ArticleScientific reports2021
Insights into the palaeobiology of an early Homo infant: multidisciplinary investigation of the GAR IVE hemi-mandible, Melka Kunture, Ethiopia.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 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
4 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Investigating Development in Human Evolution: Specificities, Challenges, and Opportunities.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- The Pleistocene high-elevation environments between 2.02 and 0.6 Ma at Melka Kunture (Upper Awash Valley, Ethiopia) based upon stable isotope analysis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Synchrotron X-ray Studies of the Structural and Functional Hierarchies in Mineralised Human Dental Enamel: A State-of-the-Art Review.Dentistry journal · 2023Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 7 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Childhood is an ontogenetic stage unique to the modern human life history pattern. It enables the still dependent infants to achieve an extended rapid brain growth, slow somatic maturation, while benefitting from provisioning, transitional feeding, and protection from other group members. This tipping point in the evolution of human ontogeny likely emerged from early Homo. The GAR IVE hemi-mandible (1.8 Ma, Melka Kunture, Ethiopia) represents one of the rarely preserved early Homo infants (~ 3 years at death), recovered in a richly documented Oldowan archaeological context. Yet, based on the sole external inspection of its teeth, GAR IVE was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease-amelogenesis imperfecta (AI)-altering enamel. Since it may have impacted the child's survival, this diagnosis deserves deeper examination. Here, we reassess and refute this diagnosis and all associated interpretations, using an unprecedented multidisciplinary approach combining an in-depth analysis of GAR IVE (synchrotron imaging) and associated fauna. Some of the traits previously considered as diagnostic of AI can be better explained by normal growth or taphonomy, which calls for caution when diagnosing pathologies on fossils. We compare GAR IVE's dental development to other fossil hominins, and discuss the implications for the emergence of childhood in early Homo.
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.