The Mousterian child from Teshik‐Tash is a Neanderthal: A geometric morphometric study of the frontal bone

Abstract

In the 1930s subadult hominin remains and Mousterian artifacts were discovered in the Teshik-Tash cave in South Uzbekistan. Since then, the majority of the scientific community has interpreted Teshik-Tash as a Neanderthal. However, some have considered aspects of the morphology of the Teshik-Tash skull to be more similar to fossil modern humans such as those represented at Skhūl and Qafzeh, or to subadult Upper Paleolithic modern humans. Here we present a 3D geometric morphometric analysis of the Teshik-Tash frontal bone in the context of developmental shape changes in recent modern humans, Neanderthals, and early modern humans. We assess the phenetic affinities of Teshik-Tash to other subadult fossils, and use developmental simulations to predict possible adult shapes. We find that the morphology of the frontal bone places the Teshik-Tash child close to other Neanderthal children and that the simulated adult shapes are closest to Neanderthal adults. Taken together with genetic data showing that Teshik-Tash carried mtDNA of the Neanderthal type, as well as its occipital bun, and its shovel-shaped upper incisors, these independent lines of evidence firmly place Teshik-Tash among Neanderthals.

Constructing cranial ontogenetic trajectories: A comparison of growth, development, and chronological age proxies using a known‐age sample of Macaca mulatta

“…That is, in multi‐taxon analyses where taxa vary greatly in size, or in a pooled‐sex analysis including taxa with high degrees of sexual dimorphism, it is likely that dental stage and cranial size would not be as tightly correlated as they are here, and it is possible that using cranial size would lead to over‐ or underestimates of adult morphologies. In previous investigations, centroid size has also been found to explain substantially less shape variance than linear regressions with dental stage as the covariate (Gunz & Bulygina, ).Thus, it may be preferable to use a developmental marker to construct ontogenetic trajectories in analyses that are not explicitly concerned with tracking the correlation of size and shape, as these markers estimate the amount of shape change associated with knowable and discrete stages of development that are approximately equivalent across taxa and sexes, rather than those associated with a continuum of sizes that may differ radically among analytical groups. Other methods, such as the common allometric component (and other group mean centered approaches) may mitigate this effect as well (Mitteroecker et al, ).…”

“…In order to fully assess the differences between the three ontogenetic proxies, and their implications for analyses of ontogeny, both direction and magnitude of the trajectories were examined. It should be kept in mind that the actual ontogenetic trajectories are likely not linear (see Neubauer, Gunz, & Hublin, ), but are sufficiently accurate approximations (in some cases more than others, see Results section) of the actual trajectories for many purposes (e.g., Ackermann & Krovitz, ; Gunz and Bulygina, ; Lieberman et al, ; McNulty et al, ; Ponce de León & Zollikofer, ; Richtsmeier, Corner, Grausz, Cheverud, & Danahey, ; Singleton et al, ; Tallman, ), though not necessarily always (e.g., Turley & Frost, ).…”

Size of the Anterior Fontanelle: Three‐Dimensional Measurement of a Key Trait in Human Evolution

“…Thus, our results suggest that the 3D method may also be more suitable for examining differences in AFSA among species, allowing further examination of interspecies variation in development and subsequent closure of the AF. In particular, recent research suggests modification of the growth patterns of the frontal neurocranium among hominins (Bookstein et al, ; Rosenberger and Pagano, ; Athreya, ; Falk et al, ; Freidline et al, ; Gunz and Bulygina, ; Tague, ). Thus, future studies of comparative AF development and morphology may shed light on the evolution of the uniquely hominin trait of a persistently patent AF at birth and in early infancy.…”

Modern human origins: multiregional evolution of autosomes and East Asia origin of Y and mtDNA

“…Mousterian stone tools commonly associated with Neanderthals also existed in Shuidonggou and Chenggong in South West China (4,79). Thus, although Neanderthals were mostly found in Europe and Middle East, they likely also made their way to North East Asia (Denisovan and Teshik-Tash) and South East Asia (80). The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not .…”