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Sarah Elton's Outputs (65)

Bipedalism or bipedalisms: The os coxae of StW 573 (2024)
Journal Article
Crompton, R., Elton, S., Heaton, J., Pickering, T., Carlson, K., Jashashvili, T., Beaudet, A., Bruxelles, L., Kuman, K., Thorpe, S. K., Hirasaki, E., Scott, C., Sellers, W., Pataky, T., Clarke, R., & McClymont, J. (online). Bipedalism or bipedalisms: The os coxae of StW 573. Journal of Anatomy, https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.14106

There has been a long debate about the possibility of multiple contemporaneous species of Australopithecus in both eastern and southern Africa, potentially exhibiting different forms of bipedal locomotion. Here, we describe the previously unreported... Read More about Bipedalism or bipedalisms: The os coxae of StW 573.

Biomechanics in anthropology (2024)
Journal Article
Berthaume, M., & Elton, S. (2024). Biomechanics in anthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology, 33(2), Article e22019. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.22019

Biomechanics is the set of tools that explain organismal movement and mechanical behavior and links the organism to the physicality of the world. As such, biomechanics can relate behaviors and culture to the physicality of the organism. Scale is crit... Read More about Biomechanics in anthropology.

Climate, not Quaternary biogeography, explains skull morphology of the long-tailed macaque on the Sunda Shelf (2023)
Journal Article
Grunstra, N. D., Louys, J., & Elton, S. (2023). Climate, not Quaternary biogeography, explains skull morphology of the long-tailed macaque on the Sunda Shelf. Quaternary Science Reviews, 310, Article 108121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108121

Sundaland, comprising the low-lying Sunda Shelf, the major islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, as well as many smaller surrounding islands, formed a contiguous landmass through much of the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Subsequent late-Pleistocene risin... Read More about Climate, not Quaternary biogeography, explains skull morphology of the long-tailed macaque on the Sunda Shelf.

Comment (Case 3847) – Support for proposed conservation of Simopithecus oswaldi Andrews, 1916 (currently Theropithecus oswaldi; Mammalia, Primates, Cercopithecidae) by reversal of precedence with Cynocephalus atlanticus Thomas, 1884 (see BZN 78: 99–106 [Case]; BZN 79: 53–54 [Comment]; BZN 79: 55–57 [authors' response to Comment]) (2022)
Journal Article
Elton, S., Adams, J. W., Arenson, J. L., Beaudet, A., Belmaker, M., Harrison, T., Jolly, C. J., & Hlusko, L. (2022). Comment (Case 3847) – Support for proposed conservation of Simopithecus oswaldi Andrews, 1916 (currently Theropithecus oswaldi; Mammalia, Primates, Cercopithecidae) by reversal of precedence with Cynocephalus atlanticus Thomas, 1884 (see BZN 78: 99–106 [Case]; BZN 79: 53–54 [Comment]; BZN 79: 55–57 [authors' response to Comment]). Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, 79(1), 58-60. https://doi.org/10.21805/bzn.v79.a012

Skull variation in Afro-Eurasian monkeys results from both adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary processes (2022)
Journal Article
Schroeder, L., Elton, S., & Ackermann, R. R. (2022). Skull variation in Afro-Eurasian monkeys results from both adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary processes. Scientific Reports, 12(1), Article 12516. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16734-x

Afro-Eurasian monkeys originated in the Miocene and are the most species-rich modern primate family. Molecular and fossil data have provided considerable insight into their evolutionary divergence, but we know considerably less about the evolutionary... Read More about Skull variation in Afro-Eurasian monkeys results from both adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary processes.

StW 573 Australopithecus prometheus: Its Significance for an Australopith Bauplan (2021)
Journal Article
Crompton, R., McClymont, J., Elton, S., Thorpe, S., Sellers, W., Heaton, J., Pickering, T., Pataky, T., Carlson, K., Jashashvili, T., Beaudet, A., Bruxelles, L., Goh, E., Kuman, K., & Clarke, R. (2022). StW 573 Australopithecus prometheus: Its Significance for an Australopith Bauplan. Folia Primatologica, 92(5-6), 243-275. https://doi.org/10.1159/000519723

The StW 573 skeleton of Australopithecus prometheus from Sterkfontein Member 2 is some 93% complete and thus by far the most complete member of that genus yet found. Firmly dated at 3.67 Ma, it is one of the earliest specimens of its genus. A crucial... Read More about StW 573 Australopithecus prometheus: Its Significance for an Australopith Bauplan.

On the misidentification of species: sampling error in primates and other mammals using geometric morphometrics in more than 4,000 individuals (2021)
Journal Article
Cardini, A., Elton, S., Kovarovic, K., Strand Vidarsdottir, U., & Polly, D. (2021). On the misidentification of species: sampling error in primates and other mammals using geometric morphometrics in more than 4,000 individuals. Evolutionary Biology, 48(2), 190-220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-021-09531-3

An accurate classification is the basis for research in biology. Morphometrics and morphospecies play an important role in modern taxonomy, with geometric morphometrics increasingly applied as a favourite analytical tool. Yet, really large samples ar... Read More about On the misidentification of species: sampling error in primates and other mammals using geometric morphometrics in more than 4,000 individuals.

Ontogenetic and morphological variation in primate long bones reflect signals of size and behavior (2020)
Journal Article
Nadell, J., Elton, S., & Kovarovic, K. (2021). Ontogenetic and morphological variation in primate long bones reflect signals of size and behavior. American journal of physical anthropology, 174(2), 327-351. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24198

Objectives Many primates change their locomotor behavior as they mature from infancy to adulthood. Here we investigate how long bone cross‐sectional geometry in Pan, Gorilla, Pongo, Hylobatidae, and Macaca varies in shape and form over ontogeny, incl... Read More about Ontogenetic and morphological variation in primate long bones reflect signals of size and behavior.

Baboon biogeography, divergence and evolution: morphological and palaeoecological perspectives (2020)
Journal Article
Elton, S., & Dunn, J. (2020). Baboon biogeography, divergence and evolution: morphological and palaeoecological perspectives. Journal of Human Evolution, 145, Article 102799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102799

Papio originated in the early Pleistocene and diverged into multiple species, six of which are extant. Among parapatric Papio species, there are obvious phenotypic differences that arose during the radiation of the genus. We use data from modern babo... Read More about Baboon biogeography, divergence and evolution: morphological and palaeoecological perspectives.

Insights into the evolution of social systems and species from baboon studies (2019)
Journal Article
Fischer, J., Higham, J. P., Alberts, S. C., Barrett, L., Beehner, J. C., Bergman, T. J., Carter, A. J., Collins, A., Elton, S., Fagot, J., Ferreira da Silva, M. J., Hammerschmidt, K., Henzi, P., Jolly, C. J., Knauf, S., Kopp, G. H., Rogers, J., Roos, C., Ross, C., Seyfarth, R. M., …Zinner, D. (2019). Insights into the evolution of social systems and species from baboon studies. eLife, 8, Article e50989. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.50989

Baboons, members of the genus Papio, comprise six closely related species distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa and southwest Arabia. The species exhibit more ecological flexibility and a wider range of social systems than many other primates. Th... Read More about Insights into the evolution of social systems and species from baboon studies.

Is there a "Wainer's rule"? Testing which sex varies most as an example analysis using GueSDat, the free Guenon Skull Database (2017)
Journal Article
Cardini, A., & Elton, S. (2017). Is there a "Wainer's rule"? Testing which sex varies most as an example analysis using GueSDat, the free Guenon Skull Database. Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy, 28(2), 147-156. https://doi.org/10.4404/hystrix-28.2-12139

The distinguished statistician Howard Wainer claimed that larger phenotypic variance in males might be a general occurrence in mammals. We called this putative pattern 'Wainer's rule' and employed a dataset of more than 1300 specimens, each measured... Read More about Is there a "Wainer's rule"? Testing which sex varies most as an example analysis using GueSDat, the free Guenon Skull Database.

Phylogeny, phylogenetic inference, and cranial evolution in pitheciids and Aotus (2016)
Journal Article
Bjarnason, A., Soligo, C., & Elton, S. (2017). Phylogeny, phylogenetic inference, and cranial evolution in pitheciids and Aotus. American Journal of Primatology, 79(3), Article e22621. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22621

Pitheciids, one of the major radiations of New World monkeys endemic to South and Central America, are distributed in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, and include Callicebus, Cacajao, Chiropotes, and Pithecia. Molecular phylogenetics strongly support p... Read More about Phylogeny, phylogenetic inference, and cranial evolution in pitheciids and Aotus.

Mismatch or mass marketing? Stone Age diets, industrialisation and ultra-processed foods (in Turkish) (2016)
Journal Article
Elton, S. (2016). Mismatch or mass marketing? Stone Age diets, industrialisation and ultra-processed foods (in Turkish). Toplum ve hekim, 31(5), 323-333

The Stone Age diet, which first began to appear in the literature in the 1950s and became prominent in the 1980s and 1990s, has become an increasingly popular type of diet. This type of diet aims to create the analogy of pre-aging people's diet as a... Read More about Mismatch or mass marketing? Stone Age diets, industrialisation and ultra-processed foods (in Turkish).

Quaternary fossil fauna from the Luangwa Valley, Zambia (2016)
Journal Article
Bishop, L., Barham, L., Ditchfield, P., Elton, S., Harcourt-Smith, W., & Dawkins, P. (2016). Quaternary fossil fauna from the Luangwa Valley, Zambia. Journal of Quaternary Science, 31(3), 178-190. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2855

This paper describes a large collection of Quaternary fossil fauna from the Luangwa Rift Valley, Zambia. Stone Age artefacts have been recovered from stratified fluvial contexts, but no in situ fossil faunas have yet been recovered. We report on 500... Read More about Quaternary fossil fauna from the Luangwa Valley, Zambia.

Exploring morphological generality in the Old World monkey postcranium using an ecomorphological framework (2016)
Journal Article
Elton, S., Jansson, A., Meloro, C., Louys, J., Plummer, T., & Bishop, L. C. (2016). Exploring morphological generality in the Old World monkey postcranium using an ecomorphological framework. Journal of Anatomy, 228(4), 534-560. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.12428

Nearly all primates are ecologically dependent on trees, but they are nonetheless found in an enormous range of habitats, from highly xeric environments to dense rainforest. Most primates have a relatively ‘generalised’ skeleton, enabling locomotor f... Read More about Exploring morphological generality in the Old World monkey postcranium using an ecomorphological framework.

Disrupted seasonal biology impacts health, food security and ecosystems (2015)
Journal Article
Stevenson, T., Visser, M., Arnold, W., Barrett, P., Biello, S., Dawson, A., …Helm, B. (2015). Disrupted seasonal biology impacts health, food security and ecosystems. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282(1817), https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1453

The rhythm of life on earth is shaped by seasonal changes in the environment. Plants and animals show profound annual cycles in physiology, health, morphology, behaviour and demography in response to environmental cues. Seasonal biology impacts ecosy... Read More about Disrupted seasonal biology impacts health, food security and ecosystems.

Phylogeny, ecology, and morphological evolution in the atelid cranium (2015)
Journal Article
Bjarnason, A., Soligo, C., & Elton, S. (2015). Phylogeny, ecology, and morphological evolution in the atelid cranium. International Journal of Primatology, 36(3), 513-529. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-015-9839-z

Reconstructing evolutionary relationships of living and extinct primate groups requires reliable phylogenetic inference based on morphology, as DNA is rarely preserved in fossil specimens. Atelids (family Atelidae) are a monophyletic clade and one of... Read More about Phylogeny, ecology, and morphological evolution in the atelid cranium.

The potential and pitfalls of using simple dental metrics to infer the diets of African antelopes (Mammalia: Bovidae) (2015)
Journal Article
Louys, J., Meloro, C., Elton, S., Ditchfield, P., & Bishop, L. C. (2015). The potential and pitfalls of using simple dental metrics to infer the diets of African antelopes (Mammalia: Bovidae). Palaeontologia africana, 49, 8-24

The use of mesowear to infer diets of extinct species is fast becoming widespread in palaeoecological studies. Nevertheless, traditional mesowear analyses suffer from a specimen number limitation, in that a minimum number of specimens identified to t... Read More about The potential and pitfalls of using simple dental metrics to infer the diets of African antelopes (Mammalia: Bovidae).