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Diagnostic differences in mandibular P4 shape between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans

124 citations0/0 files storedAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology

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Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies Morphological variations and asymmetry

Abstract

This study uses elliptical Fourier analysis to quantify shape differences observed in the P(4) crown of Neandertals and anatomically modern humans. Previously, P(4) shape was assessed qualitatively, and results suggested marked differences between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans (Bailey [2002] New Anat. 269:148-156). The goal of this study was to investigate the P(4) shape in more detail, quantifying it in order to determine its utility for taxonomic classification and phylogenetic analysis. A comparison of mean shapes confirms that the mesiolingual portion of the P(4) is truncated in Neandertals, and that this produces a distinctively asymmetrical P(4). A randomization test confirms that the shape difference between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans is significant. Principal component and discriminant function analyses indicate that the relative size of the lingual portion of the tooth also affects tooth shape, with the lingual portion of the Neandertal P(4) being narrower than that of anatomically modern humans. Classification of P(4) crown shapes using discriminant functions analysis is far from perfect. While 86.4% of the teeth were correctly classified, classification was much better for anatomically modern humans (98.1%) than it was for Neandertals (65%). Fortunately, crown shape is but one of several diagnostic characters of the P(4) crown. P(4) crown asymmetry can be added to the growing list of dental morphological characters distinguishing Neandertals from anatomically modern humans. Moreover, based on a comparison of mean tooth shapes in fossil and recent humans, symmetry, rather than asymmetry, appears to be the primitive state, and the high frequency of P(4) asymmetry is likely derived in Neandertals.

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References

1991Advances in dental anthropology 1997The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth 1989The human career 1998The anthropology of modern human teeth: dental morphology and its variation in recent human populations 1996A late Neanderthal associated with Upper Palaeolithic artefacts 1994In Search of the Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins 1986The Neandertals and Modern Human Origins 1986The Neanderthal: A new look at an old face

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2010Hominin variability, climatic instability and population demography in Middle Pleistocene Europe 2011Morphological description and comparison of the dental remains from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos site (Spain)2006Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives 2006Paleobiology and comparative morphology of a late Neandertal sample from El Sidrón, Asturias, Spain 2004A morphometric analysis of maxillary molar crowns of Middle-Late Pleistocene hominins 2007

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