scholarly journals AN APPLICATION OF THE RELATIVE WARPS ANALYSIS TO PROBLEMS IN HUMAN PALEONTOLOGY - WITH NOTES ON RAW DATA QUALITY

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Frieß

This study investigates the use of geometric morphometrics as well as methodological aspects specifically related to its application in paleoanthropology. Based on lateral photographs taken from a fossil sample of 58 specimens, a relative warps analysis was computed in order to assess the variation of cranial shape among various hominin groups. The fossil sample represents Middle and Late Pleistocene populations commonly assigned to H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, archaic H. sapiens as well as anatomically modern H. sapiens. The preliminary results indicate that several fossil skulls considered as belonging to archaic H. sapiens have a distinct shape compared to modern humans. The results suggest that these hominins are not as closely related to modern humans as previously thought. Instead, their morphometric affinities suggest that they are as distinct from modern humans as are the Neandertals. Methodological aspects, such as raw data accuracy and the use of type 2 and 3 landmarks that are directly related to this type of quantitative analysis and that potentially affect their results, are discussed.

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 592 (7853) ◽  
pp. 253-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateja Hajdinjak ◽  
Fabrizio Mafessoni ◽  
Laurits Skov ◽  
Benjamin Vernot ◽  
Alexander Hübner ◽  
...  

AbstractModern humans appeared in Europe by at least 45,000 years ago1–5, but the extent of their interactions with Neanderthals, who disappeared by about 40,000 years ago6, and their relationship to the broader expansion of modern humans outside Africa are poorly understood. Here we present genome-wide data from three individuals dated to between 45,930 and 42,580 years ago from Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria1,2. They are the earliest Late Pleistocene modern humans known to have been recovered in Europe so far, and were found in association with an Initial Upper Palaeolithic artefact assemblage. Unlike two previously studied individuals of similar ages from Romania7 and Siberia8 who did not contribute detectably to later populations, these individuals are more closely related to present-day and ancient populations in East Asia and the Americas than to later west Eurasian populations. This indicates that they belonged to a modern human migration into Europe that was not previously known from the genetic record, and provides evidence that there was at least some continuity between the earliest modern humans in Europe and later people in Eurasia. Moreover, we find that all three individuals had Neanderthal ancestors a few generations back in their family history, confirming that the first European modern humans mixed with Neanderthals and suggesting that such mixing could have been common.


2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-238
Author(s):  
Louis Arbez ◽  
Aurelien Royer ◽  
Danielle Schreve ◽  
Remi Laffont ◽  
Serge David ◽  
...  

1968 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 1467-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Churcher

Five ungulates are reported from gravels comprising the second major terrace above the Bow River's north bank at Cochrane, Alberta. These ungulates are Cervus canadensis (wapiti), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Ovis canadensis (mountain sheep), Bison occidentalis (extinct western bison), and Equus conversidens (extinct Mexican ass). E. conversidens was previously known from middle and late Pleistocene beds of the southern United States and Mexico and is here reported from the post-Wisconsin Pleistocene of Alberta and possibly Saskatchewan. Radiocarbon analysis of Bison bones from the gravels yielded two dates that averaged 11 065 B.P.


2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-629
Author(s):  
M. Jayaprakasan ◽  
V. Kannan ◽  
P. Ramasamy

X-ray powder diffraction is an established method for the qualitative identification of crystalline materials and their quantitative analysis. The new generation of X-ray diffraction systems are based on expensive digital/embedded control technology and computer interfaces. Yet many laboratories use conventional manual-controlled systems withXYstrip-chart recorders. Since the output spectrum is a strip chart (hard copy), raw data, essential for structural and qualitative analysis, are not readily available for further analysis. Upgrading to modern computerized diffractometers is very expensive. The proposed automation design described here is intended to enable the conventional diffractometer user to collect, store and analyze data quickly. The design also improves the resolution by five times compared with the conventional setup. For the automation, a PC add-on card has been designed to control and collect the timing and intensity counts from the conventional X-ray diffractometer, and suitable software has been developed to collect, process and present the X-ray diffraction data for both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Moreover, a major advantage of this design is that it does not warrant any physical modification of the hardware of the conventional setup; it is simply an extension to enhance the performance of collecting raw data with a higher resolution at desired intervals/timings.


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