formed by the fusion of five sacral vertebrae; the part of the vertebral column that forms the most dorsal part of the pelvic girdle, in between the os coxae.
a protrusion made of bone at the joint between the parietal bones to which the temporalis muscles attach; common in many larger ape species and some fossil hominins.
an extinct hominin species that existed in Africa approximately 7 to 6 million years ago; fossil remains found at Toros-Menalla, locality TM 266, in Chad, suggest that Sahelanthropus tchadensis may have been bipedal; this find also led to the reevaluation of the chimp-human divergence time frame.
a behavior that allows animals to incorporate meat into the diet, but one that relies on finding the carcasses of animals that died of natural causes or were killed by other predators, rather than engaging in active predation.
the condition in which the males and females of a particular species each have different forms of the same feature or characteristic (e.g., body size, canine size). In those primate species that display marked sexual body size dimorphism, the males are larger than the females. In some species, such as gorillas and orangutans, the males are twice as large as the females (i.e., a 2:1 difference in mass).
a form of natural selection where fitness is determined by an individual's ability to compete for mates.
an accumulation of artifacts or fossils at a single location that is limited in spatial and stratigraphic extent. Some sites represent the activities of a single event (e.g., the butchery of a single animal) while other sites represent multiple activity cycles carried out by many individuals over time. Interpreting what sorts of activities are represented at a site is one of the primary goals of an archaeologist.
A geologic deposit that reslts from calcite precipitations in a wet cave.
a relative term used for bipedal hominins (those that travel on two legs) to describe features on the trunk that are closer to the head; the opposite of inferior. The term cranial is a synonym commonly used when referring to quadrupedal animals.
rotary motion that moves the thumb from the medial position to a lateral position; the opposite of pronation.
a form of positional behavior in which the body of an organism is supported by their arms or legs holding on to a branch above them; the tail may also be used in suspensory posture.
the science of classification; the organization of organisms according to their evolutionary relationships.
