Estimating surface area in early hominins.
Height and weight-based methods of estimating surface area have played an important role in the development of the current consensus regarding the role of thermoregulation in human evolution. However, such methods may not be reliable when applied to early hominins because their limb proportions differ markedly from those of humans. Here, we report a study in which this possibility was evaluated by comparing surface area estimates generated with the best-known height and weight-based method to estimates generated with a method that is sensitive to proportional differences. We found that the two methods yield indistinguishable estimates when applied to taxa whose limb proportions are similar to those of humans, but significantly different results when applied to taxa whose proportions differ from those of humans. We also found that the discrepancy between the estimates generated by the two methods is almost entirely attributable to inter-taxa differences in limb proportions. One corollary of these findings is that we need to reassess hypotheses about the role of thermoregulation in human evolution that have been developed with the aid of height and weight-based methods of estimating body surface area. Another is that we need to use other methods in future work on fossil hominin body surface areas.
Laboratory of Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. agc6@sfu.ca
Alan
A
Cross
Mark
M
Collard
D000818:Animals; D001699:Biometry; D001830:Body Surface Area; D001835:Body Weight; D015186:Hominidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology*
Nature. 2005 Oct 13;437(7061):1012-7
16229067
Am J Phys Anthropol. 1996 Apr;99(4):547-70
8779338
Nutrition. 1989 Sep-Oct;5(5):303-11; discussion 312-3
2520314
PLoS One. 2008 Jun 18;3(6):e2464
18560580
J Hum Evol. 2004 Apr;46(4):433-65
15066379
Appl Ergon. 2003 May;34(3):273-8
12737928
Cancer Chemother Rep. 1970 Aug;54(4):225-35
5527019
Stat Med. 1996 Jul 15;15(13):1325-32
8841644
Science. 2009 Oct 2;326(5949):100-6
19810199
Am J Phys Anthropol. 1998 Aug;106(4):483-503
9712477