ArticleNature ecology & evolution2020
Rib cage anatomy in Homo erectus suggests a recent evolutionary origin of modern human body shape.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- The co-evolution of hominins and Stone Age culture.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2026Review
- Thorax shape reconstruction from limited CT-digitized palpable landmarks using statistical shape modeling.Medical & biological engineering & computing · 2026Article
- Rib Cross-Sectional Mineralized Area in Early Pleistocene Hominins: Insights From the Homo antecessor and H. erectus s. l. Fossil Record.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Ribcage Morphology in Native South American Populations From Different Altitudes: Insights From a Global Comparative Framework.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Fossil ribcages of Homo sapiens provide new insights into modern human evolution.Communications biology · 2025Article
- How to make a digital reconstruction of the human ribcage.Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- The aorta in humans and African great apes, and cardiac output and metabolic levels in human evolution.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Gesture, spatial cognition and the evolution of language.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Variation in human 3D trunk shape and its functional implications in hominin evolution.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The earliest Pleistocene record of a large-bodied hominin from the Levant supports two out-of-Africa dispersal events.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Early development of the Neanderthal ribcage reveals a different body shape at birth compared to modern humans.Science advances · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 13 institutions in 9 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The tall and narrow body shape of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved via changes in the thorax, pelvis and limbs. It is debated, however, whether these modifications first evolved together in African Homo erectus, or whether H. erectus had a more primitive body shape that was distinct from both the more ape-like Australopithecus species and H. sapiens. Here we present the first quantitative three-dimensional reconstruction of the thorax of the juvenile H. erectus skeleton, KNM-WT 15000, from Nariokotome, Kenya, along with its estimated adult rib cage, for comparison with H. sapiens and the Kebara 2 Neanderthal. Our three-dimensional reconstruction demonstrates a short, mediolaterally wide and anteroposteriorly deep thorax in KNM-WT 15000 that differs considerably from the much shallower thorax of H. sapiens, pointing to a recent evolutionary origin of fully modern human body shape. The large respiratory capacity of KNM-WT 15000 is compatible with the relatively stocky, more primitive, body shape of H. erectus.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.