CLADISTIC-ANALYSIS OF DENTAL TRAITS IN RECENT HUMANS USING A FOSSIL OUTGROUP

The relationships between a range of modern human samples are assessed from cladistic analyses of the published population frequencies of to oth crown characters, using new data on the Krapina Neanderthal sample as an outgroup. All of the most parsimonious trees show an early dive rgence of African and Australasian groups. This result is compared wit h an alternative dendrogram proposed by Turner (1992). Reconstruction of a hypothetical dental ancestor suggests that the similarities betwe en the African and Australasian groups result from the retention of sy mplesiomorphous dental traits. Additionally, despite expectations from multiregional evolution, recent Europeans are dentally less like the Krapina Neanderthals than are Africans and Australians. (C) 1997 Acade mic Press Limited.