F Smith [2004] and a number of other authors have discussed the variiations between Neanderthal and Early "European " Homo sapiens occipital buns.Smith stated that except for the Jebel Irhoud specimens,no African or West Asian Homo Sapiens had this feature [ie;Skhul,Qafzeh,etc].A number of Neanderthals do not appear to have significant occipital bun development [the Levant crania?].
Any references on the topic would be much appreciated.
The only recent thing I've seen is:
Gunz P. and Harvati K. 2006. A 3D analysis of the Neanderthal occipital bun: Reassessment of a proposed derived trait. To be presented at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society, San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 24-26, 2006.
The abstract for this is # A90 in the pdf of abstracts for the 2006 PAS meetings. Dowload for abstracts of the 2006 PAS meetings is available from the contents page at:
http://www.paleoanthro.org/journal/contents.htm The abstract reads:
A90
26 April 2006
A 3D Analysis of the Neanderthal Occipital Bun: Reassessment of a Proposed Derived Trait
Gunz, Philipp, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dept. of Human Evolution
Harvati, Katerina, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dept. of Human Evolution
The occipital bun is considered a derived Neanderthal trait. The presence of a weak bun in Upper Paleolithic European fossils is often cited as evidence for admixture/continuity between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. However, this feature is difficult to measure, and the term 'occipital bun' has been applied to various morphological patterns. We extend previous 2D geometric morphometric analyses by one of us (Harvati et al. 2002; Reddy et al. 2005) to include 3D data. We quantitatively evaluate the presence and degree of expression of this trait in Neanderthals, Upper Paleolithic Europeans, Middle-Late Pleistocene African and European fossils, and recent humans (335 crania, representing 12 geographic populations, covering a wide range of modern human shape variability).
3D coordinates of landmarks (lambda, inion, asterion) and curves (midsagittal outline of the occipital bun and lambdoid suture) were measured using a Microscribe digitizer. The curves were resampled to yield the same number of points for every specimen. These points (semilandmarks) gain geometric homology within the sample through sliding along the curvature, so as to minimize the thin-plate-spline bending energy between each specimen and the Procrustes average. The resulting coordinates were superimposed using Procrustes registration. The shape coordinates were then analyzed using principal components analysis.
We used two different subsets of landmarks and semilandmarks: (1) the midsagittal outline and (2) this midsagittal outline and the lambdoid suture curve. When the first subset is analyzed we find almost complete overlap of Neanderthal and AMHS shape variability. When the data are augmented by lateral information using the second coordinate subset, Neanderthals fall outside the range of modern variation. Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens cannot be distinguished from recent humans. Petralona and Atapuerca SH 5 cluster with Neanderthals, as does Kabwe. Results warrant re-evaluation of the polarity and status of this trait.
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Harvati K., D.P. Reddy, and L.F. Marcus. 2002. Analysis of the Posterior Cranial Profile Morphology in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Using Geometric Morphometrics. American Journal of Physical Anthropology S34: 83.
Reddy D. P., K. Harvati, and J. Kim. 2005. Alternative Approaches to Ridge-Curve Analysis Using the Example of the Neanderthal Occipital ‘Bun’. In Modern Morphometrics in Physical Anthropology, D. Slice (ed.). New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Research funded by: NSF, Onassis Foundation, CARE Foundation, AMNH, NYCEP, New York University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
"Results warrant re-evaluation of the polarity and status of this trait.'(Gunz & Harvati 2006)
Note there are some references at the bottom of the abstract. Katerina Harvati's webpage of publications,
HERE,
has a number of free pdf downloads (but none of the above) and says there is a forthcoming paper by Harvati and Gunz, but it's still in pre-publication stage.
Dar
