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Updated: Aug 14, 2026
Systematic Assessment of Mammalian Skull Specimens for Dental and Temporomandibular Joint Pathology
Published on: August 22, 2022
Mandibular fossa of fossil Australians
1Department of Anatomy, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia. h.green@student.unsw.edu.au
Abstract:
Many questions about the skeletal adaptations and morphology of hunter-gatherers on the Australian continent remain unanswered. One anatomical region receiving little research in Australian fossils to date is the mandibular fossa. Here we report a study of three size dimensions, three shape indices and three morphological (non-metric) features of the mandibular fossa in 11 fossil Australians comparing them with modern Australo-Melanesian samples. We find broad similarities in past and modern populations in this region. Early and modern Australians and modern Papua New Guineans have elongate, broad and shallow fossae. All three populations show similarity in articular tubercle size, but postglenoid tubercle and entoglenoid process sizes show unexpected affinities. We also test for the possible presence of temporal trends in mandibular fossa size among fossil Australians. Our analyses indicate that none are present.
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