The Application of a Normalizing Statistic to the Dental Metricies of the South African Australopithecines

Abstract

This study assesses the utility of T-scores for discerning taxonomic categories in Plio-Pleistocene hominids by analysis of the dental metrics of the South African australopithecines. The hominids are divided into robust and gracile samples and T-scores and correlations between these samples are determined. Following a limited comparison of correlations between two non-human primate species the australopithecine T-scores and correlations are suggested to be close to the levels expected if the differences between samples were explained by sexual dimorphism.