A glimpse at the difficulty with early Homo

The new Dmanisi skull's got me thinking about early Homo more than normal, especially since it's what's on the horizon for my paleoanthropology course this semester.

This morning I unearthed a  project that never got published as a paper and it's worth sharing here.

A couple years ago I tried to address just one problem with distinguishing different species among early Homo fossils: The usefulness (or not) of molar outline shape. 

With great contribution from, and collaboration with, a student who went on to do graduate work in biological anthropology, together we presented a poster at the 2010 Paleoanthropology Society meetings in St. Louis called,

"From rhomboid to rectangle: Virtual wear of early Homo molars"

Here's a jpeg of that poster.

I'm posting it here in case it's useful for anyone concerned with these issues.

Email me (holly_dunsworth at mail.uri.edu) or tweet (@hollydunsworth) if you'd like a nice pdf or more information.