Endocranial morphology of the occipital bone from Ciota Ciara cave: virtual anatomy and shape analysis.

The evolution of cranial morphology in the genus Homo has been characterized by a trend of encephalization. The occipital bone is one of the most studied cranial regions to infer the taxonomic status of human fossil individuals. In fact, genus Homo has been characterized by a progressive increment of brain volume and internal occipital morphology seems to record someway this trend. Beside the cranial capacity, the external morphology of the occipital bone shows specific diagnostic traits in different fossil human species. During the 2019 excavation campaign, the University of Ferrara research team discovered a total of eight human fossils (seven teeth and an almost complete occipital bone fragment) at the Ciota Ciara cave site, dated to the early Middle Paleolithic. In this research paper, we present preliminary studies of the inner surface's occipital bone reconstructed by means of Virtual Anthropology. To evaluate the morphology of Ciota Ciara, we compared its shape with a comparison collection consisting of modern human and fossil specimens belonging to H.erectus, H.heidelbergensis and H.neanderthalensis. By applying qualitative and quantitative methodologies, we described the anatomy of Ciota Ciara and we performed a geometric morphometric analysis on the symmetric and asymmetric components by acquiring 13 fixed landmarks and a set of 40 bilateral surface semilandmarks. The study on the endocranial morphology allowed us to contextualize Ciota Ciara within the Middle to Late Pleistocene variability, to describe and compare the pattern of asymmetry among species. By cross-referencing the results from different analysis, it was possible to demonstrate that occipital morphology is characterized by asymmetry referred to the occipito-petalia, and in a less consistent manner by the Yakovlenian torque.