The full craniodental character matrix of 391 characters and 14 taxa has 5,474 possible character states, of which 3,387 are scored. The matrix is 61.9% complete. Character relevance ranges from 0.143 to 1, with a median of 0.571. Taxic relevance ranges from 0.205 (Ar. ramidus) to 0.954 (H. erectus s.l.), with a median of 0.660. Four taxa have taxic relevance less than 0.4 (Ardipithecus, H. floresiensis, H. naledi, and Au. sediba). See Table 1 for taxic relevance values for all taxa and character matrices. Using these characters, we calculated simple matching and Jaccard distances with no character relevance filtering. Distance correlation results using both Pearson and Spearman correlations are shown in Figure 1. These results do not differ substantially from the previously published analysis (Sinclair and Wood 2021). A cluster of Homo taxa and Au. sediba is discernible, and the outgroup taxa cluster differently depending on the correlation type and the distance metric. Homo floresiensis displays neither significant positive nor negative correlation with any other taxa. There is extensive significant, negative correlation between the Homo + Au. sediba cluster and the outgroup taxa. Cluster analysis of simple matching and Jaccard distances generally support the presence of a cluster containing Homo + Au. sediba (Figure 2). Curiously, medoid partitioning of simple matching distances consistently places Au. africanus s.l. in the Homo + Au. sediba clustering, but medoid partitioning with Jaccard distances places Au. africanus s.l. with Au. afarensis for k > 2. Average silhouette widths for all medoid partitions are greater than 0.3. The hard partition for two-cluster fuzzy analysis is identical for simple matching and Jaccard distances, and it places Homo taxa and Au. sediba in a single cluster, with Homo floresiensis in the outgroup cluster with chimpanzees and gorillas. The average silhouette widths for two-cluster fuzzy analysis with simple matching and Jaccard distances are 0.38 and 0.37 respectively. At higher cluster numbers, fuzzy analysis splits the Homo cluster using both simple matching and Jaccard distances, resulting in an average silhouette width of 0.2 or less. The 3D MDS shows a cluster of Homo taxa with Au. sediba closely adjacent (Figure 3). This is the case for both simple matching and Jaccard distances. In both cases, chimpanzees and gorillas do not appear close to any australopiths or to Ardipithecus. High-relevance craniodental characters. In order to create a combined character matrix that is roughly equally represented by craniodental and postcranial characters, we reduced the number of craniodental characters by removing characters with character relevance a ≤ 0.5. The original craniodental character matrix contained 391 characters, which is 60% more characters than the 239 postcranial characters. By filtering for high relevance only, 243 craniodental characters were retained, which is nearly equal to the 239 postcranial characters. We used these high-relevance characters as a second craniodental comparison set for distance correlation and cluster analysis. For 243 high-relevance craniodental characters and 14 taxa, there are 3,402 possible character states. With 2,566 character states scored, the matrix is 75.4% complete. Character relevance ranges from 0.571 to 1, with a median relevance of 0.786. Taxic relevance ranges from 0.296 (Ar. ramidus) to 0.996 (H. erectus s.l., H. habilis, H. sapiens, and Au. africanus s.l.), with a median of 0.809 (Table 1). Only Ardipithecus has a taxic relevance less than 0.4. Distance correlation results closely resembled those of the full craniodental matrix (Figure 4). Again, we see a cluster of Homo taxa and Au. sediba. H. floresiensis shares significant correlation with no other taxa. Correlations among the outgroup taxa vary by correlation type and distance metric. Significant, negative correlation is found between members of the Homo + Au. sediba cluster and the outgroup taxa. Cluster analysis of the high-relevance craniodental characters also resembles that of the full craniodental character set (Figure 5). Medoid partitioning of the simple matching and Jaccard distances places Au. africanus s.l. consistently in the Homo + Au. sediba cluster, Figure 6. Orthogonal views of 3D MDS results for simple matching (left) and Jaccard distances (right) calculated from high-relevance craniodental characters. Au. sediba is indicated by a symbol with a black outline. WOOD AND BRUMMEL Hominin Baraminology Reconsidered 2023 ICC 257
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