ABSTRACT
Skeletal tissues are uniquely important for anthropological research—from comparative skeletal anatomy that informs primate evolutionary theories to bioarchaeology and forensics that reveal aspects of human demography and life experiences. Thus, understanding how genetic variation, environmental disturbances, and regulatory processes shape the skeleton is crucial for interpreting skeletal variation. This chapter explores recent scientific endeavors that evaluate the contribution of gene regulation in skeletal cells to primate evolution. It begins with an overview of the cell types present in skeletal tissues and how molecular data can be obtained from both modern and ancient skeletal tissues. It next discusses how comparative studies using such data have informed our understanding of primate skeletal trait evolution with respect to vocal and facial anatomies. It further explores how studies in extant primates are identifying tighter associations between gene regulation and morphological and pathological phenotypes of the postcranial skeleton. Last, it concludes with a proposal of future in vitro models that will enable more focused evaluations of gene-by-environment interactions contributing to skeletal traits in human and nonhuman primates.
