Embryogeny and Phylogeny of the Human Posture 2

Anne Dambricourt Malasse is a paleoanthropologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) attached to the National Museum of Natural History, at the Institut de paléontologie humaine, Paris. She studies the straightening of the nervous system in the primate lineage that leads to human posture and questions its future after having demonstrated its embryonic and phylogenetic origin in 1987.

• Chapter 1. The 20th Century. A New Science: Human Paleontology 11.1. Introduction 11.2. Human paleontology, a nascent science 21.2.1. The Java erect ape-man, or the missing link, Pithecanthropus 31.2.2. Human paleontology and secularism 61.2.3. The first Neanderthal Man in French territory and his ancestor in Germanic lands 91.2.4. The Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, a foundation of Prince Albert 1st of Monaco 111.3. Presuppositions 131.3.1. The Neanderthal Man, a stooped posture? 131.3.2. Embryologists, geneticists and paleontology at the beginning of the 20th century 13Chapter 2. Asia, The Cradle of Humanity 172.1. Teilhard de Chardin, a destiny from Piltdown to the Muséum 172.2. The primate ancestor of the human lineage in Montauban 202.3. Teilhard de Chardin sets out the main phylogenetic principles 212.4. Human paleontology is a branch of planetology 252.5. China, the promise of very ancient mammalian and human species 292.6. Peking Man: a small brain but well-cut tools 322.7. The first study of the internal basis of a Hominidae fossil 362.8. A new paradigm: telencephalization 38Chapter 3. South and East Africa: The New Cradle 433.1. Gracile, robust Australopithecines and Humans 433.2. “A systematic research plan for Early Man in South Africa” 463.3. The Princeton synthetic theory (neo-Darwinism) and the Sorbonne replica (neo-Lamarckism) 503.4. Hominization, “background orthogenesis” 533.5. First synthesis: Man and the third axis of cosmic evolution of increasing complexity–consciousness 56Chapter 4. The Body, Arboricolism and Adaptation: The Years 1950–1980 654.1. Under the brain, a body 654.2. Hominization of the skull and posture, French schools 694.2.1. The École de Paris, The Sorbonne Museum of Natural History 69Chapter 5. The Embryonic and Phylogenetic Origins of Human Posture 795.1. A reversal of perspectives 795.1.1. The origins of Man: the first doctoral school of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle 795.2. Evidence of craniofacial contraction 875.2.1. Materials, method and objectives 875.2.2. Protocol and results for current species 905.2.3. Comparison of mandibular growth trajectories 985.3. The embryonic origin of the sphenoidal angle and cranio-spinal straightening 1055.3.1. Chondrocranium rotation according to Levi (1900) 1055.3.2. A marker for embryonic trajectories: the dorsal cord 1095.3.3. Morphogenesis of Meckel’s cartilage 1145.3.4. The organization of intra-sphenoidal synchondrosis: a convection cell 1155.3.5. The planum basale of other primates and mammals 1175.3.6. Sphenoid rotation and semi-circular channels 1235.3.7. The base of a human fetus without straightening: the semi-circular canals are still human 1285.4. Craniofacial contraction 1305.4.1. The double craniofacial pantograph 1305.4.2. Internal and external craniofacial contraction angles 1325.5. Conclusion: developmental heterochronies and dynamic trajectories 140Chapter 6. Fossil Species: From the First Primates to the First Hominids 1436.1. Mandibles, witnesses of straightening 1436.1.1. The first primates 1446.1.2. The first simians or monkeys 1456.1.3. Great apes 1466.2. The great ape-Hominidae transition: an acceleration in the complexity of embryogenesis 1566.2.1. Ardipithecus: 5.8 to 3.8 Ma, Ethiopia 1566.2.2. Where to find their origins: trees, tall grasses or the placenta? 1596.2.3. Australopithecus and the oldest species that defines it: anamensis or afarensis? 1606.2.4. Australopithecus and Homo contemporaries at 4 million years? 1616.3. Axial straightening, cranio-palatal balance and occlusion of Hominids sensu stricto 1646.3.1. The Pliocene and Lower Pleistocene African Hominids 1646.3.2. Basi-cranial straightening, cerebellization and encephalization 1856.3.3. Conclusion: Australopithecus, Paranthropus and prae-Homo, three thresholds of embryonic verticality 1866.3.4. Humanity’s territory of otherness 188Chapter 7. Homo and Sapiens Embryogenesis 1917.1. Fossil taxa of the genus Homo 1917.2. Fossil mandibles from Homo sapiens 1957.3. The Neanderthal is not a Sapiens 1977.4. The cerebellum position of extinct Homo species 1987.5. What is the relationship between the Neanderthals and the Sapiens? 2057.5.1. Skhul in Israel (Near East): the oldest Sapiens burial but with a young Neanderthal too 2057.5.2. Jebel Irhoud in Morocco (North Africa) is not a Homo sapiens 2067.5.3. Homo floresiensis, the Asian Hobbit, parent of Homo habilis 2107.5.4. Conclusion: the embryonic threshold between Homo and Sapiens 2107.6. The collapse of a paradigm: Man was present in Asia before the end of the Tertiary Era 2127.7. Gracilization, cerebellization, anticipation and emotion 2147.8. The new Rubicon: brain stem verticality and cerebellar instability 2167.8.1. The body axis and Earth’s gravity field 2167.8.2. Tools or utensils? 2177.8.3. From the reflection of the image to the symbolic creation of its meaning 2197.9. New sciences for an emerging evolutionary problem 2217.10. The future of Sapiens, a dialog between the cerebellum and the brain? 223Conclusion. Irreversibility, Responsibility, Otherness 227References 231Index 247