For the prompt this week, I think that I lean towards the Neanderthals side when it comes to studying human diversity and evolution. Considering that we can look at some fairly close genetic similarities like “speech gene”, I think its quite interesting that we can make the assumption that our methods of communication are similar. Going off of that, the neanderthals possessed larger brains than us, yet they didn’t seem to possess modern ideas of organization, creativity, and critical thinking etc. I think that this is sign of development, or lack there of. With genetic similarities in mind, we can see that there was an obvious progression in the course of human development, and I think that’s an example of exactly what we’re looking for when studying said area. The concept that is the most intriguing to me, and that I believe plays a critical role in the study of human development, is the migration of the Neanderthals from areas in Africa. The movement of our ancestors helps explains why our biological lineage can often be traced back to a neanderthal gene. This makes the study of human development even more interesting because we now have geological information we can track alongside the biological evidence that displays our connections. By studying these factors, we get a sort of “snowball effect” in which we constantly learn more and more about ourselves by tracing back information to certain points. Whether that be our method of communication, or the location of which these ancestors most likely inhabited. Of course we also have factors like anatomy and even cold resistance etc. These all can be attributed to human development and evolution. All we can hope for as anthropologists/scientists is that we are somehow able to discover more and more in tact remains of these ancestors so that we can fully study them and see just how close we truly are.