Neandertals: Late archaic Homo sapiens. How to classify? ?

Neandertals: Late archaic Homo sapiens

How to classify?

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Distribution defined by Neandertal sitesSouthern Europe and Middle EastNote: not in Africa

DNA samples

Neandertals:• Lived from c. 130,000 – c. 30,000 yBP• Shared Europe with modern H. sapiens for c. 15,000

yrs.• Height: 4.9 - 5.6 ft.• Weight: 110 - 143 lb.• Reduced tooth size• Decreased skeletal robusticity• Increase in brain size (to a mean of 1,445 cc)• Amud, Israel site: individual with brain of 1,740 cc• 55,000 – 40,000 yBP • Differ from modern humans in skull and extremities

Skull differences

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Evidence of a large noseAdaptive?More surface area to warm andhumidify inhaled air?

Is this Neandertal reconstruction accurate?

1909

Milford Wolpoff

Boule’sreconstruction

Signature characteristic

Information from Shanidar, Iraq site

45,000 yBP

Neandertal stone implements

The Neandertal Genome

• Reported in journal: Science, May 2010• Three bone fragments provided DNA samples• Vindija Cave site, Croatia (close to Shanidar Cave)• Each from a different female.• Dates: 38,000 ybp and 44,000 ybp• > 4 billion nucleotides sequenced• Compared to the genome of five contemporary

humans• South Africa (San), West Africa (Yoruba) , China

(Han), New Guinea (Papuan), and France (European).

Relationship of Neandertals to present-day humans

• Neandertals were genetically closer to non-Africans than to Africans.

• Of the five individuals compared, non-Africans had 1-4% Neandertal DNA

• None of the two Africans had Neandertal DNA.

• This is not exactly compatible with a rigid interpretation of the Out-of-Africa model

• An enigma! Neandertal DNA was in the individuals from China and Papua, New Guinea as well as Europe.

• Therefore, Chinese and Papuans are as closely related to Neandertals as Europeans.

• Yet, Neandertal fossils have never been found in either eastern Asia or New Guinea.

• Therefore, interbreeding must have taken place in the Middle-East region before modern humans expanded their range into these other areas.

• None of the three Neandertals had genetic markers of modern humans.

• Gene flow was unidirectional: from Neandertals into modern humans.

• The general pattern of colonization between closely related populations:

• Gene flow is almost always takes place from the resident population into the colonizing population, not the reverse.

• Resident population: Neandertals• Colonizing population: anatomically modern humans

Artifacts of teeth and ivoryDated at 45,000 yBPFrom a site in FranceNeandertal?