Eyasi 1 and the suprainiac fossa

A reexamination of Eyasi 1, a later Middle Pleistocene east African neurocranium, reveals the presence of a suite of midoccipital features, including a modest nuchal torus that is limited to the middle half of the bone, the absence of an external occipital protuberance, and a distinct transversely oval suprainiac fossa. These features, and especially the suprainiac fossa, were considered to be uniquely derived for the European and western Asian Neandertals. These observations therefore indicate that these features are not limited to Neandertal lineage specimens, and should be assessed in terms of frequency distributions among later archaic humans. Am (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.