SIGNIFICANCE OF SOME PREVIOUSLY UNRECOGNIZED APOMORPHIES IN THE NASALREGION OF HOMO-NEANDERTHALENSIS

For many years, the Neanderthals have been recognized as a distinctive extinct hominid group that occupied Europe and western Asia between a bout 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. It is still debated, however, wheth er these hominids belong in their own species, Homo neanderthalensis, or represent an extinct variant of Homo sapiens. Our ongoing studies i ndicate that the Neanderthals differ from modern humans in their skele tal anatomy in more ways than have been recognized up to now. The purp ose of this contribution is to describe specializations of the Neander thal internal nasal region that make them unique not only among homini ds but possibly among terrestrial mammals in general as well. These fe atures lend additional weight to the suggestion that Neanderthals are specifically distinct from Homo sapiens.