This week I will focus on the Neanderthals, the reading describes their development from an evolutional perspective along with their fossil records. Also, their distinctive features from the brain sizes to their face sizes. The Neanderthals highly contributed to the variety of humans traits basically from their distinctive features from the brain sizes to their face sizes. The Neanderthals had very large brains, averaging around 1520 ccs which was larger than both h. heidelbergensis 1200 ccs and modern humans 1400 ccs. Their more rounded crania, long and low.  Big faces, brow ridges and massive noses, with no chain.  From small back teeth and large front teeth, molars were called taurodont meaning that they have fused roots. They were different from the species at that moment in time. The Neanderthals were also subject to natural selection due to the harsh ice age conditions. The groups lived in very small populations and they lived in harsh Ice age environments, due to those conditions, physical features have evolved and adapted to modern features to this day. From their heavy muscles and thick bones which produces a shorter build than most humans showed that they were doing a lot of heavy lifting and was very strong due to those features. Other key physical difference were their large noses and the huge face structures.

Those physical attributes from them really affected how scientists viewed the fossils and how the paleoanthropologists studied all the findings of the fossilized remains. In today’s world, human faces have evolved and are much smaller and not as thick as it was back in that time.  Also, with the thin sizes and jaw bones structures. Face structures with big faces, brow ridges and massive noses, with no chain, from small back teeth and large front teeth have most definitely evolved and would contribute to paleoanthropologists analyzing fossils. We can learn a lot and help discover the advantages, and disadvantages from them and how humans are today compared to species back then. I learned a lot about the ice age living conditions and no chins, and that’s the biggest finding that made it to the study of human diversity. The fact that weather conditions can alter physical features from face sizes, hair texture to even height.