Bull. nat. Hist. Mus. Lond. (Geol.) 58(supp): 7>1-AA 



Issued 26 June 2003 



Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): an 

 assessment of body size and shape 



TRENTON W. HOLLIDAY 



Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans LA 70118, USA 



STEVEN E. CHURCHILL 



Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, Durham NC 27710, USA 



Synopsis. Stature, body mass, and body proportions are evaluated for the Cheddar Man (Gough's Cave 1 ) skeleton. Like many 

 of his Mesolithic contemporaries, Gough's Cave 1 evinces relatively short estimated stature (ca. 166.2 cm [5' 5']) and low body 

 mass (ca. 66 kg [ 1 46 lbs] ). In body shape, he is similar to recent Europeans for most proportional indices. He differs, however, from 

 most recent Europeans in his high crural index and tibial length/trunk height indices. Thus, while Gough's Cave 1 is characterized 

 by a total morphological pattern considered 'cold-adapted' , these latter two traits may be interpreted as evidence of a large African 

 role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans. 



INTRODUCTION 



Reconstructed stature, body mass, and body shape are all variables 

 of interest in any attempt to understand the paleobiology of prehis- 

 toric humans such as the 'Cheddar Man', or the Gough's Cave 1 

 specimen. The relative completeness of the Gough's Cave 1 

 postcranial skeleton allows each of these variables to be accurately 

 reconstructed. Such variables are of interest both for evolutionary 

 and non-evolutionary questions. For example, any body mass and/or 

 stature differences between Mesolithic humans, such as Gough's 

 Cave 1, and recent humans are unlikely to be evolutionary in nature. 

 Nonetheless, they are of interest to paleobiologists since they may 

 reflect the nutritional and overall health status of prehistoric popul- 

 ations. In contrast, body proportions vary among recent humans, 

 presumably as the result of climatic selection. Yet body proportions 

 appear to have a large genetic component, and, over evolutionarily 

 short periods, since they are the result of apparently long-term 

 climatic selection (based on migrant studies), they may provide 

 evidence of population movements or migration from different 

 climatic regimes (Holliday, 1997a). 



Stature in Gough's Cave 1 is predicted from lower limb long bone 

 lengths using Trotter and Gleser's (1958) standard formulae for 

 Euroamericans (discussed in detail below). Body mass for the speci- 

 men is predicted using two methods outlined in Ruff et al. (1997). 

 The first method involves computing the arithmetic average of 

 predictions based on three separate body mass/femoral head diameter 

 regressions derived from recent human skeletal material. In the 

 second method, body mass is predicted from stature and bi-iliac 

 breadth. In concert these two variables (stature and bi-iliac breadth) 

 are known to provide an accurate estimate of body mass in living 

 humans, and have an added advantage in that they are independent of 

 the locomotor biomechanical stresses to which the femoral head is 

 subject (Ruff et al., 1997). Ruff's stature/bi-iliac breadth predictive 

 formula is derived from data on living humans. Therefore, in order to 

 use this method with fossils, stature was estimated using the Trotter 

 and Gleser (1958) formulae, and a 5% correction factor was added to 

 bi-iliac breadth to account for soft tissue. All formulae used to 

 predict body mass were kindly provided by Prof. C.B. Ruff. 



With regard to body shape or proportions, there are several means 

 by which these features may be accurately reconstructed from 

 skeletal remains; these means approximate some of the anthro- 



pometric data taken on living human subjects. The measures that are 

 used in this study reflect the following: 1 ) intralimb proportions (i.e., 

 relative lengths of the proximal and distal limb segments), 2) limb/ 

 trunk proportions, 3) body linearity relative to overall body mass, 

 and 4) body breadth relative to stature. For all analyses, Gough's 

 Cave 1 is compared to other Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene 

 associated skeletons as well as to a large sample of recent humans 

 from across the western Old World (Africa and Europe). The fossils 

 have been placed into Mesolithic (< 10,000 BP), Late Upper 

 Paleolithic (LUP; 1 1,000-19,000 BP), Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP; 

 20,000-28,000 BP) and Neandertal (> 30,000 BP) samples, while 

 the recent humans have been placed into three geographical 

 subsamples: Europe, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Detailed 

 discussion of these samples is found in Holliday (1995). 



BODY SIZE 



Stature 



For all samples, stature was predicted using Trotter and Gleser's 

 ( 1 958 ) formulae for the tibia and femur; if both bones were present, the 

 mean of the two resultant predictions was used. Formulae for Euro- 

 american males were used for Gough's Cave 1 and all comparative 

 samples, with the exception of the recent Sub-Saharan Africans and 

 the European EUP, for whom African- American formulae were used. 

 These regression formulae are more appropriate because these two 

 groups have a demonstrably more 'tropically-adapted' body shape 

 which is more similar to that of African-Americans (Holliday, 1997a). 

 Table 1 presents summary statistics for predicted stature among 

 Gough's Cave 1 and the comparative samples. The Gough's Cave 

 specimen has a predicted stature of 166.2 cm, which falls just below 

 the Mesolithic male mean of 1 67.5 cm. His predicted stature is much 

 shorter relative to recent European males; he falls below their 25th 

 percentile. Importantly, predicted stature values for the fossils are 

 similar to those given in Frayer (1984), who used many of the same 

 specimens, but temporally subdivided his samples differently than 

 has been done here. As an example of the similarity of results, 

 Frayer's (1984) Mesolithic sample had a predicted male stature of 

 167.8 cm, almost identical to our mean of 1 67.5 cm. Also, his Upper 

 Paleolithic male mean of 174.3 cm is somewhat (although not 



© The Natural History Museum, 2003 



