Are the Small Human-Like Fossils Found on Flores Human Endemic Cretins?

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary Figures

Are the small human-like fossils found on Flores human endemic cretins?

Peter J. Obendorf 1*, Charles E. Oxnard 2 & Ben J. Kefford 1

1School of Applied Sciences, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia.

2 School of Anatomy and Human Biology and Centre for Forensic Science, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:

Supplementary Figure S1. Normal male, 20 years old, height 1.72 m and myxedematous cretin, male, 21 years old, height 1.17 m from Idjwi Island, now Democratic Republic of Congo. Lack of overt motor deficiency is notable. From (Delange et al. 1971), Fig. 4.1, with permission of Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research.

Supplementary Figure S2. Skull (left) and interior skull base (right) of Dolega’s case (DC), a male athyrotic cretin of height 0.85 m, aged 28 with internal view of the skull base, from (Dolega 1891), Plate XVIII. Current location unknown.

Supplementary Figure S3. Skull of a male athyrotic cretin of height 1.04 m., aged 25, and labelled as specimen 195, from (Kranz 1912) , Fig. 20 a,b. Current location unknown.

Supplementary Figure S4. Frontal and lateral views of, left, a male myxoedematous endemic cretin (age 21 years and height 116.5 cm.) and, right, normal male (age 20 years and height 171.5 cm.), both from Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. From (Delange et al. 1971), Figs 4.3-4.6, with permission of Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research.

Supplementary Figure S5. Young adult female and male myxoedematous endemic cretins, Central Java, Indonesia, circa 1930. Note especially the large hands and feet and the rotated legs. From image attributed to Dr L. D. Eerland (Eerland 1932; Eerland 1933) and published in (De Quervain & Wegelin 1936).

Supplementary Figure S6. Adult myxoedematous endemic cretins, Sumatra (Aceh), Indonesia, circa 1930. (a) Adult female, deaf-mute, approximately 27 years old, with normal female (foster mother). (b) Adult male, blind. Images from thesis of L. B. van Bommel (van Bommel 1930), photographs 14, 15.

a) b)

Supplementary Figure S7. Plots of the first three PCs from 19 cranial measures, size adjusted, show LB1 not separated from modern humans on these PCs. Also shown are cretins (n=5), microcephalics (n=3) and Down Syndrome (n=1). All are H. sapiens except ‘Kabwe’ (H. heidelbergensis), ‘Mrs Ples’ (A. africanus) and ‘Nariokotome’ (H. erectus sensu lato). These PCs explain 46.4% of the variance (19 %, 16.3 %, and 11.1%). PC1 plotted against GM shows little correlation with size. The component matrix is in Supplementary Table S12.

Supplementary Figure S8. Plot of the first principal component (PC1) versus geometric means for result in Figure 1a (All modern humans, 9 variables, size-adjusted). Some correlation remains for PC1 (r2 = 0.41) but not for PC2 (r2 = 0.04), or PC3 (r2 = 0.0003), these latter not shown.

REFERENCES

De Quervain, F. & Wegelin, C. 1936 Der Endemische Kretinismus. Pathologie und Klinik in Einzeldarstellungen. Berlin and Vienna: Julius Springer.

Delange, F., Ermans, A. M., Vis, H. L. & Stanbury, J. B. 1971 Endemic cretinism in Idjwi Island (Kivu Lake, Republic of the Congo). In Endemic Cretinism. Proceedings of a Symposium held at Institute of Human Biology, Goroka, TPNG. January, 1971. (ed. B. S. Hetzel & P. O. D. Pharoah), pp. 33-54. Goroka: Institute of Human Biology.

Dolega, D. 1891 Ein Fall von Cretinismus beruhend auf einer primären Hemmung des Knochenwachsthums. Beit. z. Pathol. Anat. 9, 488-509, Plate XVIII.

Eerland, L. D. 1932 Het Krovragstuk in de residentie Kediri. Voordrachten over gezwellen. Geneesk. Tijdschr. Ned.-Ind. 72, 1299-1302.

Eerland, L. D. 1933 Kropf in Niederlandisch Ostindien. In Zweite internationale kropfkonferenz (ed. O. Stiner). Bern: Verlag Hans Huber, Bern.

Kranz, P. 1912 Schilddrüse und Zähne. Deutsche Monatschr. f. Zahnheilk. 30, 1-35.

van Bommel, L. B. 1930 Struma Endemica en Cretinismus in Nederlandsch Oost-Indie: Meer in het Bijzonder in de Alaslanden. Leiden: Rijks-Universiteit/ Eduard Ijdo.