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The emerging fate of the Neandertals
April 24, 2007For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neandertals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neandertals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them.
As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the central research focus of Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Trinkaus has examined the earliest modern humans in Europe, including specimens in Romania, Czech Republic and France. Those specimens, in Trinkaus' opinion, have shown obvious Neandertal ancestry.
In an article appearing the week of April 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trinkaus has brought together the available data, which shows that early modern humans did exhibit evidence of Neandertal traits.
"When you look at all of the well dated and diagnostic early modern European fossils, there is a persistent presence of anatomical features that were present among the Neandertals but absent from the earlier African modern humans," Trinkaus said. "Early modern Europeans reflect both their predominant African early modern human ancestry and a substantial degree of admixture between those early modern humans and the indigenous Neandertals."
This analysis, along with a number of considerations of human genetics, argues that the fate of the Neandertals was to be absorbed into modern human groups. Just as importantly, it also says that the behavioral difference between the groups were small. They saw each other as social equals.
Washington University in St. Louis
"When you look at all of the well dated and diagnostic early modern European fossils, there is a persistent presence of anatomical features that were present among the Neandertals but absent from the earlier African modern humans," Trinkaus said. "Early modern Europeans reflect both their predominant African early modern human ancestry and a substantial degree of admixture between those early modern humans and the indigenous Neandertals."
This analysis, along with a number of considerations of human genetics, argues that the fate of the Neandertals was to be absorbed into modern human groups. Just as importantly, it also says that the behavioral difference between the groups were small. They saw each other as social equals.
Washington University in St. Louis
Neandertal Current Events and Neandertal News RSSNeandertals, humans share key changes to 'language gene'
A new study published online on October 18th in Current Biology reveals that adaptive changes in a human gene involved in speech and language were shared by our closest extinct relatives, the Neandertals.
Birth rate, competition are major players in hominid extinctions
Modern human mothers are probably happy that they typically have one, maybe two babies at a time, but for early hominids, low birth numbers combined with competition often spelled extinction.
40,000-year-old skull shows both modern human and Neandertal traits
Humans continued to evolve significantly long after they were established in Europe, and interbred with Neandertals as they settled across the continent, according to new research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) USA.
More human-Neandertal mixing evidence uncovered
A reexamination of ancient human bones from Romania reveals more evidence that humans and Neandertals interbred.
Modern humans, not Neandertals, may be evolution's 'odd man out'
Could it be that in the great evolutionary "family tree," it is we Modern Humans, not the brow-ridged, large-nosed Neandertals, who are the odd uncle out?
How modern were European Neanderthals?
Neandertals were much more like modern humans than had been previously thought, according to a re-examination of finds from one of the most famous palaeolithic sites in Europe by Bristol University archaeologist, Professor Joao Zilhao, and his French colleagues.
Redating of the latest Neandertals in Europe
Two Neantertal fossils excavated from Vindija Cave in Croatia in 1998, believed to be the last surviving Neandertals, may be 3,000-4,000 years older than originally thought.
DOE JGI sequences DNA from extinct cave bear
The genomic DNA sequencing of an extinct Pleistocene cave bear species-the kind of stuff once reserved for science fiction-has been logged into scientific literature thanks to investigators from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI).
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| L'Homme de Neandertal: Actes du colloque international de Liege (4-7 decembre 1986), 8 Volumes complete (Eraul, 28-35) by Archeologiques de l'Universite de Liege French, English, Spanish; edited by Marcel... | |
 | Vom Neandertal in die Philharmonie: Gehirn, Musik und Evolution by Eckart Altenmüller Warum haben wir Menschen Musik? Wie entfaltet Musik ihre Wirkung? Und was geht dabei in unserem Gehirn vor sich? Fördert Musik die Intelligenz? Dient sie dem Gruppenzusammenhalt? Teilt Musik Emotionen mit? Als einzige Spezies besitzt Homo sapiens zwei lautliche Kommunikationssysteme, nämlich Sprache und Musik. Während der evolutionäre Vorteil der sprachlichen Kommunikation als Möglichkeit... |
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