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Cranial measures and ancient DNA both show greater similarity of Neandertals to recent modern Eurasians than to recent modern sub‐Saharan Africans
Author(s) -
Relethford John H.,
Smith Fred H.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.23413
Subject(s) - crania , ancient dna , evolutionary biology , descent (aeronautics) , geography , biology , genetic similarity , demography , genealogy , archaeology , history , population , sociology , meteorology , genetic diversity
Objectives Ancient DNA analysis has shown that present‐day humans of Eurasian ancestry are more similar to Neandertals than are present‐day humans of sub‐Saharan African ancestry, reflecting interbreeding after modern humans first left Africa. We use craniometric data to test the hypothesis that the crania of recent modern humans show the same pattern. Materials and Methods We computed Mahalanobis squared distances between a published Neandertal centroid based on 37 craniometric traits and each of 2,413 recent modern humans from the Howells global data set ( N = 373 sub‐Saharan Africans, N = 2,040 individuals of Eurasian descent). Results The average distance to the Neandertal centroid is significantly lower for Eurasian crania than for sub‐Saharan African crania as expected from the findings of ancient DNA ( p < 0.001). This result holds when examining distances for separate geographic regions of humans of Eurasian descent (Europeans, Asians, Australasians, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders). Most of these results are also seen when examining distances partitioning size and shape variation. Discussion Our results show that the genetic difference in Neandertal ancestry seen in the DNA of present‐day sub‐Saharan Africans and Eurasians is also found in patterns of recent modern human craniometric variation.