Dissertation Research: Another unique (sub) species? The Distribution of Morphological Variation Within and Among Species and the Pleistocene Hominid Fossil Record

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The systematic position of the extinct human group known as the Neanderthals is a question which lies at the core of a major current paleoanthropological debate on modern human origins. Are these early people members of a species distinct from our own. Homo sapiens, or are they a subspecies or even a "race" of the sane species as living people? On order to approuch as answer to this longtime controversy, in the course of this research the PI will develop models of variation in cranial morphology within and between species. These models will be based on living primates, including geographic populations of modern humans, as well as geographic populations and species of chimpanzes, baboons and macaques. They should shed light on how morphological varitions is distributed at different hierarchical levels both within and among species. The measures of human populations from Western Eurasia and modern humans from the same geographic range, with the purpose of resolving the problems of the taxonomic position of Neanderthals and earlier European fossils human groups within the genus Homo. The temporal and occipital bones, where many proposed specialized neanderthal traits are located, will be studied quantitatively with the help of a three-dimensional digitizing system. Data will be collected in the form of three dimensional landmark and ridge curves coordinates and will be analyzed using an array of multivariate statistical techniques. The proposed Neanderthal traits will be evaluated for their distribution and variability in the fossil groups studie, as well as in recent humans. Predictive hypotheses about the taxonomic rank of Neanderthals and the earlier fossil human populations of Europe, as well as hypotheses about the relationships between these fossil group and modern Europeans, will be tested based on the models of variation.