Cabeço da Amoreira, a key Mesolithic shell mound in the Muge region (central Portugal) provides critical insights into the funerary and socio-cultural practices of Western Europe’s last hunter-gath...

PDF | On Sep 1, 2025, Dany Coutinho Nogueira and others published Paleoimagiologia aplicada aos concheiros de Muge: novas perspetivas sobre as populações mesolíticas | Find, read and cite all the rese...

Discovered 160 years ago, the Muge archaeological sites in Portugal yield the most significant documentation of human skeletons from the Mesolithic period in Western Europe (8200–7100 cal B.P.). Howe...

The bony labyrinth has received growing attention in the field of human evolution as it is a useful phylogenetic indicator in hominins and is particularly useful for distinguishing anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals. The partial adult skeleton of Qafzeh 25 dated to 92 ± 5 ka B.P. suffers from serious post-mortem taphonomic damage that has limited its anatomical description and metrical analysis. However, the two petrosal bones are preserved and the bony labyrinths are not affected by post-mortem deformations. In this study, the methodology developed by Spoor (1993) is used to analyze and compare the morphometric data from Qafzeh 25 semi-circular canals and cochlea to that of other fossils from the site and more generally to the published hominin sample (Middle and Late Pleistocene hominins). While this analysis reveals that the Qafzeh 25 bony labyrinth resembles that of other Qafzeh individuals, it extends the range of variation within the sample for some variables.