Zhang Yingqi, Kono Reiko T, Wang Wei, Harrison Terry, Takai Masanaru, Ciochon Russell L, Jin Changzhu
Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China.
Division of Human Evolution, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Nature and Science, Tsukuba 305-0005, Japan.
J Hum Evol. 2015 Jun;83:91-100. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.03.005. Epub 2015 Apr 17.
Previous analyses of dental size in Gigantopithecus blacki indicated marked sexual dimorphism and a trend towards increasing size through time. These studies were based on a sample of over 700 teeth from five localities excavated prior to 1990. Since then, 12 additional cave sites have been discovered in southern China, yielding hundreds of isolated teeth of G. blacki. Most of these sites are well dated by a combination of biochronology and absolute dating methods, so we now have a much better understanding of the chronology of G. blacki. Here, we reexamine the degree of sexual dimorphism and the question of dental size increase through time in G. blacki based on the expanded collections now available. Our results show that sexual dimorphism is not as marked as indicated in previous studies and confirm earlier analyses suggesting that the postcanine teeth of G. blacki tend to become larger through time from the beginning of the Early Pleistocene to the Middle Pleistocene.
以往对黑猩猩牙齿大小的分析表明，其存在明显的两性异形，且随着时间推移有变大的趋势。这些研究基于1990年之前从五个地点发掘出的700多颗牙齿样本。自那时起，中国南方又发现了12个洞穴遗址，出土了数百颗黑猩猩的单颗牙齿。这些遗址大多通过生物年代学和绝对年代测定方法的结合得到了很好的年代测定，所以我们现在对黑猩猩的年代学有了更好的理解。在此，我们基于现有的扩充样本，重新审视黑猩猩两性异形的程度以及牙齿大小随时间增加的问题。我们的结果表明，两性异形并不像先前研究中指出的那么明显，并证实了早期的分析，即从早更新世开始到中更新世，黑猩猩的犬齿后牙齿倾向于随着时间变大。
