity). One common scenario posits that …
Fossil Homo femur from Berg Aukas, northern Namibia
The proximal half of a hominid femur was recovered from deep within a paleokarst feature at the Berg Aukas mine, northern Namibia. The femur is fully mineralized, but it is not possible to place it in geochrono logical context. It has a very large head, an exceptionally thick diaphyseal cortex, and a very low collodiaphyseal angle, which serve to differentiate it from Holocene homologues. The femur is not attributable to Australopithecus , Parant…
The aging of Wolff's ?law: Ontogeny and responses to mechanical loading in cortical bone
The premise that bones grow and remodel throughout life to adapt to their mechanical environment is often called Wolff's law. Wolff's law, however, is not always true, and in fact comprises a variety of different processes that are best considered separately. Here we review the molecular and physiological mechanisms by which bone senses, transduces, and responds to mechanical loads, and the effects of aging processes on the relationship (if any) …
Articular area responses to mechanical loading: Effects of exercise, age, and skeletal location
How reliable are reconstructions of body mass and joint function based on articular surface areas? While the dynamic relationship between mechanical loading and cross‐sectional geometry in long bones is well‐established, the effect of loading on the subchondral articular surface area of epiphyses (hereafter, articular surface area, or ASA) has not been experimentally tested. The degree to which ASA can change in size and shape is important, becau…
Intertaxonomic Variability in Patterns of Bone Density and the Differential Representation of Bovid, Cervid, and Equid Elements in the Archaeological Record
Intertaxonomic differences in skeletal element representation in archaeological faunas may reflect preferences in the procurement, processing, transport, and/or consumption of these species by prehistoric foragers. However, the possibility that they also may result from preservational bias must be addressed before behavioral attributes of human hunters may be inferred. For example, at many archaeological sites, the remains of equids exhibit a dif…
Morphological affinities of the proximal ulna from Klasies River main site: Archaic or Modern
Basicranial influence on overall cranial shape
Cultural change or continuity in the late MSA/Early LSA of southeastern Ethiopia? The site of Goda Buticha, Dire Dawa area
A description of the Omo I postcranial skeleton, including newly discovered fossils
Recent fieldwork in the Kibish Formation has expanded our knowledge of the geological, archaeological, and faunal context of the Omo I skeleton, the earliest known anatomically modern human. In the course of this fieldwork, several additional fragments of the skeleton were recovered: a middle manual phalanx, a distal manual phalanx, a right talus, a large and a small fragment of the left os coxae, a portion of the distal diaphysis of the right fe…
Bone density studies in zooarchaeology
Re-analysis of the hominid radii from Cave of Hearths and Klasies River Mouth, South Africa
Robusticity and sexual dimorphism in the postcranium of modern hunter‐gatherers from Australia
Throughout much of prehistory, humans practiced a hunting and gathering subsistence strategy. Elevated postcranial robusticity and sexually dimorphic mobility patterns are presumed consequences of this strategy, in which males are attributed greater robusticity and mobility than females. Much of the basis for these trends originates from populations where skeletal correlates of activity patterns are known (e.g., cross‐sectional geometric properti…
Additional human fossils from Klasies River Mouth, South Africa
Changes in skeletal robusticity in an iron age agropastoral group: The samnites from the Alfedena necropolis (Abruzzo, Central Italy)
Cross‐sectional geometrical (CSG) properties of an Iron Age Samnite group from the Alfedena necropolis (Abruzzo, Italy, 2600–2400 B.P.) are compared with a Ligurian Neolithic sample (6000–5500 B.P.). In the period under examination, Samnites were organized in a tribal confederation led by patrilinear aristocracies, indicating incipient social stratification. In comparison, Neolithic society lacked clear signs of social hierarchy. The subsistence …
The importance of accounting for the area of the medullary cavity in cross‐sectional geometry: A test based on the femoral midshaft
In cross‐sectional geometric (CSG) studies, both the subperiosteal and endosteal contours are considered important factors in determining bone bending rigidity. Recently, regression equations predicting CSG properties from a section's external dimensions were developed in a world‐wide sample of human long bones. The results showed high correlations between some subperiosteally derived and actual CSG parameters. We present a theoretical model that…
Neurocranial evolution in modern humans: The case of Jebel Irhoud 1
Jebel Irhoud 1 represents an almost complete cranium from the North African late Middle Pleistocene. Despite the good preservation of most of its anatomical regions, its phylogenetic position is still uncertain, particularly its relationship to the emergence of the modern human lineage. The present paper supplies a basic morphometric description and comparison of the endocast of Jebel Irhoud 1. The endocast's maximum width is large when compared …
Multivariate analyses of the hominid ulna from Klasies River Mouth
Are human hands and feet affected by climate? A test of A llen's rule
OBJECTIVES: In recent years, several studies have shown that populations from cold, high-latitude regions tend to have relatively shorter limbs than populations from tropical regions, with most of the difference due to the relative length of the zeugopods (i.e., radius, ulna, tibia, fibula). This pattern has been explained either as the consequence of long-term climatic selection or of phenotypic plasticity, with temperature having a direct effec…
Survey and explorations of caves in southeastern Ethiopia: Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age archaeology and Holocene rock art
Hominin Evolution in the Middle-Late Pleistocene: Fossils, Adaptive Scenarios, and Alternatives
Hominins from Europe and Africa shed light on functional adaptations and other aspects of lifeways during the Middle Paleolithic. By the end of that time span, Neanderthals and modern humans clearly differed physically and perhaps behaviorally. Explanations of the anatomical differences have largely focused on adaptation (directional selection) to climate and habitual activity, but it is hard to rule out the alternative of genetic drift. Drift wo…
Further new hominin fossils from the Kibish Formation, southwestern Ethiopia
Engraved ostrich eggshell from the Middle Stone Age contexts of Goda Buticha, Ethiopia
Statistical methods for bioarchaeology: Applications of age-adjustment and logistic regression to comparisons of skeletal populations with differing age-structures
Eight hundred‐year‐old human remains from the Ituri tropical forest, Democratic Republic of Congo: The rock shelter site of Matangai Turu Northwest
Little is known about human prehistory in the central African lowland tropical forest due to a paucity of archaeological evidence. Here we report results from our archaeological investigations of a late Holocene site in the northeast Congo Basin, with emphasis on a single skeleton from the rock shelter site of Matangai Turu Northwest, in the Ituri Forest, Democratic Republic of Congo. The skeleton dates from ∼810 BP (1235 calibrated AD) and is as…
An examination of the cross‐sectional geometrical properties of the long bone diaphyses of Holocene foragers from Roonka, South Australia
OBJECTIVES: This study examines long bone diaphyseal rigidity and shape of hunter-gatherers at Roonka to make inferences about subsistence strategies and mobility of inhabitants of semi-arid southeastern Australia. Roonka is a cemetery site adjacent to the Lower Murray River, which contains over 200 individuals buried throughout the Holocene. Archaeological evidence indicates that populations living near this river corridor employed mobile, risk …
Fossil Homo femur from Berg Aukas, northern Namibia
The proximal half of a hominid femur was recovered from deep within a paleokarst feature at the Berg Aukas mine, northern Namibia. The femur is fully mineralized, but it is not possible to place it in geochrono logical context. It has a very large head, an exceptionally thick diaphyseal cortex, and a very low collodiaphyseal angle, which serve to differentiate it from Holocene homologues. The femur is not attributable to Australopithecus , Parant…
Chin morphology and sexual dimorphism in the fossil hominid mandible sample from Klasies River Mouth
The site of Klasies River Mouth (KRM) in South Africa has produced a small sample of early Upper Pleistocene hominid remains that have been a focus for discussions of the origins of modern humans. Despite certain primitive characteristics exhibited by these fossils, proponents of a single recent origin have attributed them to early modern humans. Critics of this hypothesis have emphasized the significance of the archaic features evident in this s…
Chin morphology and sexual dimorphism in the fossil hominid mandible sample from Klasies River Mouth
The site of Klasies River Mouth (KRM) in South Africa has produced a small sample of early Upper Pleistocene hominid remains that have been a focus for discussions of the origins of modern humans. Despite certain primitive characteristics exhibited by these fossils, proponents of a single recent origin have attributed them to early modern humans. Critics of this hypothesis have emphasized the significance of the archaic features evident in this s…
Morphological affinities of the proximal ulna from Klasies River main site: Archaic or Modern
Re-analysis of the hominid radii from Cave of Hearths and Klasies River Mouth, South Africa
Multivariate analyses of the hominid ulna from Klasies River Mouth
Additional human fossils from Klasies River Mouth, South Africa
Intertaxonomic Variability in Patterns of Bone Density and the Differential Representation of Bovid, Cervid, and Equid Elements in the Archaeological Record
Intertaxonomic differences in skeletal element representation in archaeological faunas may reflect preferences in the procurement, processing, transport, and/or consumption of these species by prehistoric foragers. However, the possibility that they also may result from preservational bias must be addressed before behavioral attributes of human hunters may be inferred. For example, at many archaeological sites, the remains of equids exhibit a dif…
Postcranial remains and the origin of modern humans
The nature, timing, and location of the origin of modern humans has been the subject of intense controversy for the last 15 years.1–4 Genetic data and new radiometric dates for key fossils that lie beyond the range of radiocarbon dating have substantially added to the knowledge derived from the fossil evidence documenting the transition from archaic to modern humans. These new data, however, have failed to resolve the problem in its entirety. Mos…
Basicranial influence on overall cranial shape
Activity, Climate, and Postcranial Robusticity: Implications for Modern Human Origins and Scenarios of Adaptive Change
Postcranial robusticity-the massiveness of the skeleton-figures prominently in the debate over the origin of modern humans. Anthropologists use postcranial robusticity to infer the activity levels of prehistoric populations, and changes in robusticity are often used to support scenarios of adaptive change. These scenarios explain differences in morphology as the result of a change in lifestyle (habitual activity). One common scenario posits that …
Eight hundred‐year‐old human remains from the Ituri tropical forest, Democratic Republic of Congo: The rock shelter site of Matangai Turu Northwest
Little is known about human prehistory in the central African lowland tropical forest due to a paucity of archaeological evidence. Here we report results from our archaeological investigations of a late Holocene site in the northeast Congo Basin, with emphasis on a single skeleton from the rock shelter site of Matangai Turu Northwest, in the Ituri Forest, Democratic Republic of Congo. The skeleton dates from ∼810 BP (1235 calibrated AD) and is as…
Articular area responses to mechanical loading: Effects of exercise, age, and skeletal location
How reliable are reconstructions of body mass and joint function based on articular surface areas? While the dynamic relationship between mechanical loading and cross‐sectional geometry in long bones is well‐established, the effect of loading on the subchondral articular surface area of epiphyses (hereafter, articular surface area, or ASA) has not been experimentally tested. The degree to which ASA can change in size and shape is important, becau…
Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar Depression . Jon Kalb
Eight hundred-year-old human remains from the Ituri tropical forest, Democratic Republic of Congo: The rock shelter site of Matangai Turu Northwest
Little is known about human prehistory in the central African lowland tropical forest due to a paucity of archaeological evidence. Here we report results from our archaeological investigations of a late Holocene site in the northeast Congo Basin, with emphasis on a single skeleton from the rock shelter site of Matangai Turu Northwest, in the Ituri Forest, Democratic Republic of Congo. The skeleton dates from ∼810 BP (1235 calibrated AD) and is as…
Bone density studies in zooarchaeology
Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution . Susan Oyama , Paul E. Griffiths , Russell D. Gray
Neanderthal Burials: Excavations of the Dederiyeh Cave, Afrin, Syria. Takeru Akazawa , Sultan Muhesen
Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood up. Jonathan Kingdon
On the Diffusion-Wave Model for the Spread of Modern Humans
Has the combination of genetic and fossil evidence solved the riddle of modern human origins
Debate over the origin of modern humans continues without a clear end in sight. Currently, the genetic and fossil evidence is still used to support two different interpretations of the origin of modern humans. Some researchers claim that the genetic evidence is compatible with either an Out‐of‐Africa or a Multiregional model, while other scientists argue that the evidence supports only a Multiregional model of evolution. I argue that the fossil r…
The Human Fossil Record, Vol. 2: Craniodental Morphology of the Genus Homo (Africa and Asia) . Jeffrey H. Schwartz , Ian Tattersall
The aging of Wolff's ?law: Ontogeny and responses to mechanical loading in cortical bone
The premise that bones grow and remodel throughout life to adapt to their mechanical environment is often called Wolff's law. Wolff's law, however, is not always true, and in fact comprises a variety of different processes that are best considered separately. Here we review the molecular and physiological mechanisms by which bone senses, transduces, and responds to mechanical loads, and the effects of aging processes on the relationship (if any) …
The Human Fossil Record, Vol. 4. Craniodental Morphology of Early Hominids (Genera "Australopithecus," "Paranthropus," "Orrorin"), and Overview . Jeffrey H. Schwartz , Ian Tattersall
Bone density studies and the interpretation of the faunal record
Some bones preserve better than others. For decades, researchers have attempted to quantify this observation. While many of their intrinsic qualities are known to affect how well bones preserve in the archeological record,1 the variable that has received the most attention to date is bone density.2-6 This has become the most commonly accepted proxy measure of a bone's ability to withstand destructive forces.
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (38 works) · Biology (36 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (32 works) · Geography (29 works) · Archaeology (27 works) · Paleontology (22 works) · Paleontology (20 works) · Evolutionary biology (17 works) · History (16 works) · Anatomy (13 works)