A reanalysis of the early Holocene frontal bone from Aitape, New Guinea

The Aitape frontal bone is compared to 13 late Pleistocene/early Holocene Australian crania as well as two modern samples comprised of 101 modern Australian and 126 modern new Guinea crania. These crania are compared using canonical variates analysis and Mahalanobis distances, the latter of which is examined for statistical significance using random expectation statistics. The results show that Aitape shares shape characteristics of a longer, flatter frontal with ancient Australians. Modern populations differ from both Aitape and the ancient Australians in having generally shorter, more curved frontals.