ANTHROPOLOGIE

Volume 38/1, 2000, pp. 109-120

TILLIER A.-M.
Palaeoauxology Applied to Neanderthals. Similarities and Contrasts between Neanderthal and Modern Human Children

Discoveries in Eurasia over the last two decades have focused attention on the significance of studies devoted to Neanderthal subadults. Ontogenetic studies are increasingly being employed to provide greater insight into the morphological features which distinguish adult individuals and thus to assist in the resolution of the controversies concerning the evolutionary relationships between Neanderthals and early modern humans.
Although the taxonomic assignment of immature individuals is complicated by changes in morphology brought about by growth and maturation processes, there is a clear tendency among some scholars to interpret morphological traits of subadults as relevant to taxonomic identifications (Neanderthals versus anatomically modern humans). Employing comparisons of Neanderthal, early modern human and recent children, this paper attempts to evaluate the relevance of some morphological and metric features that have been used in the identification of Neanderthal affinities.

Neanderthals – Juveniles – Europe – Ontogeny – Palaeoauxology