Neandertals Had Big Mouths, Gaped Widely

Neandertals had big mouths that they were able to open unusually wide, new research has determined.

A recent study found that a combination of facial structure, forward-positioned molars, and an unusually large gap between the vertical parts of the back of the jaw allowed Neandertals (also spelled Neanderthals) to gape widely.

Modern humans and our direct ancestors don't have these traits, the researchers note. But the team was unable to measure exactly how far Neandertals could open their mouths.

"This ability is connected to the length of the muscle fibers, which, of course, we don't have," said study co-author Yoel Rak, a professor of anatomy at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

Rak and colleague William Hylander, an expert on jaw biomechanics at Duke University, presented their findings last month at a meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in Vancouver, Canada.

The scientists believe the large space behind Neandertals' molars created a geometry that allowed them to take extremely large bites.

This is perhaps an adaptation to the size of the food Neandertals ate, the researchers said, although they caution that the exact reason for the wide gape remains an enigma.

"Why were they able to do this?" Rak asked. "This is something that only a time machine could help us answer."

Neandertals lived in parts of Europe and Asia for more than 400,000 years, then disappeared some 30,000 years ago.

The omnivorous species had an extremely varied diet—from vegetation to reindeer—and they knew how to butcher and cook meat.

"They didn't have to put a whole [animal] leg in their mouths," noted Alan Mann, a physical anthropologist at Princeton University who did not participate in the new research.

"I would suspect that the Neandertals were probably as adept as we are in cutting their food into manageable sizes," he said.

Mann believes a large mouth structure may not have been exclusive to Neandertals but was also present in earlier human species.

Instead of eating habits, the change in gape size may be due more to the evolution of the skull: as the braincase expanded, the face moved under it, he said.

"What has changed is the architecture that we begin to see in modern humans, where the face and the braincase have different kinds of structural relationships," he said.

Well now is Neandertals or Neanderthals?

At first I thought it was a typo, then I thought it was correctly noted as Neandertals, and now I think:

The first such fossil was discovered in 1856 in the Neander Thal, or “Neander Valley” in German, and became known as “Neanderthal Man”. In 1904, German spelling was regularized to be more consistent with pronunciation, and “thal” became “tal”. In 1952 Henri Vallois proposed that it should be spelt as the Germans spell it, and the “-tal” spelling has become widely used since then. The “-thal” spelling persists most strongly in England.
‘Neanderthal’ can be pronounced with either a ‘t’ or a ‘th’ sound - both are acceptable and widely used in English. The German pronunciation, however, has always been ‘t’ (German has no ‘th’ sound).

None of this affects the taxonomic name of the Neandertals. William King proposed the name Homo neanderthalensis in 1864. Since then, opinion has fluctuated as to whether they should be considered Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (a subspecies of Homo sapiens) or a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis. For the first half of the 20th century, they were usually considered a separate species. For the last few decades they have usually been considered a subspecies, but recently Homo neanderthalensis has been gaining in popularity again. In either case, the ‘h’ must remain in the name, because the laws governing biological nomenclature forbid changing the spelling.

It is fascinating to think that, but for a matter of historical chance, we might now be classifying Neandertals as Homo stupidus! (Or, even stranger, Homo sapiens stupidus: “stupid wise man”.) Ernst Haeckel created that name in 1866. Fortunately for the Neandertals, who have a bad enough image problem as it is, King’s name was published two years earlier and hence has priority. (Wolpoff and Caspari, Race and Human Evolution, 1997, p.271)

The Neander Tal was named after a minister, Joachim Neumann, who used to take walks there in the late 17th century. Neumann composed many hymns, some of which are still sung today. Wanting to use a Greek pseudonym, Neumann, whose name means “new man”, chose “Neander”, a translation of his name into Greek. By a strange coincidence, the “New Man Valley” named for him after his death gave its name to a new type of human that was discovered there.

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