Big woman of the distant past.If you want to know how tall you'll be, take a look at your adult relatives. My whole family is small, and I stopped growing at 5 feet 2 inches. My tall friends, on the other hand, have lanky limbs, just like their parents do. Usually, they have grandparents grandparents npl → abuelos mpl grandparents grand npl → grands-parents mpl grandparents grand npl and great-grandparents who were tall, too. Looking much farther back in time, a new analysis of a Stone Age skeleton reveals the largest female ancestor ever discovered. Her size says a lot about the conditions under which she lived 260,000 years ago, say researchers from of the University of Delaware [3] The student body at the University of Delaware is largely an undergraduate population. Delaware students have a great deal of access to work and internship opportunities. , Peking University Peking University: see Beijing University. Peking University or Beijing University One of the oldest and most important institutions of higher education in China. , and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and biomedical research institute in the United States. . The skeleton's bones also give insights into the changes that our ancestors Our Ancestors (Italian: I Nostri Antenati) is the name of Italo Calvino's "heraldic trilogy" that comprises The Cloven Viscount (1952), The Baron in the Trees (1957), and The Nonexistent Knight (1959). have undergone over many thousands of years. Scientists discovered the skeleton 22 years ago in northwest China. Called the Jinniushan specimen, the extensive remains include a skull with lots of teeth on its upper jaw, six vertebrae Vertebrae Bones in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions of the body that make up the vertebral column. Vertebrae have a central foramen (hole), and their superposition makes up the vertebral canal that encloses the spinal cord. (spine bones), two left ribs, a left-forearm bone, and the left half of the pelvis. Some researchers had previously proposed that the Jinniushan specimen was male because it had a large, thick-boned skull. The shape of the pelvis, however, indicates that the skeleton belonged to a female, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the new analysis. The woman was about 5 feet, 5-1/2 inches tall and weighed 173 pounds. This may not sound overly large by today's standards. However, the largest Stone Age female known before this discovery weighed 163 pounds. Her skeleton had come from a 100,000-year-old Neandertal site in France. No others have even come close. Like modern humans (called Homo sapiens), the Jinniushan woman was in the Homo genus. Her species is still unknown. Her build--a large, wide body with short arms and legs--was probably an adaptation for surviving in a cold climate, the scientists say. Native people who live in Arctic regions today have similar shapes, which are good for keeping in body heat. People who lived during the middle of the Stone Age, like the Jinniushan woman, may have been especially in need of a physical buffer against cold weather, the scientists say, because they probably lacked good shelters, clothes, and warm stone hearths. http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060301/Note2.asp |
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