Neandertals
نویسندگان
چکیده
What is a Neandertal? A Neandertal (Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) is a kind of human that lived in Europe and Western Asia until around 30,000 years ago. The first Neandertal skeleton was found by quarry workers in 1856 in the Neander Valley in Germany. At first people thought the oddlooking skeleton was that of a diseased person or of a Cossack from the Napoleonic War. It was only later, when similar remains were found in Belgium, that Neandertals became fully accepted as an extinct type of human. Since then, a debate about their relationship to modern humans has raged among paleontologists and geneticists, and inspired many writers of fiction.
منابع مشابه
Variation and Characteristics of the Cranial Vault Thickness in the Krapina and Western European Neandertals
The Krapina collection constitutes the largest sample of Neandertal individuals. However, comparisons of these fossils with other Western European Neandertals have been limited because of the fragmentary condition of the Krapina specimens and because gracility and small dimensions of the cranial remains were attributed to phylogeny and to geological age or to a sex/age bias in the composition o...
متن کاملDiagnostic differences in mandibular P4 shape between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.
This study uses elliptical Fourier analysis to quantify shape differences observed in the P(4) crown of Neandertals and anatomically modern humans. Previously, P(4) shape was assessed qualitatively, and results suggested marked differences between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans (Bailey [2002] New Anat. 269:148-156). The goal of this study was to investigate the P(4) shape in more de...
متن کاملThe exaptation of the parietal lobes in Homo sapiens
As duly noted by Bruner & Lozano (this volume), paleoneurological evidence reveals that the most dramatic morphological changes in Homo sapiens' brain evolution have occurred in the areas which process and integrate visual and spatial information, the parietal lobes. Further, they purport that one derived feature of Neandertal behavior was the use of their teeth as a third hand or tool. While t...
متن کاملUnconstrained cranial evolution in Neandertals and modern humans compared to common chimpanzees.
A variety of lines of evidence support the idea that neutral evolutionary processes (genetic drift, mutation) have been important in generating cranial differences between Neandertals and modern humans. But how do Neandertals and modern humans compare with other species? And how do these comparisons illuminate the evolutionary processes underlying cranial diversification? To address these quest...
متن کاملIs human longevity a consequence of cultural change or modern biology?
Increased longevity, expressed as the number of individuals surviving to older adulthood, represents a key way that Upper Paleolithic Europeans differ from earlier European (Neandertal) populations. Here, we address whether longevity increased as a result of cultural/adaptive change in Upper Paleolithic Europe, or whether it was introduced to Europe as a part of modern human biology. We compare...
متن کاملNorth African Populations Carry the Signature of Admixture with Neandertals
One of the main findings derived from the analysis of the Neandertal genome was the evidence for admixture between Neandertals and non-African modern humans. An alternative scenario is that the ancestral population of non-Africans was closer to Neandertals than to Africans because of ancient population substructure. Thus, the study of North African populations is crucial for testing both hypoth...
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Current Biology
دوره 16 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2006