Neanderthal | Common News Update

Jun22019 by adminNo Comments

Declining fertility led to Neanderthal extinction, new model suggests

Science

May 31 (UPI) -- To better understand the decline of Neanderthals, researchers in France developed a population model and used simulations to determine which demographic factors had the largest effect on Neanderthal numbers. Their analysis, published this week in the journal PLOS One, showed declining fertility offers the likeliest explanation for the disappearance of the Neanderthals. Scientists have previously suggested the Neanderthal's extinction is best explained by catastrophe, like climate change or the spread of disease. But with limited empirical evidence, such hypotheses are difficult to test. Neanderthal remains suggest the hominin species died out over a period of 4,000 to 10,000 years. To better understand this decline, researchers built a model and ran simulations to test th...

Aug222018 by adminNo Comments

Cave girl was half Neanderthal, half Denisovan

Science

Once upon a time, two early humans of different ancestry met at a cave in Russia.Some 50,000 years later, scientists have confirmed that they had a daughter together.DNA extracted from bone fragments found in the cave show the girl was the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.The discovery, reported in Nature, gives a rare insight into the lives of our closest ancient human relatives. Neanderthals and Denisovans were humans like us, but belonged to different species."We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together," says Viviane Slon, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany."But I never though...

May22018 by adminNo Comments

Engraved stones offer proof of Neanderthal symbolism, new study claims

Science

May 2 (UPI) -- Researchers in France believe a new interpretative framework can be used to show engraved flint stones were carved with symbolic or communicative intent by Neanderthals.Stones artifacts with etched markings have been recovered from 27 different Middle and Lower Paleolithic sites across Europe and the Middle East, but archaeologists have struggled to confirm the intentionality of the engravings.A team of researchers at the University of Bordeaux have developed a methodology with which to determine whether the markings are a symbolic act or an accidental scrape.Researchers used their new interpretative framework to analyze an engraved stone flake recovered from an archaeological site in Crimea called Kiik-Koba."The microscopic analysis and 3D reconstruction of the grooves on t...

Sep222017 by adminNo Comments

Neanderthal brains 'grew more slowly'

Science

A new study shows that Neanderthal brains developed more slowly than ours.An analysis of a Neanderthal child's skeleton suggests that its brain was still developing at a time when the brains of modern human children are fully formed. This is further evidence that this now extinct human was not more brutish and primitive than our species.The research has been published in the journal Science.Until now it had been thought that we were the only species whose brains developed relatively slowly. Unlike other apes and more primitive humans, Homo sapiens has an extended period of childhood lasting several years. This is because it takes time and energy to develop our large brain. Previous studies of Neanderthal remains indicated that they developed more quickly than modern humans - suggesting tha...