Neanderthal: In Search of the Light

Our species, on the other hand, evolved in Africa where there is plenty of light. We did not need such a large visual processing system. Instead we evolved a bigger frontal lobe, allowing us to develop more complex social lives. View image of What a Neanderthal may have looked like Credit: It's a neat story. But other biologists are far from convinced, and some of them have set out to unpick the idea. The new analysis suggests that Neanderthals' large eyes did not contribute to their extinction after all. John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues looked at 18 living primate species, to find out whether the size of their eye sockets was linked to the size of their social groups.

Rather than bigger eyes resulting in smaller social groups, they found that the opposite was true. Now, we don't believe any of it: To truly understand how Neanderthals socialised with each other, we would be better off looking at clues from the archaeological record, says Hawks. These clues show "that they were sophisticated social beings", not socially-inept loners. View image of Tarsiers have huge eyes Credit: Neanderthals in general were slightly larger than the average modern human.

Their eyes might simply be proportionally larger in the same way as the rest of their face is. Yet the other parts of their brain are not smaller, as far as we know. The issue is further complicated by the fact that the brain is extremely interconnected. The visual cortex is involved in processing visual information, but it does not paint the whole picture of our world. How we interpret what we see is in part defined by our pre-existing knowledge of the world. For example, our memories are closely linked with our emotions. All of these cognitive processes occur in slightly different parts of the brain, and vision plays a role in them all.

They are "intrinsically related", says Robert Barton from Durham University in the UK, who was not involved with either study. In , he showed that a larger visual area of the brain can result in the expansion of other areas, not a reduction. The truth is that after we initially perceive an object in the real world, the information is projected into several areas of the brain. View image of Neanderthals also used tools Credit: Lastly, it is true that large eyes also give the holder the benefit of increased visual sensitivity in low light.

Many nocturnal species have large eyes for that purpose. However, it is only the ability to see fine details that increases the computational demand within the brain's visual system, says Barton. Pearce's study does not differentiate between this visual acuity and simple sensitivity to faint light, says Barton. Nocturnal primates like bushbabies illustrate this point. They have very large eyes but do not have a corresponding larger visual cortex. If Barton is right, Pearce and Dunbar have the story backwards.

• Manners Matters.
• The mystery of Neanderthals' massive eyes;
• Neanderthals.

Neanderthals' big eyes may have been crucial to their success, allowing them to flourish in regions with dim light. Short of inventing a time machine, researchers must infer Neanderthal linguistic capabilities from the remains they left behind. But what do preserve are language proxies — bones, artifacts and DNA that indicate the presence of language or speech.

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While no single line of evidence is sufficiently convincing, the preponderance of evidence allows researchers to hypothesize about Neanderthal language. Speech and language are mostly soft-tissue operations, requiring organs like the tongue, diaphragm and brain that rarely preserve. Studies have found these features are very similar between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens , but more primitive and ape-like in earlier hominins like Australopiths. The hyoid bone viewed superiorly in humans left , Neanderthals center , and chimpanzees right.

Based on these results, most researchers agree Neanderthals were capable of emitting and hearing complex vocalizations. However, they disagree over the implications. While some consider the findings indicative of speech-based language in Neanderthals, others propose these features could have evolved for other reasons, like singing. Neanderthals may have lacked the cognitive abilities for language, but possessed the physical anatomy for musical calls to attract mates or sooth infants.

To assess if Neanderthals had the brains for language, researchers usually rely on proxies from the archaeological record — artifacts that required the same cognitive prerequisites as language, such as hierarchical organization or abstract symbolic thought. The latter is necessary to encode sounds with meanings and evidenced by artifacts like beads and cave paintings. So did Neanderthals make those things? Eh, well, m aybe. A few cases of Neanderthal ornaments and paintings have been reported, but are so rare that researchers question their authorship and antiquity.

However, Neanderthals could have been symbolic in other ways. For instance, at many Neanderthal sites, archaeologists have found butchered wing bones from birds of prey.

This could indicate Neanderthals adorned themselves with feathers which did not preserve imbued with symbolic meaning. The convincing aspect is that ancient genomes have shown Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred in several periods during the past , years. Realizing the groups were biologically and behaviorally similar enough to produce successful offspring has helped many anthropologists believe Neanderthals must have been capable of language.

Some genes, like FOXP2 , are definitely involved, as living people with altered versions experience language impairments. However, some differences have been found in regulatory DNA , which controls where in which cells , when during development and how much putative language genes activate. The question of Neanderthal language remains an open debate. If they lacked it, language may be unique to Homo sapiens. If they had it, language was likely present at least since Neanderthals and modern humans shared a common ancestor, over , years ago.

They lived together for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, and made tools, weapons and hunted in groups. Animals are defined by the ability to communicate. Even we humans can easily understand the cry of a hungry nestling, a lost cub separated from its mother, or the warning bark of a watchdog.

They also buried their dead, took care of their disabled, appreciated beauty, and had children with us. They are of the same species, and should universally be acknowledged as such: That is what it should be. In the context of most discussions, that would be quite correct, as we are the only humans remaining. In the context of this discussion, it would be incorrect, as the genus is generally accepted to have begun with Australopithicus, and certainly includes ergaster, erectus, heidelbergensis, et al.

Sometimes context is everything. Neanderthals were most definitely not of the same species, but were of the same genus. Neanderthals were a species of humans [bizarre: Sapiens are a species of humans. But make no mistake, they are different species: We share a percentage of DNA with Neanderthal that is less than 1 percent more than we share with chimpanzees.

Modern humans of primarily European descent carry about 1. With so little Neanderthal DNA, we are not the same species. For all the loose similarity, the morphological differences are very great. Other DNA studies have shown that not all such breeding events could have produced reproductively viable offspring.

No, they are not the same species. There is virtually no evidence that there was extensive socialization between the two species. Now go back and read what I actually said. No one has said anything about black people or any other race here, except you. Your argument is exactly why I have said elsewhere that these studies are influenced by political correctness, and to hell with the real science.

For the record, all modern humans are of the same species, and only an idiot would bring race into the question. At the moment, that includes you. Go crawl back under your rock. The nicey-nice one-big-happy-family crowd want us to believe that Neanderthal and Sapiens lived together in some kind of harmony for at least a significant part of the , years or so they lived in relatively close proximity.

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Some interbreeding with viable offspring, yes, but demonstrably at very infrequent intervals. The percentage of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans of European ancestry, which is where this proximity was greatest for the longest time, is tiny; so miniscule that it contraindicates long term or frequent social cohabitation between the species. It is even more egregious when it seeks to subvert science. Why do you suppose that is? Why do my innocuous answers get permanently waitlisted? Some interbreeding with viable offspring, yes, but demonstrably very infrequent. I leave you with one final thought to mull over in the context of n.

No evidence of common social life is not the same as evidence of no common social life. As to no Neanderthaler mitochondrial DNA having turned up in modern humans, so what?

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Geneticists are still looking, fully prepared to find it: While there is no current evidence that Neanderthals contributed to the modern mtDNA gene pool, it is possible that the evidence of such admixture is obscured for a variety of reasons Wang et al Primary among these reasons is sample size: There are to date only a dozen or so mtDNA sequences that have been sampled. Because the current sample of Neanderthal mtDNA is so small, it is possible that researchers simply have not yet found the mtDNA in Neanderthals that corresponds to that of modern humans.

If Neanderthal and Sapiens had been living in social proximity and breeding for , years, the percentage of Neanderthal DNA in our genes would leave no room for doubt. It is the tiny amount of DNA that tells a story in itself, an amount that can be accounted for by offspring-producing mating events as infrequently as once every 32 to 77 generations. If you want to do that, then you have to turn it around and make the younger s.

And that is the broad consensus. Look up the definition of species in biology: And taxonomic categorization has nothing to do with when something takes place. Finding another, distinguishable member of h. Now, given that the estimated h. What percentage of attempts would result in pregnancy?

What percentage of those would result in a live birth? What percent of the children would themselves live to reproduce? Given that crapshoot, how many h. This puts me in an awkward position. It is a justifiable conclusion. Horses and donkeys can produce viable offspring—albeit infertile ones, as they are further along in the degree of separation from their common ancestor, and no one, to my knowledge, has ever suggested that either should be a subspecies of the other. Neanderthal and sapiens derive from two completely isolated speciation processes, at widely separated times, in different parts of the world, in different environments, under different evolutionary pressures.

Their similarities are superficial, their differences profound. Neanderthal was physically more robust, with heavier bones, different skeletal proportions, and muscle to bone attachments indicating greater muscle mass and physical strength. Their brains were different. There is only so much gain in brain power possible by increasing brain size without eventually giving a fatal blow to motherhood.

New research sheds light on Neanderthals' distinctive features

Sapiens evolved a more efficient solution by increasing the surface area of the brain with folds, convoluting the surface, inside a smaller brain case. Greater surface area equals greater processing power. Convolutions in the brain allow greater area within a smaller brain case, making for happier—and perhaps more survivable birthing. Neanderthalensis and sapiens are fully distinct species, for reasons far greater than whatever unknown degree of reproductive compatibility they might have shared.

I cannot get past the sense that fashionability, with its influences rooted in PC, is behind the move to put both in the same box. That would be an unfortunate mistake, which would need revisiting in more rational times. That would be awkward, since Neanderthal has been around about , years longer than Sapiens. Nevertheless, some scientists, not myself and not too long ago, thought they should be more properly called H. If they were H. Your conclusion is weirdly backward, since you can do the research and find that Neanderthals appeared about , years ago, and modern humans appeared about , years ago, to the best of out current knowledge.

The numbers may change—are even likely to, but the gap will remain. I leave you to do the math,.

Neanderthals were capable of ‘turbo breathing’, according to new study of their facial features

Apparently someone is taking sufficient exception to our responses to have them eliminated. Yes and this is a bit chilling. I was trying to decide what could have been offensive and truthfully could only conclude that someone expended a lot of creative energy to come up with unlikely, unpleasant interpretations.