Dental maturational sequence and dental tissue proportions in the early Upper Paleolithic child from Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal

Abstract

Neandertals differ from recent and terminal Pleistocene human populations in their patterns of dental development, endostructural (internal structure) organization, and relative tissue proportions. Although significant changes in craniofacial and postcranial morphology have been found between the Middle Paleolithic and earlier Upper Paleolithic modern humans of western Eurasia and the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene inhabitants of the same region, most studies of dental maturation and structural morphology have compared Neandertals only to later Holocene humans. To assess whether earlier modern humans contrasted with later modern populations and possibly approached the Neandertal pattern, we used high-resolution microtomography to analyze the remarkably complete mixed dentition of the early Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) child from Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal, and compared it to a Neandertal sample, the late Upper Paleolithic (Magdalenian) child of La Madeleine, and a worldwide extant human sample. Some aspects of the dental maturational pattern and tooth endostructural organization of Lagar Velho 1 are absent from extant populations and the Magdalenian specimen and are currently documented only among Neandertals. Therefore, a simple Neandertal versus modern human dichotomy is inadequate to accommodate the morphostructural and developmental variation represented by Middle Paleolithic and earlier Upper Paleolithic populations. These data reinforce the complex nature of Neandertal-modern human similarities and differences, and document ongoing human evolution after the global establishment of modern human morphology.

Brief communication: An analysis of dental development in Pleistocene Homo using skeletal growth and chronological age

“…Interestingly, after the inclusion of femoral diaphysis length in the models, the development of the first molar remains underestimated (i.e., its M1 development is relatively advanced), whereas the development of the second incisor, both premolars and second molar remains overestimated (i.e., its I2, P3, P4, and M2 development is relatively delayed). These results provide further support to the observed combination of delayed incisor and advanced molar development noted in Neanderthal and anatomically modern fossil human subadults (Bayle et al, ). However, the divergence between the relative development of the first and second molar is not typical of Neanderthals, and neither is delayed premolar development (Reid et al, ).…”

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

“…Where the corresponding Lagar Velho tooth is concerned, they found it to be intermediate between Neandertals and modern humans in crown outline, and described this fi nding as corroborating the similar conclusion derived by Bayle et al ( 2010 ) from tissue proportions. Benazzi et al ( 2012 ) also found that the crown outlines of three other fossils, two Neandertals and one Upper Paleolithic modern, were misclassifi ed by the predictive tool derived from the observed patterns.…”

On the antiquity of language: the reinterpretation of Neandertal linguistic capacities and its consequences

“…Nevertheless, there may be some intermediate fossils, possibly reflecting the interbreeding that we now know to have occurred through the DNA evidence reviewed above. Probably the best-known case is represented by the child discovered at the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal (Duarte et al, 1999), which has been interpreted as a Neandertal-modern human hybrid dating from about 24 kya (Duarte et al, 1999; Trinkaus and Zilhão, 2003), an interpretation apparently supported by the recent analysis of its pattern of dental development (Bayle et al, 2010) 7 . Given the burial context, it has been argued that the child had been accepted as a full member of the community speculating that this type of admixture was viewed as tolerable at least, and was frequent enough to gain social acceptance (Zilhão and Trinkaus, 2003).…”