Bull. nut. Hist. Mus. Lond. (Geol.) 58(supp): 1-21 



Issued 26 June 2003 



Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): a stuidjsroiw museum 



of the pelvis and lower limbs 



PRgSFMTPp 



ERIKTRINKAUS 



Department of Anthropology, Campus Box 1114, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63 130, USA 



PALAEONTOLOGY UBRARY J 



SYNOPSIS. The lower limb remains of Gough's Cave 1 retain most of the pelvis, both femora, one complete tibia and portions 

 of the other, sections of both fibulae, two tarsals and three metatarsals. They are those of a largely average European Mesolithic 

 young adult male. Overall diaphyseal robusticity is generally similar to that of other Mesolithic specimens, even though the fibula 

 and third metatarsal appear gracile. Musculo-ligamentous attachment areas are generally weakly marked. The proximal femora 

 and the femoral diaphyses exhibit a clear asymmetry, especially in their neck-shaft angles and diaphyseal dimensions, which is 

 is accompanied in the pelvis by a greater degree of left iliac lateral flare. These aspects are associated with a pelvis that combines 

 several distinctly male characteristics with an overall pelvic aperture shape which is female. 



INTRODUCTION 



The Gough's Cave 1 skeleton retains a largely complete pelvis 

 (which has been permanently articulated), both femora very well 

 preserved, most of the right tibia and fibula, portions of the left tibia 

 and fibula, the complete right talus and cuboid, and three complete 

 metatarsals. As such, Gough's Cave 1 retains essentially complete 

 anatomy on at least one side from the L5-S 1 articulation to the talo- 

 calcaneal articulation, with additional data from the subtalar skeleton. 



MATERIALS 



The description of the Gough's Cave 1 lower limb remains includes 

 extensive osteometries (Tables 1-5, 10, 11, 16-21). To evaluate 

 some of these dimensions and the resultant proportions, comparative 

 summary statistics (as available) are included for other European 

 Mesolithic remains. These include remains from the sites of Arene 

 Candide, Los Azules, Bichon, Birsmatten, Bottendorf, Riparo 

 Continenza, Culoz, Gramat, Grotte des Enfants, Hoedic. Holmegard, 

 Koelbjerg, Kosor Glas, Loschbour, Moita do Sebastiao, Molara, 

 Mondeval, Muge (N - <57), Obercassel, Parabita, Le Peyrat, Le 

 Rastel, Rochereil, Romanelli, Romito, Riparo Tagliente, San Teodoro, 

 Sejr0, Teviec, Unseburg, Uzzo, Vaegens0, Vatte di Zambana, and 

 Veryier 1 (Pittard & Sauter, 1946;Graziosi, 1947;Combier&Genet- 

 Varcin, 1959; Barral & Primard, 1962; Genet- Varcin et at, 1963; 

 Patte, 1968; Cremonesi et ai, 1972; Ferembach, 1976; Paoli et al, 

 1980; Holliday, 1995; Holt, 1999; Churchill, pers. comm.). These 

 comparative remains vary in age from terminal Paleolithic to well 

 within the western European Mesolithic, approximately between 

 1 2,000 and 6,000 years B. P. They should bracket reasonably well the 

 Gough's Cave 1 remains in age. 



The most detailed metrics are available for the Gramat, Hoedic, 

 Rochereil and Teviec remains, but the other specimens fill out the 

 samples for the more commonly reported measurements (e.g., long 

 bone lengths and diaphyseal diameters). For diaphyseal metrics, the 

 femoral (proximal and midshaft), tibial (proximal) and fibular 

 (midshaft) samples are dominated by the large sample from Muge. 

 Consequently, when the Muge sample is significantly different from 

 the remainder of this 'Mesolithic' sample, summary statistics for it 

 are provided in addition to those for the total sample. 



Of the 39 comparative specimens other than those from Muge, 26 

 are male, 12 are female and 1 has unknown sex. In the Muge femoral 

 sample (the largest sample for the bones providing relevant data), 33 

 are male and 24 are female. This is therefore a male biased sample, 

 but given the probable male sex of Gough's Cave 1, this is not 

 inappropriate. 



METHODS 



The majority of the metric comparisons involve traditional 

 osteometries and associated indices. For these, the values for Gough's 

 Cave 1, the total 'Mesolithic' sample, and the male Mesolithic 

 samples are provided as mean ± standard deviation in the appropriate 

 text position. Except for Gough's Cave 1 , right and left values were 

 averaged prior to computing the sample summary statistics. 



In addition, it is appropriate to include cross-sectional geometric 

 parameters (cross-sectional areas and second moments of area) into 

 the description and analysis of the long bone diaphyses of fossil 

 hominids. Consequently, these data are included for Gough's Cave 1 

 in the description of the femoral and tibial diaphyses (Tables 6, 8, 12, 

 14). Comparative data are less abundant. They have been generated 

 for the full femoral and tibial diaphyses (five sections each) by S.E. 

 Churchill and myself for most of the Mesolithic remains from 

 Gramat, Hoedic, Rochereil and Teviec; additional data for the proxi- 

 mal and midshaft femur and midshaft tibia are available from B. Holt 

 (1999) (see Tables 7, 9, 13, 15 for sample sizes). 



All of the Gough's Cave 1 and most of the comparative Mesolithic 

 cross sections were reconstructed using transcriptions of the subpe- 

 riosteal contours and interpolations of the endosteal contours from 

 anterior, posterior, medial and lateral cortical thicknesses. These 

 were done at 20%, 35%, 50%, 65% and 80% of biomechanical 

 length, as preservation permitted. The subperiosteal contours were 

 taken using silicone putty molds [using Cuttersil Putty Plus (Heraeus 

 Kulzer Inc.)] perpendicular to the diaphyseal axis, which were then 

 transcribed onto paper. Cortical thicknesses were measured on antero- 

 posterior and medio-lateral radiographs of the diaphyses, correcting 

 for parallax using the subperiosteal diameters. The endosteal con- 

 tours were manually interpolated using the cortical thickness 

 rectangle to limit their extent and the subperiosteal contours as a 

 guide. The resultant cross sections were digitized and cross-sec- 

 tional geometric parameters were computed using a PC-DOS version 



© The Natural History Museum. 2003 



