Le massif facial supérieur d’Homo heidelbergensis Schoetensack, 1908 : l’apport de la morphométrie géométrique

Abstract

A number of recent studies have looked into a possible redefinition of the species Homo heidelbergensis. The results are mainly based on morphological features and support the existence of a valid H. heidelbergensis taxon during the middle Pleistocene, which would represent an Afro-European species ancestral to Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis or a chronospecies of Neanderthals. In this study, we used geometric morphometrics to reconsider mid-Pleistocene fossils that could be attributed to the species H. heidelbergensis. The geometric morphometrics analysis is based on 8 landmarks in 3 dimensions, used to describe the morphology of the upper face of 29 mid-Pleistocene fossils and 14 humans from the Holocene. In the mid-Pleistocene fossils, the shape of the upper face of European specimens is similar to that of African fossils. It differs from H. sapiens and early Pleistocene fossils but shows similarities with the shape of Neanderthals. Considered together with the results from previous morphological studies on the upper face of putative H. heidelbergensis specimens from the mid-Pleistocene, our results support the hypothesis of an independent Afro-European Species, which would have been the last common ancestor to H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens