This week, we learned about a few species that are very closely related to us humans today. I enjoyed learning the content for this week because I found the specific features related to each species very interesting to learn about. It sure is amazing how we can learn so much about ourselves by studying fossil records of the species we evolved from. Another interesting aspect of this week’s content is that each of the species we discussed has relatively different distinguishing characteristics based on the climate and environment they thrived in. In my opinion, it is truly amazing how we are able to estimate the size of brains and muscles based on fossils which no longer contain those types of tissues. It’s remarkable how technology today is helping us to discover so much about the past.

I would like to focus on the Neanderthals. This species likely lived in small groups in Ice Age environments. Due to the harsh environment, natural selection acted upon this species very often. In addition, since the Neanderthals lived in small populations, genetic drift commonly occurred and caused these small populations to look a lot different from each other. Most Neanderthals look similar to humans, but a little bit shorter and stockier, so they look shorter and stronger than modern humans today. On average, they had larger heads than modern humans today and therefore their brains were slightly larger. The overall head shape of Neanderthals was slightly different than us modern humans and their teeth and mouths were different as well. The overall head shape of Neanderthals was slightly different than us modern humans and their teeth and mouths were different as well.  Based on studying the bone fossil remains of Neanderthals, it is estimated that they had very large muscles indicating an active lifestyle. Because brains of Neanderthals were larger, they grew quicker, meaning that their brains were more advanced at a younger age and a quicker pace, which didn’t allow enough time to learn everything. Due to this, their behavior and mannerism were different than modern humans today. One obvious piece of evidence for this claim is the fact that they produced little to no art including cave art. There have been very few artifacts like jewelry (with the exception of tools) found from the Neanderthals. This type of thing is called symbolic behavior. There is fossil evidence of Neanderthals producing tools, but not the tools that most pre-human species came up with. Although creative, their tools that have been recovered indicate that they never became very advanced and didn’t have the brain power to produce tools that would have possibly been more useful.

More recently, in 2010, a full Neanderthal genome was reconstructed. As you might expect, this revealed a lot of new information and was compared to the human genome. In addition, this allowed scientists to figure out what was unique about the Neanderthals and new information was discovered. The common ancestor between Neanderthals and modern humans was very old, and the genome revealed that very few cross-breeding events occurred.