3-D geometric morphometric analysis of temporal bone landmarks in Neanderthals and modern humans

Abstract

The temporal bone is often described as one of the most diagnostic areas for Ne-anderthals. It is the location of several traits thought to differentiate Neanderthals from modern humans, including some proposed Neanderthal derived traits. Most of these are difficult to capture with traditional measurements and are usually described qualitatively. This study built on previous work in applying the techniques of geometric morphometrics to the complex morphology of the temporal bone, with the purpose of quantifying the differences observed between Neanderthal and modern human temporal bone morphology. The sample included 270 modern humans from 9 populations spanning the extremes of the modern human geographical range, 14 Neanderthals and 6 Late Paleolithic Europeans. The data were collected as 3-D landmark coordinates and the specimen configurations were superimposed using Generalized Procrustes Analysis. The fitted coordinates were analyzed using multivariate statistics. The temporal bone landmark analysis successfully separated Neanderthals from modern humans. Most of the previously described temporal bone traits contributed to this separation, although a few differences from previous analyses were found.