Sulcus musculi zygomaticomandibularis, a New Characteristic in the Reconstruction of the Human Fossil Skull

Abstract

In the study of the lamination of the masseter of the higher primates which include the crab-eating monkey, orangutan, gorilla and man, the zygomaticomandibular muscle originates from the supraorbital eminence and terminates along the oblique line of the mandible, spreading along the concaved surface of the frontal and zygomatic bones (YOSHIKAWA et al., 1961b, 1962a). The space which is occupied by this muscle is proposed to be called the sulcus musculi zygomaticomandibularis, which is expected to be a new characteristic to prove the natural and reasonable reconstruction of the human fossil skull.
In the Saldanha skull, however, the sulcus is too narrow to expect the existence of the zygomaticomandibularis. So the author concludes that the reconstruction of the skull is unnatural.
In the Saldanha skull, the mandible, which is reconstructed from a fragment of a mandibular branch after the Heidelberg mandible, is too large to harmonize with the reconstructed cranium and is expected not to be of the same individual. (Fig. 1)