Development, Growth And Evolution. Implications For The Study Of The Hominid Skeleton

This book arises out of a joint meeting of the " Centre for Ecology and Evolution " and the Linnean Society of London held at the meeting moms of the Linnean Society in April 1998. The meeting brought together developmental biologists and hominid paleontologists to discuss how advances in understanding of developmental mechanisms might impact on the interpretation of hominid skeletal remains. This volume attempts to provide accessible accounts of these advances in developmental biology for the non-expert, together with contributions from hominid paleontologists, which aim to bring this developmental perspective to bear on interpretation of the skeletal record of human evolution. This combined approach is, as yet, in its infancy but it is likely that it will impact significantly on palaeoanthropology and paleontology in general. This text is, therefore, likely to be of interest to students of hominid skeletal evolution, skeletal biology and evolutionary developmental biology, and its content should stimulate studies in which skeletal morphology is interpreted in an integrative context, taking account of both ontogeny and phylogeny.