GOUGH'S CAVE 1 : ASSESSMENT OF BODY SIZE AND SHAPE 



39 



his crural index value actually falls above the Sub-Saharan African 

 mean. It is not, however, too unusual to find a male European 

 specimen today with a brachial index value equal to or higher than 

 that of the Gough's Cave specimen; Gough's Cave 1 falls right on the 

 75th percentile for the recent European males (n = 239). However, 

 his crural index would be extremely unusual in a sample of recent 

 Europeans, since his value falls above the 99th percentile for recent 

 European males (n = 273). 



His values are not, however, unusual among European Mesolithic 

 (nor Paleolithic) humans. His brachial index is virtually identical to 

 the Mesolithic mean, and while his crural index is above the 

 Mesolithic mean, one of the 10 Mesolithic specimens sampled 

 (Teviec 11) has yet a higher crural index (89.1). 



Limb/Trunk Proportions 



The fact that limb/trunk proportions of modern humans covary with 

 climate and geography has been documented for both skeletal ( Holliday, 

 1995, 1997a) and anthropometric samples (via the relative sitting 

 height index { sitting height/stature x 100}, Roberts, 1978). Given the 

 largely complete (albeit poorly reconstructed) vertebral column of the 

 Gough's Cave specimen, one can estimate skeletal trunk height ( STH 

 = summed dorsal vertebral elements T1-L5 + sacral ventral length; 

 Franciscus & Holliday, 1992) as a body size or trunk length variable 

 to which relative limb length may be assessed. As was done for the 

 thoracic and lumbar vertebral column heights (Chuchill & Holliday, 

 2002), STH is estimated from those vertebral elements preserved in 

 Gough's Cave 1 , using a least-squares regression foracomplete recent 

 human series (n = 45). The formula used is: Y = 1 .086.V - 1 .806; r 2 = 

 0.998, where x (partial trunk height, or PTH) is the summed dorsal 

 body heights for T4-L5, sacral ventral length, and the ventral body 

 height of Tl . The 'reconstruction' for display of the specimen neces- 

 sitated further estimation. Thoracic vertebrae 6 and 7 were glued 

 together with a mock intervertebral disk between them; thus their 

 combined dorsal height was measured and the height of the interven- 

 ing 'disk' (2.9 mm) was subtracted, yielding 39.8 as the estimate of 

 combined T6-T7 dorsal height. The combined height of T8-T9 (42.5) 

 andTl 1-T12 (48.1 ) were estimated in the same manner. The predic- 

 tive equation based on the above measurements yields an STH of 

 483.9 mm, with a SE of the estimate of 1 .6 mm. The 95% confidence 

 limits for the prediction are 480.6-487.2 mm, a span which is only 

 1.4% of the prediction itself, indicating that STH can be accurately 

 predicted in Gough's Cave 1. 



As discussed in Churchill & Holliday (2002), the height of Ched- 

 dar Man's vertebral column (as reflected in thoracic and lumbar 

 column heights) was short for a Mesolithic male. Thus, it is not 

 surprising that the Gough's Cave specimen possesses a short STH, as 

 well. The specimen's STH of 483.9 falls well below (although within 

 one standard deviation of) the Mesolithic male mean of 5 1 1 .6 (n = 4), 

 and only one Mesolithic male, the diminutive Hoedic 9, has a shorter 

 trunk. However, the most important question that remains is how 

 Gough's Cave 1 compares in terms of limb length relative to trunk 

 height. In order to elucidate these patterns, limb segment length 

 (maximum humeral, radius and tibial length and femoral bicondylar 

 length) to trunk height ratios were computed for the comparative 

 fossil and recent human sample, and are compared to Gough's Cave 

 1 in Tables 4 and 5. Sexual dimorphism in these traits exists, but is 

 minimal (Holliday, 1995); thus, as was done with the brachial and 

 crural indices, Gough's Cave 1 is compared to combined-sex sam- 

 ples. As was evident in intralimb proportions, among recent humans 

 there is a clinal distribution of limb/trunk ratios, with Sub-Saharan 

 Africans exhibiting the highest mean indices, the Europeans the 

 lowest, and North Africans intermediate between the two groups. 



Table 4 Summary statistics for Gough's Cave 1 , fossil and recent human 

 samples - upper limb segment/trunk height ratios. 



HL/STH 



RL/STH 



Gough's Cave 1 66.7 51.5 



European Mesolithic 61.7,3.7,7 47.9,2.7,7 



European Late Upper Palaeolithic 61.2, 2.8, 15 48.3, 2.4, 12 



European Early Upper Palaeolithic 69.1,4.0,8 55.0,2.7,7 



European Neandertals 64.0, 1.5,3 47.0, 0.2, 3 



Recent Europeans 63.6, 3.4, 124 47.9, 2.8, 123 



Recent North Africans 66.0, 3.8, 62 51 .9, 3.4, 62 



Recent Sub-Saharans 69.6,4.1,51 55.0,4.0,51 



Table 5 Summary statistics for Gough's Cave 1, fossil and recent human 

 samples - lower limb segment/trunk height ratios. 



FL/STH 



TL/STH 



Gough's Cave 1 89.7 79.8 



European Mesolithic 87.4, 3.9, 7 74.0, 4.0, 7 



European Late Upper Palaeolithic 86.6, 3.4, 15 73.6, 3.5, 13 



European Early Upper Palaeolithic 96.0, 5.1,7 84.0, 4.6, 6 



European Neandertals 89. 1 , 0.0, 2 7 1 .2, 1 .0, 2 



Recent Europeans 88.6,4.4,123 73.6,4.3,124 



Recent North Africans 94.2, 5.5, 63 79.8, 4.9, 60 



Recent Sub-Saharans 97.7,7.5,51 84.1,6.5,51 



For the upper limb/trunk height ratios (Table 4), Gough's Cave 1 

 differs not only from recent Europeans, but from Late Upper 

 Paleolithic (LUP) Europeans, as well. In fact, relative to trunk 

 height, the Cheddar specimen is somewhat long-armed, and is most 

 similar to the recent North Africans in this regard. He is less long- 

 armed, however, than the average recent Sub-Saharan African or 

 European Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) humans. While the distri- 

 bution of sample means provides an overall pattern of differences, 

 we may still ask how unusual would upper limb/trunk height ratios 

 equal to or greater than that of Gough's Cave 1 be among recent 

 Europeans? An examination of the male European distribution pro- 

 vides some insight. For the humeral length/trunk height ratio, he falls 

 on the 75% percentile of recent European males, while for the radius 

 length/trunk height ratio, he falls above the 85% percentile. Thus 

 while he does exhibit a positive deviation from the mean, sampling 

 a recent European male who shares his upper limb/trunk height (or 

 greater) values could be as common as 1 in 4. 



The lower limb/trunk height ratios reveal a slightly different 

 pattern (Table 5). The Cheddar specimen's femoral length/trunk 

 height ratio is very similar to the recent European mean, while his 

 tibial length/trunk height ratio is 2.5 standard deviations above the 

 recent European mean - indicating that he has an extremely long 

 tibia relative to the height of his trunk. His percentile placement 

 among the recent Europeans males reflects this dichotomy; he falls 

 on their 60th percentile for the femoral length index, and above the 

 94th percentile for the tibial length index. With regard to the recent 

 Africans, he falls below the Sub-Saharan African mean for both 

 indices, and below the North African FL/STH mean. His TL/STH 

 value, however, is identical to the North African average. 



In comparison with other European fossils, Gough's Cave 1 

 possesses a relatively longer femur than the mean of all but one fossil 

 sample (the long-limbed EUP), although he falls well within the 

 range of all but the short-limbed Neandertal samples. His high 

 relative tibial length index, however, is somewhat more unusual in 

 the sense that he exceeds the range of the LUP sample, and, addition- 

 ally, he evinces the highest TL/STH index of the Mesolithic sample. 

 In fact, with regard to relative tibial length, among the fossil groups 

 only the long-limbed EUP sample exceeds his value. 



