For bipedalism studies, the shape and orientation of the inner ear is an important source of information, as F. Spoor showed in his contribution about the labyrinth of the Neanderthals and H. sapiens . In Australopithecines, the number and form of tooth roots is an important diagnostic feature and incompletely known. Teeth can be extracted electronically from the jaw and compared. Quantitative data is important for the description and morphological analysis of fossil specimens, documenting the evolutionary changes with hard numbers. A lot of data is available for measurements on the outside of the specimens, but hardly anything on the inside.
Intracranial comparison is a powerful tool for phylogenetic classification of fossils.
Frequently, fossils show heavy encrustations , because extraneous material was deposited within the skull during a long taphonomic process. A remarkable feature of virtual anthropology is the possibility to remove these encrustations by electronic preparation . Sophisticated procedures, involving filtering algorithms in several steps, can be necessary. Details of the internal morphology appear after the cleaned slices are reassembled for a 3D-reconstruction of the specimen and a stereolithographic model of the cleaned fossil is built. However, it can be helpful to assemble a specimen or a composite skull from different specimens to gain a better understanding of the supposed appearance.