Scientists provide a more accurate age for the El Sidrón cave Neanderthals -- ScienceDaily A study has been able to accurately determine the age of the Neanderthal remains found in the El Sidrón cave (Asturias, Spain) for which previous studies had provided inexact measurements. The application of a pre-treatment to reduce contamination by modern carbon has managed to lower the margin of error from 40,000 to just 3,200 years. El Sidrón cave in Asturias (northern Spain) is one of the westernmost Neanderthal sites on the Iberian Peninsula and contains a large amount of this type of remains in addition to the flint tools they used. Now, thanks to the development of new analytical procedures, a research team co-ordinated by the University of Oviedo (Spain) has managed to provide a more accurate dating for these Neanderthal populations in Asturias. The age of the El Sidrón remains could prove to be an important piece of information in the discussion about when the transition from Neanderthal to Homo sapiens took place in Europe.
Separation between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens might have occurred 500,000 years earlier, DNA from teeth suggests The separation of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens might have occurred at least one million years ago, more than 500.000 years earlier than previously believed, according to new DNA-based analyses. A doctoral thesis conducted at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana), associated with the University of Granada, analyzed the teeth of almost all species of hominids that have existed during the past 4 million years. Quantitative methods were employed, and they managed to identify Neanderthal features in ancient European populations. The main purpose of this research, whose author is Aida Gómez Robles, was to reconstruct the history of evolution of the human species using the information provided by the teeth, which are the most numerous and best preserved remains of the fossil record. To this purpose, a large sample of dental fossils from different sites in Africa, Asia and Europe was analyzed. Computer Simulation
Discovery Reveals That Neanderthals Were the First in Europe to Make Specialized Bone Tools Four views of the most complete lissoir found during excavations at the Neanderthal site of Abri Peyrony. Credit: Abri Peyrony & Pech-de-l’Azé I Projects A new discovery in southwest France reveals that Neanderthals were the first in Europe to make standardized and specialized bone tools. Two research teams from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands have jointly reported the discovery of Neanderthal bone tools coming from their excavations at two neighboring Paleolithic sites in southwest France. Modern humans replaced Neanderthals in Europe about 40 thousand years ago, but the Neanderthals’ capabilities are still greatly debated. “If Neanderthals developed this type of bone tool on their own, it is possible that modern humans then acquired this technology from Neanderthals. How widespread this new Neanderthal behavior was is a question that remains. Shannon P. Source: Max Planck Institute
No known hominin is common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans, study suggests -- ScienceDaily The search for a common ancestor linking modern humans with the Neanderthals who lived in Europe thousands of years ago has been a compelling subject for research. But a new study suggests the quest isn't nearly complete. The researchers, using quantitative methods focused on the shape of dental fossils, find that none of the usual suspects fits the expected profile of an ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. The study, which will be published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was carried out by an international team of scholars from The George Washington University, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Austria, Indiana University and Atapuerca Research Team in Spain. P. The researchers use techniques of morphometric analysis and phylogenetic statistics to reconstruct the dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. What comes next?
Gene breakthrough shows Neanderthals in new light - opinion - 18 July 2013 WHEN Neanderthal bones were discovered in the 19th century, their robust build and heavy brows led palaeontologists to characterise them as brutish, and their name is still pejorative today. Since then, we have found ample circumstantial evidence to suggest this stereotype is far from fair. Tools, jewellery and even cosmetics discovered among Neanderthal bones suggest that they were uncannily like us – a view strengthened when their genome was sequenced, showing a remarkable genetic overlap. Now the Neanderthal epigenome – the system of on/off switches that modify gene activity – has been deciphered (see "First look into workings of the Neanderthal brain"), allowing us to directly assess the mental life of our extinct cousins for the first time. This work is just beginning. Whether it clears the Neanderthal name remains to be seen. This article appeared in print under the headline "Extinct cousins out of rehab" New Scientist Not just a website! More From New Scientist More from the web
First Love Child of Human, Neanderthal Found The skeletal remains of an individual living in northern Italy 40,000-30,000 years ago are believed to be that of a human/Neanderthal hybrid, according to a paper in PLoS ONE. If further analysis proves the theory correct, the remains belonged to the first known such hybrid, providing direct evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred. Prior genetic research determined the DNA of people with European and Asian ancestry is 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal. The present study focuses on the individual’s jaw, which was unearthed at a rock-shelter called Riparo di Mezzena in the Monti Lessini region of Italy. PHOTOS: Faces of Our Ancestors “From the morphology of the lower jaw, the face of the Mezzena individual would have looked somehow intermediate between classic Neanderthals, who had a rather receding lower jaw (no chin), and the modern humans, who present a projecting lower jaw with a strongly developed chin,” co-author Silvana Condemi, an anthropologist, told Discovery News.
Who Didn't Have Sex with Neanderthals? Very few populations of modern humans do NOT carry genetic traces of Neanderthals, say researchers. The only modern humans whose ancestors did not interbreed with Neanderthals are apparently sub-Saharan Africans, researchers say. New findings suggest modern North Africans carry genetic traces from Neanderthals, modern humanity's closest known extinct relatives. Although modern humans are the only surviving members of the human lineage, others once roamed the Earth, including the Neanderthals. PHOTOS: Faces of Our Ancestors The Neanderthal genome revealed that people outside Africa share more genetic mutations with Neanderthalsthan Africans do. To shed light on why Neanderthals appear most closely related to people outside Africa, scientists analyzed North Africans. The researchers focused on 780,000 genetic variants in 125 people representing seven different North African locations. PHOTOS: Humans Vs. The scientists detailed their findings Oct. 17 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Neanderthals Cooked Their Veggies: Dental Plaque Reveals Eating Habits According to a recent article at Nature.com, Neanderthals, a branch of early humans that went extinct, may not have been the carnivores scientists once thought. Analysis of the plaque on their teeth shows they roasted vegetables and may have used medicinal plants. The article explains: Neanderthals have long been viewed as meat-eaters. The vision of them as inflexible carnivores has even been used to suggest that they went extinct around 25,000 years ago as a result of food scarcity, whereas omnivorous humans were able to survive. But evidence is mounting that plants were important to Neanderthal diets — and now a study reveals that those plants were roasted, and may have been used medicinally.” The teeth on skeletal remains of at least 13 Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) found in a cave in northern Spain were analyzed to look for organic compounds that could reveal clues to their diet. Hardy believes that Neanderthals may have used the bitter plants as.
Caveman Couture: Neandertals Rocked Dark Feathers Artist's conception of a Neandertal's feather decorations. Image: Antonio Monclova GIBRALTAR—Jordi Rosell removes a thumbnail-size piece of reddish-tan bone from a sealed plastic bag, carefully places it under the stereomicroscope and invites me to have a look. Peering through the eyepieces I see two parallel lines etched in the specimen’s weathered surface. Tens of thousands of years ago, in one of the seaside caves located here on the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, a Neandertal nicked the bone—a bit of shoulder blade from a bird known as the red kite–with a sharp stone tool in those two spots. Experts agree that Neandertals hunted large game, controlled fire, wore animal furs and made stone tools. Cutmarks made by a Neandertal on a wing bone from a griffon vulture. Over the past couple decades hints that Neandertals were savvier than previously thought have surfaced, however. The Neandertals seem unlikely to have hunted these birds for food.
Handaxe design reveals distinct Neanderthal cultures -- ScienceDaily A study by a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton has found that Neanderthals were more culturally complex than previously acknowledged. Two cultural traditions existed among Neanderthals living in what is now northern Europe between 115,000 to 35,000 years ago. Dr Karen Ruebens from the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) examined the design of 1,300 stone tools originating from 80 Neanderthal sites in five European countries; France, Germany, Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands. Dr Ruebens' investigations uncovered new evidence that two separate handaxe traditions or designs existed -- one in a region now spanning south-western France and Britain -- the other in Germany and further to the East. In addition, she found an area covering modern day Belgium and the Netherlands that demonstrates a transition between the two. "Making stone tools was not merely an opportunistic task.
Bunnies implicated in the demise of Neanderthals - 27 February 2013 BLAME it on the bunnies. The debate over what Neanderthals ate, and how it may have led to their demise, has turned to rabbits. Which, it is now claimed, they did not feast on. Signs that our extinct cousins hunted dolphins and seals were presented in 2008 as evidence of their sophistication. Now, John Fa of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Trinity, Jersey, says the remains in caves around Europe became dominated by rabbits rather than large game around the time Neanderthals went extinct (Journal of Human Evolution, doi.org/kkn). It's not clear why they would have had more trouble changing prey, says Fa.
European Neanderthals were on the verge of extinction even before the arrival of modern humans New findings from an international team of researchers show that most Neanderthals in Europe died off around 50,000 years ago. The previously held view of a Europe populated by a stable Neanderthal population for hundreds of thousands of years up until modern humans arrived must therefore be revised. This new perspective on the Neanderthals comes from a study of ancient DNA published February 25 in Molecular Biology and Evolution. The results indicate that most Neanderthals in Europe died off as early as 50,000 years ago. After that, a small group of Neanderthals recolonised central and western Europe, where they survived for another 10,000 years before modern humans entered the picture. The study is the result of an international project led by Swedish and Spanish researchers in Uppsala, Stockholm and Madrid. The results presented in the study are based entirely on severely degraded DNA, and the analyses have therefore required both advanced laboratory and computational methods.
Neanderthals died out earlier than previously thought, new evidence suggests Direct dating of a fossil of a Neanderthal infant suggests that Neanderthals probably died out earlier than previously thought. Researchers have dated a Neanderthal fossil discovered in a significant cave site in Russia in the northern Caucasus, and found it to be 10,000 years older than previous research had suggested. This new evidence throws into doubt the theory that Neanderthals and modern humans interacted for thousands of years. Instead, the researchers believe any co-existence between Neanderthals and modern humans is likely to have been much more restricted, perhaps a few hundred years. The research, directed by the University of Oxford and University College Cork in collaboration with the Laboratory of Prehistory at St Petersburg, Russia, and funded by Science Foundation Ireland was recently published in PNAS Online Early Edition. The new dating evidence throws new light on when the Neanderthals became extinct and why.