CRANIAL GROWTH IN THE PREHISTORIC SAMPLE FROM K2 AT MAPUNGUBWE (SOUTH-AFRICA) IS POPULATION SPECIFIC

Although studies on long bone growth from archaeological remains are f airly common, much less has been published on cranial growth from the same kind of data. Differences in adult cranial morphology are often u sed to distinguish between various populations, and most obviously the se differences must have been formed sometime during childhood. Using the juvenile skeletons from the prehistoric sample from K2 (South Afri ca) as an example, this study demonstrates that some of the characteri stic adult morphological dimensions of the skull are distinguishable f rom as early as five years of age. Some of these characteristics show clearer patterns than others in the various populations compared in th is study, and they correlate with those measurements in the literature which are described as being strongly heritable. The dimension which seems to be the most characteristic for a particular population, is th at of cranial breadth. Small sample sizes were, however, a problem and these results need to be confirmed on other, larger samples.