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Alterations of the width of the human intervertebral foramen can play a pathophysiological role in low back pain. Osseous dimensions of the human intervertebral foramen are rarely recorded. Therefore, we present reference data obtained from skeletal samples of known lifestyle, population affinity, sex, and age at death. Cervical, thoracic, and lumbar vertebrae of functional transition zones of 71 macroscopically normal spines from early 19th century AD Swiss burial sites were selected. The intervertebral foramen widths (IFW) were analyzed with respect to possible lateralization and the impact of sex, individual age, and stature. Neither a significant side difference nor a correlation of IFW with individual age or stature could be found. Females show somewhat larger IFW than males, especially in the lumbar region. Data comparisons with earlier studies are limited due to methodological differences and possible interpopulational variations. Furthermore, the osseous intervertebral foramen only reveals a glimpse of the clinically relevant in vivo structure. Nevertheless, more focus on the osseous dimensions of the intervertebral foramen will provide baseline data of this important anatomical landmark. These data could also explore the peculiarities of the intervertebral foramen, such as its reverse sex dimorphism. KEY WORDS anatomy: bone: pathology; vertebra

The impact of (dependent-independent) aging on the morphology of the osseous human spine during adulthood is determined. Increase of certain spinal dimensions found in this study may be reflection of an increase in the robustness of individuals with age.

Millennial and secular changes in body height of prehistoric and recent Aboriginal South Australians are investigated. Skeletal remains of 55 male and 40 female individuals who were excavated at Roonka on the River Murray were dated from 9800 to 100 years BP. Stature was reconstructed by using humerus, femur, and tibia ratios to stature derived from Abbie's (1975) data on living Aborigines and the Trotter-Gleser method for blacks. The respective averages were 1,652 mm and 1,665 mm for males and 1,527 mm and 1,549 mm for females. In 1996/1997, statures of 27 adult males and 21 adult females were measured in Aboriginal centers of Gerard and Raukkan (Point McLeay) on the Lower River Murray. These people, as far as it can be ascertained, are the descendants of the people from Roonka. Their statures were adjusted for the stature loss with age, so that the data represent young individuals ([less or equal to] 30 years of age). The average male stature was 1,712 mm, and the average female stature was 1,567 mm. Data collected by Wood Jones and Campbell in 1924 for Aboriginal South Australians show that young adult male stature was 1,668 mm (n = 6), and female stature was 1,552 mm (n = 4). Slopes of regressions of individual statures on radiocarbon dates and on dates of birth are not significantly different from zero. The same is true for regressions of individual long bone lengths on radiocarbon dates. It can be concluded that there was little change in stature of Aboriginal South Australians from prehistoric to recent times. Regressions of individual age-corrected heights on birth dates (1860-1980) of Aboriginal men and women measured in 1924 and in 1996 further indicate no significant increase in height in either sex. KEY WORDS males; females; height; Roonka; Pleistocene; humans

The physical growth patterns and function, which includes grip strength, reflexes and pulse rates of 'Cape Coloured' urban and rural school children were studied to determine nutritional status. Rural children at postpuberty were found to consistently lie below the standard deviation in matched American data.

Occurrence of a secular trend in the presence of a common anatomical variant - median artery of the forearm is studied. Data from the literature indicated the incidence of the median artery to be between 4.4 and 8.3% in adult cadavers studied before 1960 while our recent study found a frequency of 27.2%. In 224 adult and 60 infant cadavers of people born between 1900 and 1991 studied using a uniform method the incidence of the median artery in the birth cohort 1900-1910 was 15.0% of individuals, it rose to 29.7% in 1921-1930 and further to 38.1% in 1951-1960 to become 52.8% in 1980-1991. This trend is statistically significant. Since the median artery is deemed to dwindle away in most individuals around the 7th week of the intrauterine life, the increasing proportion of individuals who retain it into postnatal life may indicate a recent trend in human intrauterine development. KEY WORDS Microevolution, Anatomy, Intrauterine life

The age of the onset of menstruation has been determined for the urban middle-class Cape Coloured population. From 1987 to 1992 data were collected from 857 girls aged 8 to 20 years attending primary and secondary schools in Cape Town. The schools were specifically selected for the highest socioeconomic status (SES) of pupils' parents. Three-quarters of parents fell into the higher three categories of the 5-category SES standard. Girls were interviewed with respect to their menarcheal status and those who were postmenarcheal were also asked to report when they had started to menstruate. The probit analysis of the status quo data yielded average of 12.61 years and a standard deviation (s) of 1.25 years. The retrospective method was applied only to recall data of 258 girls falling into fully postmenearcheal categories (16-20 years). It yielded an average of 12.75 (s = 1.32), insignificantly different from that obtained from the probit analysis. The menarcheal age of higher SES Cape Coloured girls is significantly lower than that of white girls in Cape Town (13.30 years) and much lower than that of any group of black South African girls. It falls close to the lower limit of the range reported worldwide. Body heights, weights, and Body Mass Index indicate good growth status of girls studied.

Secular trends in body height, however common, run at different rates and even in opposite directions in various populations. The standard explanation is that direction and tempo of the trend are reflections of changes in the socioeconomic situation. The aim of this work is to test this hypothesis by examining trends in different socioeconomic groups living in the same country. Our observations on affluent South Africans of European extraction (AE) and on Polish medical students are compared with the data on statures of other affluent and poor peoples from the two countries measured at various dates during the 19th and 20th centuries. The trend among native Southern Africans is erratic (Tobias: South African Journal of Medical Science 40:145-164, 1975), but the overall direction is positive with a slow rate (0.24 cm/decade for 72 Negroid male groups and 0.48 cm/d for 28 Khoisan male samples). Magnitude of the trend among adult AE (0.41 cm/d for females, 0.59 for males) does not differ significantly from that among natives. The trend was absent in the data for 10-year-old AE boys and girls. The rate of trend among AE is much lower than that in their countries of origin (mainly Holland and Britain). The trend among AE medical students is markedly weaker than the trend among Polish medical students (1.21 cm/d), who in turn parallel Polish general conscripts (1.24 cm/d). It follows that the explanation of the secular trend as being an ecosensitive response of individuals to changing levels of well-being is insufficient.

In 1992, the authors noted clearly visible sex differences in the anterior mandible of human skeletons from about 6 months to about 4 years. Testing these morphologic characteristics resulted in an average accuracy of 81%. Recent tests on a sample composed of 11 known sex forensic cases and CT scans extended the age range to 6 years and yielded an accuracy of 82%. All mandibles less than 6 years were correctly identified. The only specimens missed were 2 females of at above 6 years. After observing the same dimorphic morphology in immature australopithecines, the authors deemed it necessary to determine if this trait was also manifest in the most closely related non-human primate, chimpanzees. The sample consisted of 47 known sex Pan troglodytes (from birth to the eruption of the permanent M1) housed at the Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich-Irchel, Switzerland. SRL observed the same differences in the shape of the inferior border of the symphysis and outline of the body as in the human samples. The male chin base extends steeply downward relative to the adjacent body coming to a point or (less commonly) squaring off at the symphysis. In females, the symphysis gradually descends to a more rounded base. Overall accuracy was 79%. As in humans males were more accurately identified than females. In conclusion, the fact that these morphologic traits are indicators of sexual dimorphism both in modern hominids and chimps creates a continuum that can validly be applied to australopithecines manifesting these same features. Thus, since early hominids appear to have followed the same pattern, this provides considerable support for the authors' earlier findings that Sk 61 is male, Sk 3978, female, and the Taung child is a boy. The senior author is most grateful to P. Schmid for access to the primate collection. This research was funded by an RDP grant from the University of Pretoria.

Taxonomy of hominins is based on studies of morphology of often fragmentary fossils. It is difficult to obtain sizeable samples of data for quantitative resolution of taxonomic uncertainties. Brain size (CC) and body size (BW) can be estimated from various parts of skulls and skeletons thus providing uniform data for a large number of individuals. BW and CC are also used in reconstructions of ecological and behavioral characteristics of earlier humans. The number of species of Homo is still debated between those who postulate presence of just a few chronospecies and those who advocate existence of many often coeval and sympatric species. We have compiled all available estimates of brain size and body size of the hominins. Following consideration of the errors of estimates and uncertainties regarding dating and taxonomic attributions we were able to use estimates of cranial capacities (CC) and body weights (BW) of 177 individuals (not always the same for each variable) attributed to Homo and dated from 1.9 Ma to 10 Ka. For this analysis they were grouped into five 'taxa': H. habilis, H. erectus, 'archaics' (including H. heidelbergensis sensu lato), Neandertals and 'anatomically moderns'. Variances and coefficients of variation (CV) were established for CC and BW in each 'taxon' and compared to those of living people and to those obtained by grouping data by time period irrespective of taxa. Variances of residuals around exponential regressions of entire data samples on date were also calculated. CV values of CC by taxon varied from 7.4% in 'archaics' to 16.4% in H. erectus while those for groupings of coeval individuals extended from 11.1% for the period 300-10 Ka to 17.1% for 1.8 - 1.3 Ma, neither being significantly different from modern humans (11.6%). For BW the situation was similar though CV-s were higher (15.8%-23.8%) due to larger errors of estimates. The variance around the regression of BW on date was practically the same as in living people (SD = 13.1). Taxonomic diversity of the genus Homo cannot be proven by the analysis of the largest existing sample of basic quantitative characteristics of ecological and possibly behavioral significance.

While twins were undoubtedly present in early human populations, no physical evidence in the form of human skeletal remains has been described to date. Comparison of dental crown morphology, which is under strong genetic control, provides one means of determining twin zygosity with a high degree of reliability (around 95%). During the examination of dental remains of approximately 50 individuals (535 teeth) from the 17 Neolithic sites near Solsona in Catalunya in Spain, a striking similarity of the dentitions of two individuals from the site Llord (cast tomb 1) has been observed. The radiocarbon date of the site is 4290 [+ or -] 130 BP. The morphology of 25 permanent teeth of the 16-18 year-old individual I-A has been compared to that of 24 permanent teeth of the individual I-B of the same age. Nineteen non-metric traits observed separately on the left and right side, enamel colour, tooth diameters, wear patterns and shape of the mandibles have been compared. The z-score profiles of the mesiodistal diameters (MD) of teeth of the individuals I-A and I-B on the means and standard deviations of the entire sample have been calculated. Seven out of 36 non-metric traits present in both I-A and I-B dentitions rarely occur in the entire sample. Both individuals have large cusps 7 (grade 4) on the lower M1 and also on the lower M2 (grade 3) on both sides. The trait is absent in the rest of the dental sample while the frequency of the cusp 7 in Europe is low ([is less than] 10%). Forty out of 45 non-metric traits are concordant between individuals I-A and I-B. Mirroring occurs in the number of lingual cusps and position of the main lingual cusp on the lower second premolars. The individual I-A has 2 cusps on the left P2 and 1 cusp on the right P2, while the opposite occurs in individual I-B, thus accounting for four discordant traits. The patterns of z-score profiles for MD tooth size were similar for both individuals. The pattern of dentine exposure on both dentitions was also similar. The results suggest that the individuals I-A and I-B from Llord are twins and most probably monozygotic. Supported by Australian Research Council small grant.