The Dentition of the Aurignacian Mandible Les Rois 2, France: New Data and Taxonomic Reassessment

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OBJECTIVE: This study provides new dental phenotypic data on the Aurignacian mandible Les Rois 2 (southwestern France). A former study of its dental morphology concluded that its taxonomic assignment to either Homo sapiens or Homo neanderthalensis was "uncertain" and could reflect a recent Neanderthal ancestry of this specimen. An alternative explanation was that Aurignacian people from Les Rois were H. sapiens displaying plesiomorphic features, extending the biological variation seen among modern populations. Here, we propose a reassessment of Les Rois 2 taxonomic status through the study of its dental morphological features. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Our analyses include micro-tomographic data of a large comparative sample of H. neanderthalensis, Pleistocene and Holocene H. sapiens. We analyze dental metrics, 3D dental tissue proportions (AET and RET), Enamel Dentin Junction (EDJ) nonmetric trait variations, and lower premolar EDJ size and shape with 3D geometric morphometrics. RESULTS: The Les Rois 2 specimen displays dental features placing it at the limit of the range of variation of Holocene populations, but consistent with the morphology of Late Pleistocene H. sapiens. Our analyses also show that Les Rois 2 lacks the derived H. neanderthalensis morphological trait. DISCUSSION: Our study shows that the taxonomic attribution of Les Rois 2 is more consistent with H. sapiens than with H. neanderthalensis, while acknowledging that the specimen displays plesiomorphic features rare among recent H. sapiens populations. These findings highlight the larger phenotypic variation displayed by Early Upper Paleolithic populations and contribute to a better understanding of the morphology of Aurignacian makers.