The Human Facial Skeletons from Sunghir

The human (and mammalian) facial skeleton is a complex response to the protection, support, and functional demands of a diversity of neurological and physiological processes that must be structurally integrated, and each places limitations on the others. The processes involve respiration (nasal and oral) and mastication (and deglutition), as well as thermoregulation through respiration. Three of the special senses (vision, smell, and taste) are housed within the facial skeleton, although only the first has a major impact on the shape and structure of the facial skeleton. The challenge in assessing the facial configura­tions of the Sunghir human remains is to partition the facial skeleton in a paleobiologically meaningful manner. Traditionally in paleoanthropology, often given differential paleontological preservation, the facial skeleton is divided initially into its two major skeletal components (cranial and mandibular). The former is then assessed in terms of structures or individual bones, with variable focus on the configurations of the orbital, nasal, and palatal regions. The latter is evaluated as a whole or divided into corporeal and ramal regions. A more meaningful approach, although still one with its limitations, is to assess the face in terms of the three major functional units of the facial anatomy: the orbital, nasal, and masticatory units. Developmentally, in simplified terms, these units are sequential in their priorities. Even though the anterior orbital margins continue to grow anteriorly with facial growth through adolescence, their internal structure is formed early, given that the ocular sphere is an extension of the brain stem and grows in concert with it. The nasal region, both the internal capsule and its skeletal aperture, forms the core of the midface, the roof of the oral cavity, the medial surfaces for the zygomatic regions, and the baseline minimum for the length of the face given that the anterior mammalian dentition cannot be posterior of the nasal aperture. The maxillary dentition with its supporting structures is hafted onto the nasal capsule through the maxillary alveolar process, and the mandible normally grows to provide proper occlusion with the forwardly displaced maxillary dentition.