What I want to focus on is Neanderthals. I feel like this weeks discussion in lecture gave me a more clear understanding of evolution and our ancestors journey to becoming modern Homo sapiens. It is very interesting to me that researchers are still trying to figure out exactly where modern Homo sapiens differentiated from. However, they have discovered many relatives to Homo sapiens and have studied the path it took to get us to where we are as evolved human beings today. The discovery of Neanderthals affected how scientists think about the fossil record and human evolution in many ways. First it is important to understand that another name for Neanderthals is ‘Archaic homo sapiens’. I believe that this is important to know because it shows how closely related Homo sapiens and Neanderthals are. Although Homo sapiens did not directly evolve from Neanderthals, there is a close link despite the variation. Neanderthal’s had some very distinct features. They had a more rounded crania with an occipital bun as well as large faces. Although they are shorter and stockier than we human’s are, they still were heavily muscled with big bones. What I found most interesting was that Neanderthal’s had a very large brain. Actually, their brain size was bigger than even today’s human species. What this suggests to researchers is that they developed a lot faster than the modern human. This really sets them apart from other hominins as most other hominins had smaller brain size than today’s modern humans. What I found most interesting is that they likely buried their dead in graves along with tools, food and flowers. I think that this is important because we know that as a species they cared and respected others in their community. Although it is just one small thing in their culture, it feels like it links us a little bit closer to them. 

Researchers have even found that Neanderthal has left traces of genome in modern humans. What this means is that we have in common than we may have thought, we may even have a little bit of Neanderthal DNA in us. Paleoanthropologist’s have studied these fossils using DNA samples to better understand where they came from and how they existed. With finding that Neanderthals and modern humans share some genes, we now know that there was genetic mixing in the Middle East very early on where the Neanderthal gene would have then spread across the globe over time. This finding may be the most important contribution to the study of human diversity because it tells us that really we all came from the same place even if it was thousands and thousands of years ago. Although we may have differences, we all have common ancestors.