No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.

ABSTRACT: A central problem in paleoanthropology is the identity of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans ([N-MH]LCA). Recently developed analytical techniques now allow this problem to be addressed using a probabilistic morphological framework. This study provides a quantitative reconstruction of the expected dental morphology of the [N-MH]LCA and an assessment of whether known fossil species are compatible with this ancestral position. We show that no known fossil species is a suitable candidate for being the [N-MH]LCA and that all late Early and Middle Pleistocene taxa from Europe have Neanderthal dental affinities, pointing to the existence of a European clade originated around 1 Ma. These results are incongruent with younger molecular divergence estimates and suggest at lea

SUBMITTER: Gomez-Robles A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3831471 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature