Morphometric comparisons between crania of Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Border Cave (BC 1), Tuinplaas (TP 1) and modern southern African populations

Abstract

Two Late Pleistocene fossil specimens, Border Cave hominin 1 (BC 1) and Tuinplaas hominin 1 (TP 1), are thought to be among the earliest known “anatomically modern” Homo sapiens in southern Africa. Cranial measurements of these two specimens are compared against corresponding data from modern KhoeSan and non-KhoeSan crania, representing respectively “Bushman” and Bantu-speaking populations from southern Africa. Morphometric comparisons between BC 1 and modern samples, and between TP 1 and the same samples, are undertaken using least squares linear regression analyses. BC 1 appears to be most similar to modern Bantu-speaking populations, whereas TP 1 is most similar to KhoeSan and Xhosa which are known to have interacted in recent millennia. The slopes of the regression lines are used as a basis for suggesting that both TP 1 and BC 1 are males.

Keywords:

• Late Pleistocene
• Homo sapiens
• Africa