The affinity of the dental remains from Obi-Rakhmat Grotto, Uzbekistan.
A human partial maxillary dentition and a fragmentary cranium were recovered from Obi-Rakhmat Grotto in northeastern Uzbekistan in 2003. Initial descriptions of this single juvenile (OR-1) from a Middle Paleolithic archaeological context have emphasized its mosaic morphological pattern; the dentition appears archaic, while certain morphological aspects of the cranial fragments may be more ambiguous. The present study provides a systematic and comparative analysis of the dental morphology and morphometrics of OR-1 to provide a more refined appraisal of its phenetic affinity vis á vis Neandertals and modern humans. Two analyses were performed. The first uses 28 non-metric dental traits scored from Neandertals, Upper Paleolithic, and Middle Paleolithic modern humans to assess the posterior probability of group membership for the Obi-Rakhmat individual. The second is a morphometric analysis of the first upper molar of OR-1. The results of both analyses suggest the dentition of OR-1 is essentially Neandertal.
Bailey
Shara
S
New York University, Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York, NY, USA. sbailey@nyu.edu
Glantz
Michelle
M
Weaver
Timothy D
TD
Viola
Bence
B
D000818:Animals; D003817:Dentition; D005580:Fossils; D015186:Hominidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D010161:Paleodontology; D014070:Tooth / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000737:chemistry; D014610:Uzbekistan