Homo Neanderthalensis - ANTH 2301 Anthropology

The Genus Homo and the Emergence of Us ANTH 2301 Homo neanderthalensis When you hear the word "Neanderthal," you might picture a primitive, caveman-like monster pulling dinner with one hand while brandishing a club with the other. While it's true that entertainment should not adhere to scientific accuracy, media may propagate misconceptions and outdated ideas about the past. The identity of the Neanderthal people and their significance to the human saga are examined in more detail in this section. Neanderthals, who are thought to have lived between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago, are only discovered in parts of Europe and the Middle East. It was thought that the earliest fossils, discovered in the Neander Valley, represented the remains of a long-extinct kind of human. The inhabitants of the Neander Valley were referred to by the Germans as the Neanderthals. Neanderthals have various unique morphological traits, including bigger skulls and brains than contemporary humans. For example, the average size of a Neanderthal is 1,520 cc, whereas that of a modern person is 1200–1400 cc. Does the bigger brain size of the Neanderthal indicate that it was a more sophisticated species than contemporary humans? As noted before in this chapter, although there appears to be a relationship between large brain size and sophisticated cognitive abilities, it's possible that certain hominins' brains were structured differently from those of contemporary humans, emphasising distinct anatomical regions. The back of the brain, which controls the senses, is thought to have been more developed in the Neanderthal brain than the frontal area, which controls speech and language. Neanderthals may have needed this increased growth in the rear region of the brain as a survival strategy since they frequently had to hunt in challenging environments. According to Brown University cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman, Neanderthals lacked the anatomical structure required for speech like that of modern humans. Based on a recreation of a Neanderthal throat, which showed that the neck could not support the vocal apparatus of contemporary humans, he came to this conclusion (Lieberman, P. 2007). Other physical evidence indicates that the larynx was positioned high in the throat of Neanderthals, despite the fact that there is evidence of a hyoid bone, a tiny horseshoe-shaped bone at the front of the neck, which would have been able to anchor the tongue muscles. A larynx positioned high restricts an animal's capacity to make a variety of sounds, including vowels. The larynx is located further down the neck in humans. It's been established that Neanderthals carried the gene FOXP2, which is associated with the capacity to comprehend sophisticated language, but it's still unclear if they were able to generate it. Some experts think that H. sapiens' capacity for sophisticated communication provided them a major advantage over Neanderthals. Other features of the Neanderthal skull include a large nasal cavity, occipital buns at the back of the skull (similar to those of H. antecessor and H. erectus), large brow ridges (which are not made of solid bone and form an air cavity), and rounded wear patterns on the incisors, especially in older individuals. Usually, their big front teeth are heavily worn. Chewing on leather is thought to be the source of the chipping and pitting on the incisors. Their large scapula, as shown by the postcranial bones, suggests that their rotator cuff muscles were well-developed. They may have been able to use spears and launch projectiles because they had a strong humerus with a large head and could rotate their arms. An area in Iraq known as Shanidar Cave is home to some of the most well-known Neanderthal remains. The skeletal remains of eight different Neanderthals have been discovered within this cave. Shanidars 1 through 9 were found in 1957 and 1961, while Shanidar 10 was found in 2006. These remains are recognised. The fact that almost all of the skeletal remains exhibit some signs of trauma suggests that hunting was a dangerous activity. Men and women have been found to have comparable brain injuries at different Neanderthal sites, indicating that women may have participated in hunting activities as well. But compared to males, women had a disproportionately smaller number of injuries (Beier et al. 2008). According to a comparative research, contemporary humans suffered injuries equivalent to those of Neanderthals during the Upper Palaeolithic, yet remarkably, these injuries were not as likely to end in death (Beier et al. 2008). A forty-to fifty-year-old Neanderthal man is shown in Shanidar 3 with a rib injury that may have resulted from an animal encounter. He implies that healing may occur when care is provided by others. One of Shanidar 1's many physical injuries left him blind in one eye. Shanidar 1, also known as the "Old Man," was between thirty and forty-five years old in Neanderthal terminology. In addition, the lower portion of his right arm and hand were absent, indicating the oldest known amputation. Despite the fact that he recovered from the amputation, it's possible that it left his right side paralysed. He was toothless as well. It is said that he survived by consuming food that had been chewed for him by others. Numerous of these people have shown signs of recovery from their wounds, indicating that there was empathy and a sense of duty towards the community's crippled citizens.