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ORIGIN OF NEANDERTHALS
St. Michael's Cave in Gibralter Around 400,000 years ago or earlier, Neanderthals diverged from the primate line that would go on to produce Homo sapiens, and spread to parts of Europe and western Asia. The ancestors of humans and Neanderthals lived about 600,000 years ago in Africa. The Neanderthal lineage left Africa. Neanderthal fossils range from 200,000 years to 40,000 years in age, and are found in Europe, the Near East and Siberia.
Most scientists believe that Neanderthals and “Homo sapiens” evolved from “Homo erectus“, which emerged about 2 million and hung on Indonesia unto around 110,000 years ago, but are unsure how the species diverged on separate evolutionary paths and what intermediary hominin species or subspecies were involved.
At one time some scientists believed that Neanderthals were a subspecies of “Homo sapiens” . Others theorize that Neanderthals and “ Homo sapiens” intermingled when the Ice Age caused their territories to overlap. Human like qualities in some Neanderthal skulls and jaw bones are offered as evidence that the two species are directly related to one another.
Most scientists now agree that Neanderthals were a separate species from modern men. British paleontologist Christopher Stringer told Time, "They are a dead end — highly evolved in their own direction but not in the direction of modern humans." He backs up his argument with markedly differences between Neanderthal and “ Homo sapien “ skull specimens from Israel, where both species coexisted for thousands of years.
A study of Neanderthal and modern human skulls by a team lead by anthropologist Katerina Harvati of New York University concluded that modern humans did not descend from Neanderthals based on measurements on 15 standard landmark in the face and skull and the differences between Neanderthal and moderns humans were as great or greater as between humans and gorillas.
Neanderthals in Spain 430,000 Years Ago
According to Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the London Natural History Museum, Neanderthals evolved in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. Using DNA evidence as well as bone and teeth fragments from a cave site at the Sima de los Huesos in Spain, researchers have shown that specimens that date back a whopping 430,000 years were Neanderthals. [Source: Sara Novak, Discover Magazine, April 9, 2024]
Henry McHenry wrote in Encyclopædia Britannica: “More than 1,600 human fossils, including several nearly complete skulls, have been found. The age of this material is at least 300,000 years and may be as old as 600,000 years. Brain sizes are within the range of both Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) and modern humans. The skeletons possess several traits unique to Neanderthals, including a projecting midface, long and narrow pubic bones, and thick finger bones. Unlike later Neanderthals, however, they do not fully express the characteristic Neanderthal form. The site also harboured a 430,000-year-old fractured skull, which is the earliest evidence of interpersonal violence in Homo. [Source: Henry McHenry, Encyclopædia Britannica]
Fossils from The Sima de los Huesos Spain, dated to be 400,000 years old, provide earliest genetic evidence of Neanderthals. It is possible or likely that the fossils are from a pre-Neanderthal hominin. Ewen Callaway wrote in Nature: “The remains are known as the Sima hominins because they were found in Sima de los Huesos (Spanish for ‘pit of bones’), a 13-metre-deep shaft in Spain’s Atapuerca mountains. Few ancient sites are as important or intriguing as Sima, which holds the remains of at least 28 individuals, along with those of dozens of cave bears and other animals. The hominins might have plummeted to their death, but some researchers think they were deliberately buried there. [Source: Ewen Callaway, Nature, March 14, 2016]
See Separate Article: EARLY HOMININ SITES IN SPAIN: ATAPUERCA AND SIMA DE LOS HUESOS europe.factsanddetails.com
Early Neanderthal Discoveries
Schmerling Caves in Germany The Neanderthal bones found in 1856 in the Neander Valley in Germany (“thal” is German for valley), 12 kilometers south of Dusseldorf, were the first remains ever found of a prehistoric human ancestor. The remains, found in a limestone mine, consisted of a beetle-browed, low-sloping skullcap, part of a pelvis, and thick-limbed bones. The German workers who found them in a cave thought they belonged to an extinct bear. The first Neanderthal fossil was found in Belgium in 1830 but was not identified as belonging to a Neanderthal until almost a century later.
In 1856, Darwin's “Origin of Species” had yet to be published and much of the Western world believed that mankind was created by God five days after the heavens and the earth in 4004 B.C.(a date calculated by an Irish theologian). After examining the Neander Valley bones an Irish geologist suggested they may have come from a human ancestor. Most people scoffed at that suggestion. They believed the bones either belonged to a Cossack deserter from the Napoleonic wars, a refugee from Noah's Ark, a village idiot, or a modern human deformed by rickets, arthritis and a blow to the head. When two more Neanderthal skeletons were discovered in Belgian cave in 1886 scientists said that it was unlikely that these men were deformed by the same set of circumstances as the man found in the Neander Valley in 1856. [Source: Michael Lemonick, Time, March 14, 1994]
Our image of Neanderthals as "dim-witted brutes" originally came from Marcellin Boule, a French authority on fossils who reconstructed a near complete skeleton found in southwestern France, and claimed it had "prehensile feet, could not fully extend his legs, and thrust his head awkwardly forward because his spine prevented him from standing upright." In his scientific paper he described the "brutish appearance of this muscular and clumsy body."
Divergence Between Neanderthals and Modern Humans
Modern humans, or Homo sapiens, are not the descendants of Neanderthals or Denisovans, although they did live as contemporaries at one time and interbred. Bridget Alex wrote in The Guardian: “At least one evolutionary split was pinned down in 2016, after ancient DNA was extracted from 430,000 year-old hominin fossils from Sima de los Huesos, Spain. The Sima hominins looked like early members of the Neanderthal lineage based on morphological similarities. This hypothesis fit the timing of the split between Neanderthals and modern humans based on pedigree analysis (765,000-550,000 years ago), but did not work with the phylogenetic estimate (383,000-275,000 years ago). [Source: Bridget Alex, The Guardian, December 22, 2016|=|]
“Where do the Sima hominins belong on our family tree? Were they ancestors of both Neanderthals and modern humans, just Neanderthals, or neither? DNA answered this definitively. The Sima hominins belong to the Neanderthal branch after it split with modern humans. Moreover, the result provides a firm time point in our family tree, suggesting that the pedigree rate works for this period of human evolution. |=|
“Neanderthals and modern humans likely diverged between 765,000-550,000 years ago. Other evolutionary splits may soon be clarified as well, thanks to advances brought about by the mutation rate debates. Someday soon, when you see a chimp, you may be able to salute your great, great… great grandparent, with the correct number of “greats.” |=|
Neanderthals and Humans Split 550,000 and 765,000 Years Ago
In 2016, a team lead by Matthias Meyer,a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, sequenced 430,000-year-old DNA from a cave in northern Spain, and has pushed back estimates of the time at which the ancient predecessors of humans split from those of Neanderthals to 550,000 and 765,000 years ago. [Source: Ewen Callaway, Nature, March 14, 2016]
Homo extreme splitter theory of human and Neanderthal development
Ewen Callaway wrote in Nature: “The analysis addresses confusion over which species the remains belong to. A report published in 2013 sequenced a femur’s mitochondrial genome — which is made up of DNA from the cell’s energy-producing structures that is more abundant in cells than is nuclear DNA. It suggested that at least one individual identified from the remains was more closely related to a group called Denisovans — known from remains found thousands of kilometres away in Siberia — than it was to European Neanderthals. “It’s wonderful news to have mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from something that is 430,000 years old. It’s like science fiction. It’s an amazing opportunity,” says Maria Martinón-Torres, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London.
“The remains are known as the Sima hominins because they were found in Sima de los Huesos (Spanish for ‘pit of bones’), a 13-metre-deep shaft in Spain’s Atapuerca mountains. Few ancient sites are as important or intriguing as Sima, which holds the remains of at least 28 individuals, along with those of dozens of cave bears and other animals. The hominins might have plummeted to their death, but some researchers think they were deliberately buried there.
“The Sima hominin skulls have the beginnings of a prominent brow ridge, as well as other traits typical of Neanderthals. But other features, and uncertainties around their age — some studies put them at 600,000 years old, others closer to 400,000 — convinced many researchers that they might instead belong to an older species known as Homo heidelbergensis. Confusion peaked when Meyer, his colleague Svante Pääbo and their team revealed the mitochondrial connection to the Denisovans. But they hoped that retrieving the skeletons’ nuclear DNA — which represents many more lines of ancestry than does mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited solely from the maternal line — would clear things up.”
The nuclear DNA, Meyer’s team,” reported in the March 14, 2016 issue of Nature, “shows that the Sima hominins are in fact early Neanderthals. And its age suggests that the early predecessors of humans diverged from those of Neanderthals between 550,000 and 765,000 years ago — too far back for the common ancestors of both to have been Homo heidelbergensis, as some had posited. Researchers should now be looking for a population that lived around 700,000 to 900,000 years ago, says Martinón-Torres. She thinks that Homo antecessor, known from 900,000-year-old remains from Spain, is the strongest candidate for the common ancestor, if such specimens can be found in Africa or the Middle East.”
Did Humans and Neanderthals Diverge 800,000 Years Ago from Mystery Common Ancestor?
Modern humans and Neanderthals may have diverged at least 800,000 years ago, according to an analysis of nearly 1,000 teeth from humans and our close relatives. Laura Geggel wrote in Live Science: This new estimate is much older than previous estimates based on ancient DNA analyses, which put the split between humans and Neanderthals as happening between 500,000 and 300,000 years ago. However, while outside researchers called the new dental analysis impressive, they note that it's based on one big assumption: that tooth shape evolves in a steady fashion, especially in Neanderthals. If tooth shape doesn't evolve at a steady rate, then "the construction of this paper collapses," said Fernando Ramirez Rozzi, director of research specializing in human evolution at France's National Center for Scientific Research in Toulouse, who was not involved in the study. That said, it is quite possible that teeth (and Neanderthal teeth in particular) do evolve at a predictable rate, meaning the new study's calculation might be on target. "At the moment, there is the idea of a steady evolutionary rate change in the shape of cheek-teeth," Ramirez Rozzi said. The study was published online May 16, 2019 in the journal Science Advances.[Source: Laura Geggel, Live Science, May 17, 2019]
The researchers examined 931 teeth belonging to a minimum of 122 individuals from eight groups, including humans and our close relatives. Of those, 164 of the teeth were from the early Neanderthals from the Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of the Bones") site in Spain, a sample that includes almost 30 individuals that lived about 430,000 years ago, during the middle Pleistocene epoch. By comparing the differences in tooth shape between samples, study researcher Aida Gómez-Robles, a paleoanthropologist at University College London, was able to calculate the evolutionary rates for dental shape change and then estimate the divergence time from the last common ancestor between humans and Neanderthals.
The result — that Neanderthals and modern humans probably diverged more than 800,000 years ago — shows that the last common ancestor of these two groups is probably not Homo heidelbergensis, as some scientists think. H. heidelbergensis cannot occupy that evolutionary position because it postdates the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans," Gómez-Robles told Live Science in an email. "That means that we need to look at older species when looking for this common ancestral species."
The finding also "has profound implications for the way we interpret the fossil record and the evolutionary relationships between species," Gómez-Robles said. Pushing back the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans "is opening a new door" because it suggests that the two groups were distinct for much longer than previously thought, Ramirez Rozzi said.
However, this raises a question, he said. Humans and Neanderthals interbred around 60,000 years ago, when modern humans left Africa. But if humans and Neanderthals broke apart at least 800,000 years ago, it's surprising that they were still able to interbreed just 60,000 years ago, Ramirez Rozzi said. "In other words, almost 1 million years of evolution was not enough to establish barriers (genetic, endocrinological, behavioral, etc.) to separate definitively these two species?" he asked.
The argument is laid out well by Gómez-Robles, who is "a well-known specialist of the Neanderthal lineage dental morphology," said Bruno Maureille, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), in Paris, who was not involved in the study. But, it appears that the dental remains of Neanderthals from different pockets of Europe each have "their own particularities," Maureille told Live Science. "Can we simply try to draw such global scenarios? [I'm] not so sure."
Fossil Teeth Say Neanderthal-European Links Go Back to Africa
Geoffrey Mohan wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Scientists seeking the missing link between modern Europeans and Neanderthals ought to head back to Africa, according to a new study that could prune some of the younger branches of the evolutionary tree. Researchers took another look at a common fossil used to date early humans – teeth. By looking at the pattern of points on molars of European fossils, older African and Asian fossils, and modern humans, they arrived at a picture of what the teeth of a common ancestor might have looked like. [Source: Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2013 |**|]
Homo lumper theory of human and Neanderthal development
“What we realized is that none of the species we have in the fossil record is similar to that ancestor morphology that we calculated as the most likely one,” said Aida Gomez-Robles, an anthropologist at George Washington University and lead author of the study published online Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We think that we didn’t find it because we actually don’t have this ancestor in the fossil record.” |**|
“Paleontologists have offered various fossil finds as a candidate for the common ancestor to Europeans, paramount among them Homo heidelbergensis, a tall and strong species that wandered out of Africa less than 800,000 years ago, and which was named for the southwestern German city near which it was found. |**|
Most DNA analysis places the split between Neanderthals and modern humans at roughly 400,000 years ago, give or take a few hundred thousand years. But Heidelberg man’s teeth tell a different tale, Gomez-Robles said. They are too similar to those of the famed species named for a cave in the Neander Valley, farther north. “It shows clear dental affinity with Neanderthals, and we think the reason for this is that they are already in the lineage leading from Neanderthals.” |**|
“The missing ancestor ought to have teeth that look a bit more like the choppers of Homo ergaster, which wandered around eastern and southern Africa 1.3 to 1.8 million years ago, according to the study. We can rule out all the European species as possible ancestors, because they are already in the line leading to Neanderthals, and we have an African species, which is the most similar one to the ancestor morphology,” Gomez-Robles said. “So the most intuitive explanation is that some African species posterior to Homo ergastor will be the ancestor.” |**|
“The study suggested that ages derived from DNA modeling were underestimated. Alternatively, teeth may have started changing more rapidly for modern humans, or tooth shape was changing before such species diverged. Neither of those hypotheses is supported by the data or by commonly accepted models of evolution, Gomez-Robles noted. A study published last week in the journal Science similarly shook the common view of the evolutionary tree, suggesting that several species dating to about 2 million years ago are instead one.” |**|
Homo splitter theory of human and Neanderthal development
Neanderthals Survived Longer than Thought
In 2011, AP reported: “Neanderthal remains dating back 31,000 years — over 6,000 years after man's prehistoric cousin was presumed to have disappeared — have been unearthed in Russia near the Artic Circle, according to a study in the journal Science. "This site challenges the hypothesis that there was a complete replacement of the Neanderthal societies in all of Europe as early as around 37,000 calendar years," the authors wrote about their research released Thursday, and slated for the journal's May 13, 2011 issue. [Source: AFP, May 12, 2011]
The French, Russian and Norwegian researchers discovered more than 300 stone tools and the remains of several mammals, including mammoths, black bears and woolly rhinos that appear to have been butchered. The remains were unearthed during several excavations at the Byzovaya site in the foothills of the Urals on the right bank of the Pechora River. In addition to radiocarbon dating, the researchers used a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence, which allows them to tell when sediment has been exposed to light for the last time.
While Neanderthal Man occupied Eurasia at lower latitudes, Byzovaya could have been their last Nordic refuge before their extinction, according to the study's authors. Until now, Neanderthal remains have all come from areas at least 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of Byzovaya. The objects discovered at Byzovaya, which appears to have been occupied just once in 3,000 years, belong to the Mousterian tool tradition used by Neanderthal Man, according to the authors. This culture developed during the Middle Paleolithic era in Eurasia 300,000 to 37,000 years ago and is distinguished by a wide range of stone tools.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated April 2024