Foot Pathology in the Olduvai Hominin 8 Foot

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Olduvai Hominin 8 foot pathology: A comparative study attempting a differential diagnosis.
Weiss E.
Homo. 2012 Feb 1

 

I am away from home just now on a two week boating and fishing trip; thus my bone and cast collection is not to hand. The Olduvai foot has attracted interest since it was found in about 1960 by Louis Leakey. Originally it was the talus that caused more heat than light as it did not conform to what was perceived to be the "prehuman foot" of the day. Later, in the early 90's, I wrote much about the four hindfoot bones and noted that lateral-medial (embryologicaly that is caudo-cranial) division in its modernity. Later, in perhaps 2001/2 we looked at another assemblage, StW573, from Sterkfontein in South Africa, and noted a disto-proximal shift in modernity - and then went back to oh8 and noted the same. Thus we now had changed in line with body planes that were coincident with specific genetic or other growth factors; HOX genes for the disto-proximal shift, and Sonic Hedgehog stuff fort he caudo-cranial.

 

I am away from home just now on a two week boating and fishing trip; thus my bone and cast collection is not to hand. The Olduvai foot has attracted interest since it was found in about 1960 by Louis Leakey. Originally it was the talus that caused more heat than light as it did not conform to what was perceived to be the "prehuman foot" of the day. Later, in the early 90's, I wrote much about the four hindfoot bones and noted that lateral-medial (embryologicaly that is caudo-cranial) division in its modernity. Later, in perhaps 2001/2 we looked at another assemblage, StW573, from Sterkfontein in South Africa, and noted a disto-proximal shift in modernity - and then went back to oh8 and noted the same. Thus we now had changes in line with body planes that were coincident with specific genetic or other growth factors; HOX genes for the disto-proximal shift, and Sonic Hedgehog stuff for the caudo-cranial. But we never looked at the met heads. To be honest I am not sure that this sort of insight - osteophytic lippping - may be gained from casts, even those of quality like the WennerGren ones that we have for study. I am now semi-retired, and becoming out of date; I do not know of Liz Weiss' work personally, so looked her up. She is on the academic staff of San Jose State, and has published in VERY eminent journals such as The American Journal of Physical Anthropology. It may be worth making a brief statement about journal heiarchy; while all peer reviewed (internationally referreed) journals leave the rest for dead, there is a cline inside these; AJPA is way ahead of many, including JAPMA, for instance. Thus her work is to be highly respected. Indeed I note that some of her latest is with Bernie Zipfel, a friend, colleague and ex PhD student of ours. Bernie is an ex-podiatrist (Head of School) who like me, made the transistion to anthropology. He has access to the real thing in East Africa, and thus they may be able to see osteophytic lipping on the real thing. I will examine my casts when I get home and get back to you all. Rob

 

The 0H 8 casts at Durham were not great quality, I would have said 2nd or 3rd generation casts of casts, and I wouldn't want to be making any stabs in the dark about osteophytic lipping from those.

You probably saw these at Durham Rob. Are yours the same?

 

I was a Salford grad - the only time I was at Durham was as final year examiner in 1990. Luckily, my casts are original ones from the Wenner Gren Foundation - they don't come any better - but are still not substitute for the real thing. Dr Zipfel - Bernie to us - is the curator of fossils at The University of Witwatersrand and his position opens doors around the world's museums; he had access to the real thing in Tanzania. I note on Liz Weils's CV that her last publication is on OH8 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and is due out shortly. It is jointly authored by her, Jerry DeZilva (another colleague of ours) and Bernie.

 

Hi all, back from my sojourn, time for some work. I have dragged out my casts of oh8, and looked at them again - perhaps for the first time in nearly a decade. To remind all that are interested, this is the most complete foot of its age - about 1.7 MA - but is incomplete in that there are no digits, or met heads. Neither is there a calcaneal tuber. Much play has been made over the years about the possibility of it being juvenile; the main evidence cited for this being the nature of the "broken ends" of mets 2 & 3 - some describe these as being the distal extreme of the diaphysis - ie the metaphysis. Quite how this fits with the simple fact that the epiphysis at the base of the first met is entirely closed is not explained (one may make the assumption with clarity that epiphyseal position, but not perhaps the time of closure, is the same in extinct hominins as it is in extant hominoids, including H sapiens). The base of the first met has a rather large "pseudo-joint" between itself and the second met base; this is often cited as evidence for a non-divergent first ray. However, it could be interpteted as having osteophystic lipping. I can see no evidence on bases 2-4. Base 5 has a large plantar extrusion - that I suspect is a casting artifact. I reiterate that Liz Weils may well have access to the real thing in East Africa. Casts of good quality (Wenner Gren casts like mine are Rolls Royce) are considered adequate for determination of interlandmark distances etc. for use in complex multivariate analyses; however their use in this sort of analysis is new to me. As for its reclassifiaction as Bosei - well, who knows? What is for sure is that "Homo habilis" is at best a conglomerate of several species. We would all do well to remember that many hominids were sprouting and failing, at least in part due to intense selective pressures during the decreasing rains of the plio-pleistocene. Rob

 

Thanks for that additional info Rob.

The cast I examined was not at Durham School of Pod, but at Durham Uni anthropology dept. It's entirely possible that they had a better one somewhere, but this was the one that kicked around the lab - not a great cast, as I've already said.
Prof Bilsborough suggested I take a trip to the British Museum to check out their casts, but other things intervened (and in any case anthropology was a sideline to my research topic).

A truly fascinating topic.

 

Earliest modern human-like hand bone from a new >1.84-million-year-old site at Olduvai in Tanzania
Manuel Dom?nguez-Rodrigo Travis Rayne Pickering Sergio Alm?cija Jason L. Heaton Enrique Baquedano Audax Mabulla David Uribelarrea
Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7987

 

Inter-ray variation in metatarsal strength properties in humans and African apes: Implications for inferring bipedal biomechanics in the Olduvai Hominid 8 foot.
Patel BA et al
J Hum Evol. 2018 May 12.