145 T. Akazawa et al. (eds.), Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 2: Cognitive and Physical Perspectives, Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series, DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-54553-8_16, © Springer Japan 2014 Abstract We apply the sliding semi-landmark method for the analysis of morphological variability in the modern Japanese population. Specifically, we prepare two kinds of template landmark configurations that will be projected onto and slid along each of the samples. We then ana- lyze the variability in the neurocranial shape in the modern Japanese population by means of a landmark-based geometric morphometric method. We also analyze the differences in the patterns of extracted morphological variances due to different landmark configurations. Our results demonstrate that the morphological variabilities extracted by the two different template configurations generally correspond to each other, and indicate that if a sufficient number of semi-landmarks are evenly distributed across the neurocranial surface, the global tendency of the morphological variability to be extracted may not be affected by the choice of template configurations. Furthermore, the most predominant shape variability found in the cranial vault in the modern Japanese population is the brachycephalic/dolichocephalic tendency. The present semi-landmark-based approach will serve as a basis for detailed quantification and comparisons of the human neurocranial shape. Keywords Craniometry • Geometric morphometrics • Semi-landmark • Skull Application of Sliding Landmark Method for Morphological Analysis of Modern Japanese Neurocranial Shape Naomichi Ogihara, Yusuke Morita, Hideki Amano, Osamu Kondo, Hiromasa Suzuki, and Masato Nakatsukasa 16 N. Ogihara (*) • Y. Morita • H. Amano Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8522, Japan e-mail: ogihara@mech.keio.ac.jp; ogilab_morita10@yahoo.co.jp; ogilab_amano11@yahoo.co.jp O. Kondo Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan e-mail: kondo-o@biol.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp H. Suzuki Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, Komaba 4-6-1, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan e-mail: suzuki@den.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp M. Nakatsukasa Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-Oiwakecho, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan e-mail: nakatsuk@anthro.zool.kyoto-u.ac.jp 16.1 Introduction In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) geometric morpho- metrics have been extensively utilized for the analyses of morphological variability in the human crania. Geometric morphometrics is a statistical method to analyze shape varia- tions based on biological landmark coordinates (Bookstein 1991; O’Higgins 2000; Adams et al. 2004; Slice 2005; Mitteroecker and Gunz 2009). Homologous landmarks were digitized on the surface of each specimen to describe the bio- logical shape. The landmark coordinates were then normal- ized and registered using the centroid size and the Generalized Procrustes Analysis (superimposition of landmark coordi- nates based on a least squares method), respectively, and the shape variations among the specimens were quantified based on Procrustes residuals (deviation of landmark coordinates from the average landmark configuration of all the specimens).