Study Evaluates Body Shape of Neanderthal Children

[Judi Lynn]

Friday, October 9, 2020

BURGOS, SPAIN—Paleobiologist Daniel García-Martínez of Spain’s National Research Center on Human Evolution and his colleagues suggest that Neanderthal babies were born with inward-curving spines and short, barrel-shaped chests to accommodate their large lungs, according to a Science News report. These characteristics had previously only been noted in Neanderthal adults. To see if Neanderthal children shared the same stocky build or developed it as they grew, the researchers digitally reconstructed the rib cages of four Neanderthal children ranging in age from a couple of weeks to 2.5 years old. Their partial skeletons were found in France, Syria, and Russia, and dated to between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago. “The stocky body shape of Neanderthals not only passed from parents to children, but also probably passed from ancestral species to their Neanderthal descendants,” García-Martínez concluded. This stocky build may have been inherited from Homo erectus, he added. Modern humans may have therefore evolved their longer legs, flatter rib cages, and other identifying features after the split from Neanderthals, by about 300,000 years ago. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. To read about new analysis of a Neanderthal child's tooth, go to "World Roundup: Iran."

https://www.archaeology.org/news/9094-201009-neanderthal-stocky-children

[Judi Lynn]

1. Newborn Neanderthals had a robust and broad thoracic cage just like adults

OCTOBER 8, 2020
by CENIEH

Today, the journal Science Advances published a study showing that newborn Neanderthals possessed a broad thoracic cage similar to adults, capable of sustaining the demanding energy expenditure of a large and broad body. The study was led by Daniel García Martínez, a paleoanthropologist at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH). This finding implies that the Neanderthal thorax was genetically determined and not the outcome of development, a point of major evolutionary significance, as it would have been inherited from earlier species like Homo erectus.

Genetic determination implies that the differences between human species were already present at birth, and would have become only slightly more marked as individuals grew. This means that the shape of a newborn Neanderthal thorax differed from the modern thoracic cage of Homo sapiens. Nevertheless, the similarities in thoracic shape and development between Neanderthals and other species like Homo erectus suggests the hypothesis that their stocky build was not only the result of genetic inheritance transmitted from parents to children, but could also have been inherited at the evolutionary level.

In comparison with modern humans, the adult Neanderthal thorax was shorter, slightly deeper and much wider. These anatomical traits are related to the Neanderthal body, with its broad pelvis, robust bones and strong musculature. It would also be linked to the metabolic demands of these hunter-gatherers, who would have needed considerable amounts of energy and oxygen. Nonetheless, up to now, it was not known whether these differences were already established at birth or appeared later, during development.

3-D reconstructions of the Neanderthal thorax

To look into this question, Daniel García Martínez, together with an international team of experts, used virtual reconstruction and traditional and geometric morphometry to reproduce, for the first time, the thoracic shape of four Neanderthal individuals. These reconstructions, performed for Neanderthal remains from three countries, show how they evolved from birth up to three years of age: Mezmaiskaya 1 (Russia), Le Moustier 2 (France), Dederiyeh 1 (Syrian Kurdistan) and Roc de Marsal (France).

More:
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-newborn-neanderthals-robust-broad-thoracic.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Neandertal babies had stocky chests like their parents

Our evolutionary relatives may have inherited short, deep rib cages from their ancestors

By Bruce Bower

OCTOBER 7, 2020 AT 2:00 PM

Neandertal babies had chests shaped like short, deep barrels and spines that curved inward more than those of humans, a build that until now was known only for Neandertal adults, researchers say.

Neandertals must have inherited those skeletal features rather than developing them as their bodies grew, says a team led by paleobiologist Daniel García-Martínez of the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain. Stocky, big-brained hominids such as Neandertals needed chest cavities arranged in this way from birth to accommodate lungs large enough to meet their energy needs, the scientists contend October 7 in Science Advances.

García-Martínez and his colleagues digitally reconstructed rib cages of four previously excavated, partial Neandertal skeletons from infants and young children. The youngsters are estimated to have died when they were about one to two weeks old, four months or less, 1.5 years and 2.5 years. These finds, dating to between around 40,000 and 70,000 years ago, came from sites in France, Syria and western Russia. Each fossil child had a short, deep rib cage and a short spine behind the ribs relative to human infants. On the most complete specimen — the 1.5-year-old child — the researchers determined that the spine curved sharply into the chest cavity.

“The stocky body shape of Neandertals not only passed from parents to children. but also probably passed from ancestral species to their Neandertal descendants,” García-Martínez says. Neandertals, or perhaps their direct ancestors, likely inhabited Europe around 430,000 years ago (SN: 3/14/16). And a Neandertal-like ribcage appeared 1.5 million years ago in an African Homo erectus skeleton, García-Martínez contended in a paper published online July 6 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

More:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/neandertal-babies-chest-shape-ribcage-skeleton-anthropology

[Karadeniz]

3. Interesting, as usual!

[Judi Lynn]

16. Thank you, Karadeniz. Hope it was worthwhile.

[Faygo Kid]

4. We all carry their DNA.

[Iliyah]

5. Neanderthals and modern humans cozied up a bit . . .

unique dna testing can detect that a few modern day humans have Neanderthal dna.

The reason why the Neanderthal's did not survive because they were not diverse like the modern humans in survival re climate change.

[hedda_foil]

6. All modern humans have some Neanderthal DNA and we do not know why they died out.

We all have a little Neanderthal in us. The amount varies a bit, from less than a percent to likely over 2 percent, depending on our heritage. East Asians seem to have the most Neanderthal DNA in their genomes, followed by those of European ancestry. Africans, long thought to have no Neanderthal DNA, were recently found to have genes from the hominins comprising around 0.3 percent of their genome.

That genetic material is the result of interbreeding between our two groups at some point in the past. There were multiple trysts between human- and Neanderthal-kind, and the offspring of those unions would go on to cement the Neanderthal legacy in our genomes.

Neanderthal genes are thought to be linked to a number of different traits in humans. They might help protect us from some pathogens, for example, but also make us more susceptible to heart disease. Neanderthal DNA probably also plays a role in hair color, our sense of smell and even our sleeping habits, to some extent.

Edit to add source: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/how-much-neanderthal-dna-do-humans-have

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

8. i have a sneaking suspicion that autoimmune diseases are linked to that dna.

but i cant prove it. obviously.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Maybe some autoimmune disease are so linked,

but there are quite a few autoimmune diseases and they are all wildly different from each other.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

10. but they all have one thing in common-

they all attack healthy cells. in my family, there are several.
i have kid and a grand niece that have chron's, i had a sister die of ms, i am diabetic. plus breast cancers all over. my da died of bone cancer.
every one is a ginger.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. True.

My sons both have alopecia areata, an auto-immune disorder that causes hair loss. They have the most extreme form, universalis.

It is, far and away, the most benign of the auto-immune disorders.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

12. i also have sjogren's. usually minor.

but aggravated by pregnancies and viruses.
had 6 pregnancies, and by the time i was 2 i had chickenpox, measles, and roseola.
i was doomed to sketchy health from the beginning. i got west nile in '02, and have been sick ever since.

docs all missed it because it usually doesnt make ppl that sick.
one gave me the tear test, which i passed. but my eyes are sensitive to blue light, and it was in a office w fluorescent lights. but my teeth tell the tale. doc never asked.
the 4th of those pregnancies was a horrible but early miscarriage, twins. and the 5th was a pair of of identical twins and i lost 1. was not diabetic at that time. had the 3 hr test.

so, yeah, usually an annoyance. except to me and those 3 very much wanted babies.

all of which is to say i hope your sons stay well. but this shit can travel in packs.
make sure they get vaccinated for flu and anything else they can.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. I am so sorry about your babies. I cannot imagine how difficult that has been.

And I know that you must think about them often.

I am likewise sad to hear about all the other things in your life. My sons have been very fortunate in they are extremely healthy and rarely sick with anything.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

14. yeah, i do. i didnt for years.

i thought of the miscarriage as the time i almost died. i got pregnant again right away.
and when they told me there was only 1 baby, i was relieved. i was so tired that whole pregnancy and the ex was no help.

it was the kid that remembered. he was 10lb at birth, and told ppl he ate his twin.
then i was talking to someone who said she had 1 live child and lost one, and it hit me like ton of bricks.
still sorting it out, and kicking myself for forgetting them all these years.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. All I can say is this.