The Lower and Middle Pleistocene Homo pelvic bone

This paper presents a synthetic study of the Homo pelvic bone between 2 My and 100 000 years. All the fossil pelvic remains available corresponding to this period were integrated in a morphological and morphometrical study. Results discussed here are integrated with more ancient (australopihecine) and more recent (Neandertals and modern humans) pelvic bones, studied in the context of a wider work. The main result is the confirmation of the stability of the pelvic morphology of the genus Homo during almost 2 My. Observed differences are indeed rather small and we propose that at least a part of these differences are the result of sexual dimorphism and not of specific differences. In the light of this, an evolutionary hypothesis is proposed to follow the evolution of the hominid pelvic morphology. It implies a succession of long periods of stasis, followed by rapid changes altering the former pattern at successive scales, always smaller. We think that these changes are important enough to depict taxinomic differences, which reinforce the interest of the study of the fossil hominid pelvic morphology.