Exploring morphological shape variation in modern human tali

Title
Exploring morphological shape variation in modern human tali
Publication Date
2017-04
Author(s)
Sorrentino, Rita
Minghetti, Caterina
Parr, William
Turley, Kevin
Wroe, Stephen
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6365-5915
Email: swroe@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:swroe
Shaw, Colin
Saers, Jaap
Su, Anne
Fiorenza, Luca
Feletti, Francesco
Frost, Stephen
Carlson, Kristian J
Belcastro, Maria Giovanna
Ryan, Timothy M
Benazzi, Stefano
Type of document
Conference Publication
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
American Association of Biological Anthropologists
Place of publication
United States of America
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/62193
Abstract

Since humans are obligate bipeds, the foot represents the only structure that directly interfaces with the ground during locomotion, and for this reason it is highly specialized. Particularly, the human talus occupies a pivotal position between the lower limb and foot, as 1) it sustains the weight of the body while distributing the load anteriorly (i.e., to the navicular) and inferiorly (i.e., to the calcaneus), and 2) it allows plantar and dorsal flexion of the foot1. Recent contributions have employed digital methods to investigate shape variation in hominoid tali2,3,4. However, little of this work has assessed talar morphology within modern humans. Here we apply a (semi) landmark based method to assess talar morphological differences between groups of modern humans living in different terrain.

Link
Citation
American Journal of Physical Anthropology

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