[G Larry]

There are studies that suggest Neanderthals were their contemporaries with Rickets. NOT some other evolutionary path.

[SampleMan]

That was the original idea until many skeletons were found, but I haven’t seen that in modern times. Does rickets create stronger tendon attachments, and how do they explain the consistent difference in nerve routing in the jaw (I think its the jaw that has the hole in it)?

[ElkGroveDan]

There are studies that suggest Neanderthals were their contemporaries with Rickets

Actually there are no such "studies". It was a single opinion by 19th century anatomist Rudolf Virchow in 1856.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ElkGroveDan.

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoneaderthalensis.htm

[snip] German scientist R. Virchow claimed that it was the skeleton of a diseased Cossack cavalryman, with thick browridges developed from constantly furrowing his brow in pain. Even when the validity of remains attributed to Neanderthal were no longer in such question, the description of Neanderthals was still full of controversy. M. Boule and H. Vallois were the most prominent of those who believed that Neanderthals had no place in modern ancestry. These two supported the idea that Neanderthals were more apelike than human, were of simian intelligence, and walked in an apelike gait. These perceptions were based on both the misinterpretation of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints specimen as typic of the species (this species was an older individual with chronic arthritis throughout its body), and on the prejudices of these researchers, who refused to accept any evidence that related Neanderthals closely to modern Europeans. [end of snip]