Study Suggests Neandertal Newborns Exhibited Distinctive Traits

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Recent studies have shown that the Neandertals had far more sophisticated behavioral practices than we once gave them credit for. But were these beetle-browed hominids actually members of our own species? To date, this long-standing debate has focused on morphological data from fossils belonging to adult Neandertals (more recently, data from fossilized DNA has entered the picture as well). But a study published today in the journal Nature takes a different tack, using sophisticated computer imaging techniques to assess early Neandertal development, or ontogeny. According to this new analysis, the Neandertals' distinctive cranial features appeared early on, offering support to the idea that these archaic Europeans belonged to a species separate from Homo sapiens.

Starting with CT scans of crania belonging to immature and adult Neandertals, early modern humans, and living modern humans, Swiss researchers Marcia S. Ponce de Le¿n and Christoph P. E. Zollikofer of the University of Zurich generated three-dimensional representations of the specimens. Subsequent analyses conducted using the so-called geometric morphometrics method revealed that the features distinguishing Neandertals and moderns were already present in toddlers. This find, the authors assert, indicates that the characteristic features emerged during early postnatal or prenatal development, instead of taking shape gradually through to adulthood. The team further notes that the Neandertal ontogenetic process occurred at a fast pace relative to that of modern humans.

The early appearance of diagnostic features, the maintenance of these distinctive traits throughout postnatal development, and the evolutionary stability of this pattern, Ponce de Le¿n and Zollikofer conclude, support the theory that Neandertals and anatomically modern humans represent separate species. But whether a similar pattern of developmental diversification characterizes the other hominids, they add, remains to be seen.

The article "Who Were the Neandertals?" by Kate Wong (Scientific American, April 2000) is available for purchase at the Scientific American Archive.

Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor for features at Scientific American, where she has focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for nearly 30 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home to the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, as well as to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and a “Big Day” race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Wong is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Bluesky @katewong.bsky.social

More by Kate Wong

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