Disease indicators and pathological bone conditions in South African Plio-Pleistocene Hominins

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2017

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Odes, Edward John

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South African Plio-Pleistocene hominin remains have not been studied extensively for signs of disease. In this study, hominin fossilized remains from eight South African Plio-Pleistocene assemblages were assessed for evidence of pathology. Studies of palaeopathology have historically relied heavily on external bone features to make diagnoses and classify disease. In addition to using conventional gross morphological and microscopic methods to identify disease, here technologically advanced three-dimensional (3D), non-invasive microtomographic virtual imaging techniques were used to assess internal and external characteristics of both fossilized skeletal material and comparative modern human bone homologues. These imaging techniques produced qualitatively higher resolutions than what are currently achievable with conventional clinical scanning methods and conventional clinical radiography. The results of this study included the reporting of rare fossil neoplasms including the earliest malignant and benign neoplastic disease in the hominin record. These discoveries not only illustrate the antiquity of cancer and osteogenic neoplasia in ancient South African hominins, but push back evidence for these diseases in hominins to approximately between 1.7 Mya and 2 Mya respectively. This study also reported on the first palaeopathological analysis of an osteogenic lesion in the extinct species, Homo naledi from Dinaledi Cave (Rising Star), and the first application of microtomographic imaging techniques of the lumbar region of a partial Australopithecus africanus skeleton (StW 431), identifying ante-mortem pathology and reporting postmortem alteration by an unknown insect. This study provided a glimpse into some of the possible physical restrictions that hominins may have experienced because of the disease conditions that affected them, and suggests how these conditions may have impacted their functional behaviour and survival. It provides medical science and palaeopathology with a clearer understanding of the strong evolutionary and remarkably similar appearance between hominin and contemporary human disease and also sheds light on the antiquity of neoplastic diseases. The advanced technology of non-invasive, three-dimensional imaging techniques, such as micro-computed X-ray tomography and phase-contrast synchrotron tomography, combined with the appropriate use of clinical analogues made a significant contribution to this study, by enabling reliable and accurate diagnoses of hominin fossil disease.

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A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anatomical Sciences, Johannesburg 2017

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