For this blog post, I decided to focus on Neanderthals and how they affect the fossil record and human evolution. As we have learned from the past lectures and videos, Neanderthals are our closet evolutionary species. Scientists have discovered that these species have a lot in common with modern humans- both biologically and behaviorally. Paleoanthropologists are continuing to learn about our evolutionary path through studying Neanderthals. Neanderthals are a very interesting species and play an important factor in scientist learning about human evolution. Neanderthals are supposedly one of human’s closest extinct relatives, which is why any information about them can give us some insight into the past. With the findings of Neanderthals scientist have learned there are many similarities and differences between Neanderthals and modern humans. For starters, Neanderthals lived in cold, harsh environments and small populations, unlike humans now. Now a day it feels like it is very hard to find small populations of people, especially in the United States and there is a small amount of places in the world that have such cold and harsh environments where humans can live. They had smaller back teeth and larger front teeth, which were also very worn from eating animals. Scientist said the roots of molars were fused which is the opposite of human teeth now. Neanderthals were shorter and stockier than us and lived very short, brutal lives. Those are just some of the many differences between Neanderthals and humans.

One of the biggest differences for Neanderthals is their brain size and capacity. Our lecture said that Neanderthals brain size was larger than modern humans, which is amazing. With this larger size brain Neanderthals were able live a more difficult and intricate life than past evolutions. The lecture even said it was suggested that Neanderthals developed faster than modern humans. The first difference between Neanderthals and past existences was their stone tools; their tools were more complex and easier to hunt animals with. With a larger brain Neanderthals are also able to have more emotions and would bury their dead, similar to the way we do now. Scientist also found remains that had wounds from before their death that were healed. I believe the discovery of the tools and the size of the brain from the Neanderthals remains is one of the biggest contributions to the study of human diversity. To me, the most interesting finding is that Neanderthals did not have the brain capacity for more complex inventions even though they have a large brain. Of course, they created tools such as spears and other stone weapons for hunting, but not as close to modern day tools. Furthermore, they don’t have much symbolic behavior. Unfortunately, anthropologists were not able to find any cave art of Neanderthals. I assume that they do not have any spare time to draw and create an art due to the harsh environment. From a lot of lectures for a few weeks, I have noticed that anthropologists seem to focus on the size of brain when they try to categorize different kinds of the early human and hominins. Neanderthal is a great example to show that the size of the brain does not have an exact linear relationship with their intelligence.