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Chapter 4 Comparative Materials and Methods
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28 C h a p t e r 4 Comparative Materials and Methods THIS BOOK is concerned with the comparative morphology and paleobiology of the early modern human partial skeleton from Tianyuan Cave. However , all paleontological description is by its nature comparative. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a human paleontological framework to assess the continuous and discrete morphological pattern of this individual and to place its paleobiological aspects in context. It is also desirable to employ standardized criteria for this assessment to the extent possible. This chapter defines these comparative samples and, in general terms, the methods employed to quantify the morphological and pathological aspects of Tianyuan 1. Materials The comparative samples consist principally of those that bracket the Tianyuan skeleton in time and space across the Old World. Ideally, these samples would consist of late archaic and early modern human remains from the eastern Old World, given the chronological position of Tianyuan 1 as one of the earliest known modern humans from eastern Asia. However, securely dated human remains from this time period east of ~80° E longitude are rare, fragmentary, and limited in their anatomical completeness. Moreover, since the earliest modern humans known are currently Middle Paleolithic marine isotope stages (MIS) 6–5 remains from eastern Africa and extreme southwestern Asia (Valladas et al., 1988; White et al., 2003; McDougall et al., 2005), and since it is likely that the pan–Old World emergence of the modern human morphological pattern involved population dispersal and/or gene flow from those earliest modern humans (Wu, 2004, 2006; Trinkaus, 2005a; Bräuer, 2008; Cartmill and Smith, 2009), it is relevant to include comparative samples from western Eurasia and at least neighboring areas of Africa. The comparative samples therefore include geographical samples of late archaic humans plus chron- COMPARATIVE MATERIALS AND METHODS 29 ological and regional samples of early modern humans. The samples are described below. As appropriate to provide a broader context for aspects of the Tianyuan 1 remains , data from recent (late Holocene) human samples are included. The data employed are derived primarily from personal analysis of the original remains, the primary publications of the fossil remains, and/or personal communications from colleagues who have derived data from the original remains. In some cases, additional data for discrete traits or dental macroscopic wear stages have been derived from high-quality casts of the specimens or high resolution photographs in which the configuration is unambiguous. This has been necessary particularly for the now lost Zhoukoudian–Upper Cave remains (Weidenreich, 1939a, 1941; Wu, 1961) and the Předmostí fossils (Matiegka, 1934, 1938; Veleminsk á and Brůžek, 2008). Eastern Asian Late Archaic Humans Late Pleistocene (MIS 5–3) late archaic humans from the eastern Old World are rare and consist solely of cranial and dental remains (Wu and Poirier, 1995; Shpakova, 2005). (For location of human fossil sites, see Figure 4-1.) The most complete is the calotte and superior facial skeleton from Maba (Mapa) (Woo, 1959). There is also a series of cranial fragments, isolated teeth, and an immature maxilla from Xujiayo (Hsuchiayao) (Chia et al., 1979; Wei, 1979); a partial maxilla and a lower premolar from Changyang (Chia, 1957); isolated teeth and partial parietal bone from Dingcun (Woo, 1958; Wu and Poirier, 1995); a tooth from Zhoukoudian Locality 4 (Gu, 1978); and isolated teeth from several other sites (Wu and Poirier, 1995), all in China. In addition, an archaic human calotte of probable Late Pleistocene age is known from Salkhit, Mongolia (Coppens et al., 2008), and there are isolated teeth from the Altai Mousterian caves of Denisova and Okladnikov in southern Siberia (Shpakova, 2005). Of these remains, only the Changyang P4 , the Dingcun M2 and the Okladnikov P3 , M1 , and M3 match anatomical regions preserved on the Tianyuan 1 partial skeleton. Moreover, given the extensive occlusal attrition of the Tianyuan 1 teeth (Chapter 5), the only comparisons possible are dental crown metrics. Eastern Asian Early Modern Humans There is a relatively long list of early modern human remains from eastern Asia, as well as a few from south and southeast Asia (including adjacent islands), but many of them have uncertain associations with otherwise well-dated Late Pleistocene deposits. Because of this uncertainty, the securely dated comparative remains for early modern humans in the eastern Old World are limited. The time range for the comparative sample is therefore relatively broad, including remains [54.173.221.132] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:26 GMT) CHAPTER 4 30 from the same age...