Artificial cranial deformation and fossil Australians revisited

sapiens in Australia, Australasia is widely considered the strongest case f or a regional origin of modem humans. However, artificial vault deformation has been suggested to: be-the cause of "archaic" characters such as fronta l recession in key fossil Australian crania. We use log-log plots of crania l are Versus chord measurements and we score nonmetric traits often thought to be associated;with artificial deformation to make systematic comparison s across groups and deformation types to identify universal consequences of artificial deformation. Based on our large comparative sample (n = 588) ap paratus-deformed crania;have flatter frontals and occipitals and usually mo re angulated parietals in the sagittal plane than undeformed crania, regard less of deformation type. Fossil Australian samples exhibit evidence of bot h undeformed and deformed individuals. The sample from Coobool Creek provid es evidence that undeformed individuals had more rounded frontals than rece nt Australians. However, many individuals from Coobool Creek, Kow Swamp, an d Nacurrie exhibit modification of one or more cranial contours. The Kow Sw amp individuals in particular plot with deformed crania from all regions. I n addition, the frequency of hyperostotic traits such as bregmatic eminence , metopic and sagittal keels in H. sapiens is influenced by both artificial deformation and pathological hypervascularity/hyperostosis. Thus it is unw ise to use cranial contours and these nonmetric traits to infer genetic rel atedness between Fossil Australians and Indonesian H. erectus. (C) 1999 Aca demic Press.