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Computerized paleoanthropology and Neanderthals: The case of Le Moustier 1
Author(s) -
Ponce De León Marcia S.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
evolutionary anthropology: issues, news, and reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.401
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1520-6505
pISSN - 1060-1538
DOI - 10.1002/evan.10060
Subject(s) - paleoanthropology , citation , philology , anthropology , art , library science , sociology , computer science , gender studies , feminism
thal ontogeny, since it is the only fairly complete adolescent individual of this taxon. It is therefore a primary challenge to recover as much information as possible from the preserved fragments, notably to infer the specimen’s original morphology as well as its taphonomic history. Today, computer-assisted paleoanthropology (CAP) offers the opportunity to perform these tasks in a noninvasive and comprehensive manner.5 Using the Le Moustier 1 specimen as a test case, this study establishes a framework for computer-assisted “fossil differential diagnosis.” It demonstrates how computer tools can be applied to differentiate between various causes that contributed to the present state of a fossil, with the ultimate goal of inferring its morphology at the time of death and of assessing skeletal modifications that occurred during life and after death. The basic principle of fossil differential diagnosis resides in inverting the temporal order in which modifications of fossil morphology have occurred. This procedure cannot be expected to yield an unequivocal result. It merely provides a means to establish a sequence of consecutive causes and effects that explains the observed patterns of modification in the most parsimonious manner. The procedure starts with the identification of postrecovery modifications of the original material. These modifications can be corrected through a new reconstruction of the fossil material. In the subsequent step, potential postmortem modifications are analyzed, notably deformation of the specimen due to diagenetic events. Geometric models are devised to explain the observed distortions and to correct them by the application of reverse deformation. At this stage, the morphology of the specimen at the time of death can be tentatively characterized. Skeletal modifications that persist after exclusion of postmortem causes most likely reflect the effects of in vivo causes. These may be of unspecific, pathological, or traumatic nature, and their discrimination requires extensive comparative studies, using modern skeletal material as well as clinical evidence.