Developmental Approaches to Human Evolution

Developmental Approaches to Human Evolution encapsulates the current state of evolutionary developmental anthropology. This emerging scientific field applies tools and approaches from modern developmental biology to understand the role of genetic and developmental processes in driving morphological and cognitive evolution in humans, non-human primates and in the laboratory organisms used to model these changes. Featuring contributions from well-established pioneers and emerging leaders, this volume is designed to build research momentum and catalyze future innovation in this burgeoning field. The book s broad research scope encompasses soft and hard tissues of the head and body, including the skeleton, special senses and the brain. Developmental Approaches to Human Evolution is an invaluable resource on the mechanisms of primate and vertebrate evolution for scholars across a wide array of intersecting disciplines, including primatology, paleoanthropology, vertebrate morphology, evolutionary developmental biology and health sciences.

Author Biography: Julia Boughner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology at the University of Saskatchewan. Her laboratory researches dental and jaw development in great apes, the genetic underpinnings of coordinated jaw and tooth morphogenesis and evolution in mammals, and early-acting risk factors for third molar impaction in humans. Campbell Rolian is Assistant Professor in anatomy in the Department of Comparative Biology and Experimental Medicine in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary. His current work centers around an artificial selection experiment in mice, which will allow him to study developmental, evolutionary and functional aspects of skeletal variation in the vertebrate limb skeleton.

Contributors vii Foreword: Humans from Embryos ix Gunter P. Wagner 1 Introduction to Evo Devo Anthro 1 Campbell Rolian and Julia C. Boughner 2 Chondrocranial Growth, Developmental Integration and Evolvability in the Human Skull 17 Neus Martinez Abadias, Mireia Esparza, Torstein Sjovold and Benedikt Hallgrimsson 3 The Tooth of the Matter: The Evo Devo of Coordinated Phenotypic Change 35 Julia C. Boughner 4 Genetic Regulation of Amelogenesis and Implications for Hominin Ancestors 61 Rodrigo S. Lacruz 5 Evo Devo Sheds Light on Mechanisms of Human Evolution: Limb Proportions and Penile Spines 77 Philip L. Reno 6 Out on a Limb: Development and the Evolution of the Human Appendicular Skeleton 101 Nathan M. Young and Terence D. Capellini 7 Tinkering with Growth Plates: A Developmental Simulation of Limb Bone Evolution in Hominoids 139 Campbell Rolian 8 Origin, Development, and Evolution of Primate Muscles, with Notes on Human Anatomical Variations and Anomalies 167 Rui Diogo and Bernard Wood 9 The Evolutionary Biology of Human Neurodevelopment: Evo Neuro Devo Comes of Age 205 Bernard Crespi and Emma Leach 10 Evolving the Developing Cortex: Conserved Gradients of Neurogenesis Scale and Channel New Functions in Primates 231 Christine J. Charvet and Barbara L. Finlay 11 Growing Up Fast, Maturing Slowly: The Evolution of a Uniquely Modern Human Pattern of Brain Development 261 Philipp Gunz 12 FOXP2 and the Genetic and Developmental Basis of Human Language 285 Carles Lalueza Fox 13 Assembly Instructions Included 297 Kenneth Weiss and Anne Buchanan Index 317