Origens humanas: um estudo fenético-comparativo das afinidades morfológicas de australopitecíneos e outros hominínios plio-pleistocênicos

Abstract

Since its disclosure in 1964, the species H. habilis has been suffering from several criticisms as to its place within the human lineage. Its classification, within Paleoanthropology, triggered a series of debates regarding the origin, and definition, of the genus Homo. Through the compilation of metric data of hominid morphology, taken from different publications and spreadsheets available on the web. We sought to carry out different analyses, from a pheneticcomparative approach, where the metric data of the morphology of skulls, teeth and limbs were transformed into morphological distance matrices, and correlated, through the Mantel test, with geographic and phylogenetic matrices in order to test their validity. As a result, limb matrices showed the highest correlations, followed by mandibular tooth matrices. Both related to phylogenetic matrices. This result showed that data from limbs and mandibular teeth are good for making phylogenetic inferences. On the other hand, cranial matrices showed greater correlation with geographic matrices, which shows their greater response to phenotypic plasticity. In conclusion, all the dendrograms generated, which showed higher and significant correlations (r ≥ 0.5 and p ≤ 0.05), showed direct relationships between H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, with members of australopithecines. Through the results obtained, it is suggested that both hominins be reclassified as belonging to the genus Australopithecus.