Convergent Morphological Encoding in Ritual Masks: Computational Analysis of Seneca and Māori Material Culture

This paper presents an exploratory computational analysis of N=150 ritual masks and carvings to test the "Myth as Compressed Protocol" hypothesis. As part of the broader Hominin Mythology Project, this study investigates whether the material culture of populations with plausible archaic hominin overlap (Seneca False Face and Māori whēku) preserves congruent, non-normative craniofacial signatures compared to comparison groups (European and Japanese mask traditions). Using the Qwen-VL vision-language model, nine standardized morphological descriptors were extracted from the dataset. TF-IDF vectorization and UMAP dimensionality reduction were then applied to visualize semantic clustering and calculate automated trait prevalence. Key Findings: The Archaic Signature: Experimental groups encode specific archaic traits at descriptively higher rates than comparison groups, most notably macroglossia (16× higher prevalence), prognathism (3.5×), and nasofrontal depression (3×). Biomechanical Anomalies: Manual verification confirmed the presence of the "bow-tie" lip morphology (extreme lateral eversion with midline constriction). This is interpreted not as a resting face, but as a frozen articulatory posture linked to a divergent hominin vocal tract and socially salient "signature sounds." Independent Encoding: UMAP topology reveals a "bridge" effect, suggesting that Seneca and Māori carvers were independently encoding a shared category of deviation from the Homo sapiens norm, rather than copying a single diffused template. These findings provide preliminary, independent material-culture evidence that triangulates with the project's textual "Survival Manual" motifs, suggesting that global folklore and ritual objects may preserve fragmented memories of physically distinct hominin competitors.