The taxonomic value of femora from the pleistocene of western Eurasia: A three-dimensional geometric morphometric analysis

The majority of phylogenetic research in paleoanthropology has considered craniodental material to be evolutionarily stable and therefore an adequate proxy for phylogeny. The postcranium, on the other hand, is generally thought to be too susceptible to external influences and is more commonly used to investigate morphofunctional and behavioural differences between synchronic and diachronic groups. However, recent developmental research has raised theoretical issues with character-based phylogenies, and many paleoanthropologists are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with activity-based interpretations of the human postcranium. Neandertals and anatomically modern humans provide a robust sample for comparing and understanding the nature of morphological variation between evolutionarily proximate groups.;The present analysis uses three-dimensional geometric morphometric techniques to investigate patterned epiphyseal and whole-bone variation in the femora of Neandertals and various modern human groups. While discerning between heritable and epigenetic patterns in femoral shape is not straightforward, the results of this dissertation indicate that Neandertals and modern humans differ in femoral shape in ways that are at odds with certain behavioural interpretations. Thus, certain shape differences between the femora of the archaic humans commonly referred to as Neandertals and anatomically modern humans are of a level and nature that can be interpreted as taxonomically relevant. As a result, it is possible to distinguish the femora of Neandertals from those of penecontemporaneous late Pleistocene Eurasian and more recent humans using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics.