Abstract
THE essential point at issue, which Dr. Robinson contested in his first communication1, is the general proposition2 that the presence of a sagittal crest in the skull of an Old World primate implies the presence of a nuchal (= occipital) crest; and further, that if one of the two is absent, it is usually the sagittal crest. “Unless Paranthropus crassidens is the one exception to a morphogenetic process common to all known Primates”, I therefore suggested that the fact that two presumed female Paranthropus skulls were furnished with high sagittal crests implied that they had also possessed powerful occipital crests and an ape-like planum nuchale. In turn this implied a nuchal musculature and a carriage of the head on the vertebral column of the kind that is seen in the ape. I also suggested that this conclusion was consistent with certain other features of the Australopithecine skull.
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References
Robinson, J. T., Nature, 174, 262 (1954).
Zuckerman, S., chapter in “Evolution as a Process”, 300 (Allen and Unwin, London, 1954).
Broom, R., and Robinson, J. T., Transvaal Mus. Mem., No. 6 (Pretoria, 1952).
Zuckerman, S., Nature, 174, 264 (1954).
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ZUCKERMAN, S. Nuchal Crests in Australopithecines. Nature 174, 1198 (1954). https://doi.org/10.1038/1741198a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1741198a0
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