@article {309063,
	title = {No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.},
	journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A},
	volume = {110},
	year = {2013},
	note = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/10/15/1302653110.abstract},
	month = {2013 Nov 5},
	pages = {18196-201},
	abstract = {<p>A central problem in paleoanthropology is the identity of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans ([N-MH]LCA). Recently developed analytical techniques now allow this problem to be addressed using a probabilistic morphological framework. This study provides a quantitative reconstruction of the expected dental morphology of the [N-MH]LCA and an assessment of whether known fossil species are compatible with this ancestral position. We show that no known fossil species is a suitable candidate for being the [N-MH]LCA and that all late Early and Middle Pleistocene taxa from Europe have Neanderthal dental affinities, pointing to the existence of a European clade originated around 1 Ma. These results are incongruent with younger molecular divergence estimates and suggest at least one of the following must be true: (i) European fossils and the [N-MH]LCA selectively retained primitive dental traits; (ii) molecular estimates of the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans are underestimated; or (iii) phenotypic divergence and speciation between both species were decoupled such that phenotypic differentiation, at least in dental morphology, predated speciation.</p>},
	keywords = {Animals, Biological Evolution, Fossils, Hominidae, Humans, Linear Models, Phylogeny, Species Specificity, Tooth},
	issn = {1091-6490},
	doi = {10.1073/pnas.1302653110},
	url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24145426},
	author = {G{\'o}mez-Robles, Aida and Bermudez De Castro, Jose Maria and Arsuaga, Juan-Luis and Carbonell, Eudald and Polly, P David}
}
