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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 1: New Information on Neanderthals

Neanderthals matured faster than modern people and may not be the forefathers of modern humans, say a group of researchers in France.

The scientists studied and compared the front teeth of Neanderthals, who lived in Europe until about 30,000 years ago, and early modern humans who lived in the same region around 20,000 years ago. The researchers analyzed tooth enamel, to determine the rate of growth for Neanderthals. Their results suggest that Neanderthals reached maturity at about 15 years of age. Humans grow until about age 18, so Neanderthals matured, or reached adult growth, three years sooner than humans.

Researchers think this difference in growth rate is important because experts believed that brain size and growth rate were related. In humans, big brains mean long growth time. Neanderthals, however, had bigger brains than humans, yet had shorter growth time. The fact that Neanderthals had a different growth rate than humans leads some experts to believe that humans may not be descendants of Neanderthals as people once thought.

If that is true, that doesn't necessarily mean that humans and Neanderthals are not related; it would just mean that humans did not descend, or come from, Neanderthals, and that humans and Neanderthals may have shared another ancestor farther back on the evolutionary tree. Many scientists and paleontologists, the people who study bones, have long believed that humans were not descendants of Neanderthals. This recent study supports their belief.

The study was reported this week in the journal Nature.

--Written by Nia Williams

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