Functional Inferences from Morphometrics: Problems Posed by Uniqueness and Diversity Among the Primates

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Abstract
Oxnard, C. E. (Dept. of Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637) 1974. Functional Inferences from Morphometrics: Problems Posed by Uniqueness and Diversity among the Primates. Syst. Zool. 22:409–424.—The problems of making functional assessments of human or prehuman fossils are those of relating individual fragments to the spectrum of morphological diversity presented by the nonhuman primates in contrast with the uniqueness provided by man. Although direct biomechanical studies can supply some information towards the functional meaning of such morphologies, indirect inductive methods are also capable of providing considerable insight. In particular, the methods of multivariate morphometrics are sometimes able to characterize the shapes of skeletal regions and their adaptations for function. Multivariate studies of several anatomical regions, shoulder, pelvis, ankle, foot, elbow and hand are now available for the Australopithecinae. These suggest that the common view, that these fossils are similar to modern man or that on those occasions when they depart from a similarity to man they resemble the African great apes, may be incorrect. Most of these fossil fragments are in fact, uniquely different from both man and man's nearest living genetic relatives, the chimpanzee and gorilla. To the extent that resemblances exist with living forms, they tend to be with the orang-utan. This does not, of course, imply genetic affinity with the orang-utan. But it very well could mean that in these fossils we see morphological remnants of adaptations to arboreal locomotion and that if indeed these animals are truly bipedal, then the nature of their bipedality may have differed uniquely from that of modern man.

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