Mugharet el'Aliya: Affinities of an enigmatic north African Aterian maxillary fragment

Objectives This study uses a virtual framework to examine the left maxillary fragment of juvenile fossil from Mugharet el'Aliya, Morocco, found in association with an Aterian lithic industry. Previously, this had been ascribed modern humans or Neanderthal lineage based on its “archaic”/“Neanderthal-like” features and apparent large size. Here, we conducted novel 3D shape comparative analysis clarify taxonomic affinities regard size ontogeny. Materials Methods Eighty Computed Tomography surface scans representing ontogenetic samples Homo sapiens neanderthalensis were used capture species-specific differences. The toolkit geometric morphometrics combination registration elastic iterative closest point algorithm create dataset meshes identical number corresponding vertices for maxillae. Multivariate statistics applied Procrustes superimposed coordinates derived dataset. Results Our showed el'Aliya individual our H. sample, especially subadult Qafzeh. No size-independent Neanderthals comparable dental age could be identified. Discussion results add evidence connecting fossils western Asia, Qafzeh Skhul, North African Aterian. Furthermore, adds knowledge development adult morphology that is frequently characterize hominin groups, example, humans.