published taxonomic descriptions, and original measurements and observations on digital scans and physical casts. These new characters were then analyzed using standard distance correlation and cluster analysis, as previously used in Wood (2021) and Sinclair and Wood (2021). The results are the most comprehensive analysis of hominin baraminology to date. METHODS Character matrix. An initial postcranial character list was assembled from published descriptions in Lordkipanidze et al. (2007), Berger et al. (2010), Senter (2010), Kivell et al. (2011), Arsuaga et al. (2015), Argue et al. (2017), Churchill and VanSickle (2017), Marchi et al. (2017), and Pugh (2022). Redundant characters from this list were removed, and new characters were developed from published literature descriptions. Finally, every character was evaluated based on direct examination of available skeletal evidence, and characters that could not be confirmed by inspection of scans, casts, or photographs were replaced with related characters. For all characters, character state 0 was reserved exclusively for the absence of a character state. We selected fourteen taxa for our analysis based on the taxa included in the Wood (2020) character matrix. Our taxa include extant chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans, fossil taxa representing seven members of Homo (H. erectus sensu lato, H. floresiensis, H. georgicus, H. habilis, H. heidelbergensis, H. naledi, H. neanderthalensis), three members of Australopithecus (Au. afarensis, Au. africanus sensu lato, Au. sediba), and Ardipithecus ramidus. To maximize the number of scored character states, we opted to combine the African and Asian H. erectus taxa from Wood (2020) as a single taxon H. erectus sensu lato. In doing so, we retained the Dmanisi hominins as a separate taxon, here called H. georgicus. We also elected to include Au. africanus and Little Foot skeletal material in the taxon Au. africanus sensu lato rather than taking a position on the status of Au. prometheus (Berger and Hawks 2019; Clarke 2019b; Grine 2019). All taxonomic decisions here should be viewed only as pragmatic in order to maximize the number of character states rather than assessments of the merits of species descriptions and attributions. To score additional postcranial character states and evaluate previously published postcranial character states, we consulted published photographs, specimen measurements and descriptions, 3D scans and prints, and physical casts. We also consulted original material for Homo neanderthalensis (Shanidar 3), Australopithecus sediba (MH1), and Homo naledi (LES-1) at public exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, TX. Altogether, we directly scored 1,753 character states. The character matrix is available from Dryad (Wood and Brummel 2023). In addition to this new matrix of postcranial characters, we used the Wood (2020) matrix of craniodental characters as a reference. In doing so, we eliminated taxa not included in the postcranial matrix, and we combined the African and Asian H. erectus into a single taxon. Where African and Asian H. erectus character states differed, we combined them as a polymorphism that included both character states. We also used the nonpolarized character coding that assigned character state 0 only to character states that were absent. To combine the character matrices into a total evidence character matrix, we selected only craniodental characters with character relevance greater than 0.5 in order to balance the number of craniodental and postcranial characters and to prevent the analysis from being effectively weighted in favor of the craniodental characters. To do this, we eliminated characters 4, 7-10, 16-19, 30, 36, 44, 47-48, 51, All craniodental High-relevance craniodental Postcranial Combined Ardipithecus 0.205 0.296 0.222 0.259 Au. afarensis 0.675 0.811 0.778 0.795 Au. africanus s.l. 0.829 0.996 0.812 0.905 Au. sediba 0.376 0.490 0.724 0.606 Gorilla 0.798 0.951 0.983 0.967 H. erectus s.l. 0.954 0.996 0.649 0.824 H. floresiensis 0.322 0.449 0.603 0.583 H. georgicus 0.445 0.564 0.331 0.390 H. habilis 0.836 0.996 0.331 0.666 H. heidelbergensis 0.645 0.807 0.573 0.691 H. naledi 0.315 0.506 0.389 0.448 Neandertals 0.621 0.778 0.845 0.811 H. sapiens 0.893 0.996 0.975 0.985 Chimpanzee 0.749 0.926 0.979 0.952 Table 1. Taxic relevance for each character set used in this study. WOOD AND BRUMMEL Hominin Baraminology Reconsidered 2023 ICC 252
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