Abstract
This project attempts a discrimination of craniofacial shape between Pleistocene and recent humans. In this study three-dimensional craniofacial line tracings, referred to here as ridge curves, were surveyed. By means of a chi-square model, ridge curves taken from fossil specimens considered “transitional” were compared with homologous “average” ridge curves generated from Homo erectus and modern humans, H. sapiens sapiens. Results showed that only two of the five ridge curves, the medial brow and the nuchal torus, were useful in discriminating between these forms and determining the transitional specimens’ affinities. For these two ridge curves the Middle Pleistocene forms showed overwhelming similarity with modern humans. The nature of the separation for the two significant ridge curves was studied with a principal coordinates analysis. This study supports the assignment of Middle Pleistocene transitional specimens to “early” H. sapiens rather than to H. erectus (Dean, 1993).
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Dean, D., Marcus, L.F., Bookstein, F.L. (1996). Chi-Square Test of Biological Space Curve Affinities. In: Marcus, L.F., Corti, M., Loy, A., Naylor, G.J.P., Slice, D.E. (eds) Advances in Morphometrics. NATO ASI Series, vol 284. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9083-2_19
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