I find it fascinating looking at every individual group we can differentiate by looking at their fossils and being able to distinguish characteristics about their group and how they contributed to human evolution. And as interesting as the Homo floresiensis branch of Homo erectus is due to the fact of isolation, I will be choosing to look at the Neanderthals because I believe we can easily depict how they contributed to human evolution. 

Neanderthals have many distinctions that easily separate themselves, for one they have a much larger brain with a rounded crania. Their skull is significantly more round, with large faces, large brow ridges, and very large noses compared to modern day humans. The Neanderthals were present during the ice age, therefore their anatomy has adapted from the cold weather. The ice age cold weathers allowed this species to adapt and change their morphology, a more short and stockier body type. Shorter tibias and longer femurs are what we notice with a cold adapted population. Even this shorter stockier body frame compared to the Homo floresiensis’s small size: Homo floresiensis small stature is due to isolation and rapid brain growth. Neanderthals adapted the larger chin, nose and mid face from the cold as well, this also accompanies the large / largest brain size. Anthropologists can look at their bones but also their belongings such at their living conditions: Neanderthals behavior showed to differentiate themselves by being more advanced than earlier groups by seeking shelter in caves. Although it is not as advance as modern day humans that create shelter, Neanderthals proved to have shelter such as caves and natural elements such as rocks.  Not like modern humans that have adapted even more by having flexible behavior to seek out and create their own shelters. Along with shelter we start to see more advanced tools which have shown innovation in hunting weapons such as the rope with rocks on the ends to throw at the animal and capture them by tripping them. Along with other weapons of variation, small rocks that were shown to be tools. The most interesting thing I personally found about the Neanderthals was the findings of compassion, anthropologists found individuals who were old remains with wounds. Insisting that they were cared for by the group due to their wounds although they were old. Neanderthals took care of their own, anthropologists located severely wounded who would not have survived with out the care from others in the groups. We don’t see compassion in other earlier species, we see a lot of young remains so to find old wounded remains the Neanderthals showed a brain capacity of compassion and emotion to take care of their group.

I think a large contribution to modern humans that can be seen by anthropologists from Neanderthals is the use of more advanced tools, the use of shelter although not as creative or flexible as modern day humans but shelter provided a very useful variation that contributed to human diversity. Even though Neanderthals didn’t have a lot of flexibility in seeking shelter and were limited to their living space and may have missed out on resources due to not traveling far from their natural shelter. The sole fact of seeking shelter combined with the use of slightly more advanced tools allowed them to outlive some of the other species and provided them with an advantage that allowed variation!