Advances in direct radiocarbon dating of Neanderthal and anatomically modern human (AMH) fossils and the development of archaeostratigraphic chronologies now allow refined regional models for Neanderthal-AMH coexistence. In addition, they allow us to explore the issue of late Neanderthal survival in regions of Western Eurasia located within early routes of AMH expansion such as the Caucasus. He...

Regulatory variation influencing gene expression is a key contributor to phenotypic diversity, both within and between species. Unfortunately, RNA degrades too rapidly to be recovered from fossil remains, limiting functional genomic insights about our extinct hominin relatives. Many Neanderthal sequences survive in modern humans due to ancient hybridization, providing an opportunity to assess t...

Assessing the genetic contribution of Neanderthals to non-disease phenotypes in modern humans has been difficult because of the absence of large cohorts for which common phenotype information is available. Using baseline phenotypes collected for 112,000 individuals by the UK Biobank, we can now elaborate on previous findings that identified associations between signatures of positive selection ...

Skull morphology results from the bone remodelling mechanism that underlies the specific bone growth dynamics. Histological study of the bone surface from Neanderthal mandible specimens of El Sidrón (Spain) provides information about the distribution of the remodelling fields (bone remodelling patterns or BRP) indicative of the bone growth directions. In comparison with other primate species, B...

In order to evaluate the lateral shape contour of the Neanderthal cranium, the mid-sagittal profiles (glabella-opisthocranion) in adult and subadult Neanderthal remains were examined and compared with those of other specimens of fossil Homo. Size normalized boundaries were digitally acquired as ordered series of coordinates; the series of the distances from the glabella opisthocranion axis, was...

Just over 150 years ago, the first fossils of our closest relative, the Neanderthal, were discovered in Germany. From analyzing these bones and comparing them to ours, we have predicted what the Neanderthal might look like, when the Neanderthal emerged, roamed, and eventually went extinct about 30,000 years ago. During their travels, they would have encountered the ancestors of modern day human...

Using the larynges of the newborn human and chimpanzee as models, Lieberman and Crelin ('71) and Lieberman, Crelin and Klatt ('72) have reconstructed the larynx of the "classic" Neanderthal La Chapelle aux Saints. The authors used their reconstructed vocal tract to generate linguistic functions which led them to conclude that Neanderthal lacked the ability to produce fully articulate human spee...

The nature and causes of the disappearance of Neanderthals and their apparent replacement by modern humans are subjects of considerable debate. Many researchers have proposed biologically or technologically mediated dietary differences between the two groups as one of the fundamental causes of Neanderthal disappearance. Some scenarios have focused on the apparent lack of plant foods in Neandert...

There is an ongoing debate in the field of human evolution about the possible contribution of Neanderthals to the modern human gene pool. To study how the Neanderthal private alleles may have spread over the genes of Homo sapiens, we propose a deterministic model based on recursive equations and ordinary differential equations. If the Neanderthal population was large compared to the Homo sapien...

This paper presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of the Neanderthal bony labyrinth, a structure located inside the petrous temporal bone. Fifteen Neanderthal specimens are compared with a Holocene human sample, as well as with a small number of European Middle Pleistocene hominins, and early anatomically modern and European Upper Palaeolithic humans. Compared with Holocene humans the bo...