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The Fetal Origin of the Human Chin

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Abstract

The chin prominence is a hallmark of the modern human face and bears on its labial surface an inverted-T bony relief. Evolutionarily, whether the human chin is an adaptation for mastication or speech is debated but there is little compelling data supporting either claim. Furthermore, some suggest that the inverted-T relief is more important for phylogenetic inference than the chin prominence. However, there is no evidence for the developmental independence of the inverted-T relief and chin prominence. This debate requires empirical data on fetal development of the human chin. Using 3D imaging of the musculo-cervico-craniofacial skeleton of human fetuses and geometric morphometric methods, we discovered a developmental sequence leading to a chin prominence during early fetal development that is very similar to that which we previously observed in postnatal modern humans and in chimpanzee fetuses. Furthermore, we provide the evidence that the inverted-T relief is developmentally integrated with the chin prominence. The evolution of the human chin is constrained by cervico-craniofacial developmental that maintain an unobstructed fetal airway. Finally, the inverted T-relief should be neither treated independently from the chin prominence in phylogenetic analysis, nor is it a relevant taxonomic trait that defines the symphysis of modern humans.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Encarmación Fernández Valle and David Castejón Ferrer (Pluridisciplinary Institute, University Complutense of Madrid, Spain) for the MRI acquisitions. We also thank V. Dousset, C. Douws, C. Thibaut, and E. Gatuing (C.H.U. Pellegrin, Bordeaux) for access to their CT datasets. We are grateful to Markus Bastir, Antonio Rosas, and Fred Bookstein for thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Finally, the authors thank Benedikt Hallgrimsson, Rolian Campbell, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. This research has been supported by the Fondation Fyssen (Paris), Cátedra Dental Implants and Biomaterials SA, and Project A-189, and by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF P29397).

Author Contributions

MC and JCP-F designed research; MC, JCP-F, RR, JAM-G, AGD and PM performed research; MC and PM analyzed data; and MC, JCP-F, RR, AGD, JAM-G, and PM wrote the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine and Surgery (Stomatology Area), University Rey Juan Carlos, 28922, Alcorcon, Spain

    Michael Coquerelle, Juan Carlos Prados-Frutos & Rosa Rojo

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Corson Hall, 215 Tower Rd, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Abby Grace Drake

  3. Department of Human Anatomy and Embryology I, Faculty of Medicine, Complutense University of Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Jorge Alfonso Murillo-Gonzalez

  4. Department of Theoretical Biology, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Philipp Mitteroecker

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  1. Michael Coquerelle
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Coquerelle, M., Prados-Frutos, J.C., Rojo, R. et al. The Fetal Origin of the Human Chin. Evol Biol 44, 295–311 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-017-9408-9

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