Morphological Study of the Neanderthal child skeletons from Dederiyeh Cave, Syria

在Dederiyeh洞穴1号和2号墓葬中发现的两具年轻的古人类骨骼都是尼安德特人，死亡年龄大致相同。他们有许多尼安德特人的解剖学特征，同时在某些特征上也表现出一些差异。例如，它们具有以下特征：后侧面呈“炸弹”形，枕骨环体与腹膜上凹陷相结合，鼻骨宽，颧骨额突长，内声道开口圆形。虽然边缘结节和舌前切齿只在Dederiyeh 2中可见，但乳突前结节只在Dederiyeh 1中可见。两个孩子在颅穹窿和牙列的形态上非常相似。另一方面，Dederiyeh 2在下颌、面部和颅后尺寸上比Dederiyeh 1更纤细，尽管Dederiyeh 2的牙齿发育比Dederiyeh 1更先进。例如，Dederiyeh 1的颞骨颧突、下颌体、股骨和胫骨的尺寸比Dederiyeh 2大。在一个单一的地点内，一定存在着广泛的个体发生变异，尽管它可能是由不明确的因素引起的，如性别、个体品种、环境或时间差异。

Two young hominid skeletons found in Burial Nos. 1 and 2 of Dederiyeh Cave are both Neandertals with approximately the same ages at death. They share many Neandertal anatomical features as well as displaying several differences in some traits. For example, they share the following features: "en bombe" shape from the posterior aspect, combination of the occipital torus and suprainiac pitting, wide nasal bone, long frontal process of the zygomatic bone, circular opening of the internal acoustic meatus. While the marginal tubercle and incisura preangualis are only seen in Dederiyeh 2, the anterior mastoid tubercle is recognized only in Dederiyeh 1.Both children are quite similar in morphology of the cranial vault and dentition. On the other hand, Dederiyeh 2 is more gracile in mandibulo-facial and postcranial dimensions than Dederiyeh 1 though the dental development of Dederiyeh 2 was more advanced than that of Dederiyeh 1. For instance, dimensions of the zygomatic process of the temporal bone, mandibular corpus, femur and tibia are larger in Dederiyeh 1 than in Dederiyeh 2. There must have been the possible existence of wide ontogenetic variation within a single site, although it may be caused by indistinct factors, such as sex, individual varieties, environmental or chronological differences.