Posted on 10/19/2020 1:55:38 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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 Garcia Martinez 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.
Garcia Martinez 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.
...And a Neandertal-like ribcage appeared 1.5 million years ago in an African Homo erectus skeleton, Garcia Martinez contended in a paper published online July 6 in Nature Ecology & Evolution...
That appears to be a likely scenario, says paleoanthropologist Timothy Weaver of the University of California, Davis. It's unclear, though, why early H. sapiens evolved slighter bodies that contrasted with what had been a typically stocky physique in other Homo species, adds Weaver, who did not participate in the new study.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
The Neandertal Enigma"Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
“Slighter” bodies made it easier for Homo sapiens to run from H. neanderthalis.
Sunken City,
Your “Imaginary” has got my head spinning. This reads like something
That artist Escher would have thought of.
Or, it could be a lyric from a song by early Donovan.
Damn you! Now my coffee doesn’t taste good because of the bile in the back of my throat.
So sorry!!
Fat shaming
;-)
The brilliance behind this discovery is breath-taking.....
Thank you.
I LoLed so hard, I woke up the cat.
They had to have huge chests to accommodate their huge lung capacity since there was less oxygen to breathe becaus eof Glowbull warming...............
short, deep barrels?
Like TARDIS barrels, short on the outside deep on the inside?
How exactly are Neandertals supposed to participate in a new study if they are extinct?
Via U.S. Postal Service. Some participated two or three times.
Note: most people of European ancestry carry as much Neandertal DNA as they do the DNA of each of their great-great-great-great-grandparents. IOW, Neandertal isn't extinct.
It stands to reason that young Neandertal men were nudging each other to check out the lungs on vsarious Neandertal women.
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