This week’s lecture has given us a lot of insight into the more recent human relatives and hominins, as opposed to last week, where many of those species looked and acted quite different from us. A lot of new information has been learned recently regarding species like Homo floresiensis and Neanderthals, however, I would like to focus on Neanderthals in this particular blog post. Neanderthals, according to our lecture, have a lot of really interesting traits that show how they adapted to their Ice Age environments. As we have learned, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans share a common ancestor from about several hundred thousand years ago, with humans continuing on and Neanderthals going extinct about 30,000 years ago. In 2010, scientists finished reconstructing the Neanderthal genome and discovered some of the similarities between them, as well as some cross breeding between the two groups. Knowing about the 1-3% DNA match found between the two species gives scientists an idea of how humans may have evolved, whether groups mixed, shared traits, violently overtaken other species, and so on. Despite the many similarities between the two species, there are still some differences. Both have similar teeth sizes and are taurodont, have more rounded crania, amongst other similarities, however, have larger noses and mid-faces (for cold environments), “grow up” faster than humans, aren’t capable of art, and in fact have larger brains than we do. These differences suggest features that aren’t as useful in humans or because humans lived all over the world, these traits just weren’t beneficial. It also demonstrates how a group so closely related to humans can be so similar, yet so different, and maybe give us insight into our own evolutionary trajectory.

Paleoanthropologists have been able to examine various sets of skeletons of Neanderthals, like their occipital buns, large brow ridges and noses, lack of chins, thick bones, and stocky and short frame. As stated above, comparing and contrasting sets of skeletons from both species has taught us a lot about how Neanderthals lived compared to us. Their massive brains brought them a lot of benefits but didn’t come without consequences. They stayed around rock shelters, buried their dead, processed animal hides, cared for older individuals, and maybe were capable of minimal/basic (but no cave) art. But because of their massive brains, Neanderthal children grew up fast and did not get a chance to learn things and enhance developmentally but grew physically faster. They also often lived short, brutal lives. From their remains, we have been able to learn about how their physical condition impacted their lives.

Lastly, in general, one of the biggest contributions these findings have made to the study of human diversity is through the completion of the Neanderthal genome. Not only is it an amazing task that we have completed the human genome and epigenome, but to complete one of a species is unprecedented. All previous hominins we have learned about has been learned through the looking at the remains around the world and some of the tools and species in their environments. But for Neanderthals, we know about their genetic code and that gives us a better understanding than any other species we have tried to understand. Also, with the discovery of the FOXP2 gene in not only humans but also Neanderthals shows that this shared mutation might mean Neanderthals could have been able to speak, at least on a basic level to facilitate hunting. This gene and the anatomically similar bones around their larynx has been ground-breaking. This discovery/contribution has demonstrated the similarity between the two is genetic (although relatively small) than just similar bone structures that we have based previous comparisons on. Studying Neanderthals and their differences has helped us understand more not only the differences between humans and Neanderthals, but also difference within us and our own capabilities. Through the different models we learned about in the third lecture this week, the genetic evidence for how humans dominated and in what order, it was based on the diversity among living human groups. So, Neanderthals are a part of the groups that are studied (not for genetic evidence but for chronology) and were “taken over” by humans.