Tag Archives: Neanderthals

Neanderthals, our extinct cousins, are often portrayed as eating nothing but meat — no fruit, no grains, no greens. But did Neanderthals really live on meat alone? While there’s plenty of evidence that Neanderthals regularly chowed down on meat, a growing body of research shows our close evolutionary relatives, who went extinct more than 30,000 years ago, also ate other …

Lead exposure may have influenced brain and language development in early humans and Neanderthals  Archaeology News Online Magazine Source link

Could humanity resurrect its closest extinct cousin? With rapid advances in genetic engineering, the idea of bringing back Neanderthals has moved from science fiction into the realm of technical possibility. While some researchers now believe such a feat could be achieved within two decades, the ethical, legal, and scientific implications remain deeply divisive. This speculative journey into human evolution is …

Humans and our ancestors have been exposed to lead for up to 2 million years, researchers have discovered — overturning the belief that lead poisoning is a relatively modern phenomenon. What’s more, widespread exposure to the toxic metal may have affected the evolution of our species’ communication abilities. This would have given Homo sapiens a key advantage over our cousins, …

When scientists sequenced the Neanderthal genome in 2010, they learned that Neanderthals interbred with human ancestors before mysteriously going extinct. As a result, many people alive today share up to 4% of their DNA with Neanderthals. This genetic breakthrough yielded powerful new information about the evolutionary history of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but it also raised a new question: Could …

Lead exposure from modern chemical pollution is a well-documented threat to neurodevelopment and general health, yet a surprising new study reveals that this toxic heavy metal has, in fact, been impacting human evolution for more than two million years. What’s more, using lab-grown mini-brains, the study authors revealed that Homo sapiens is far more resistant to the effects of lead …

Lab-grown ‘mini-brains’ may explain why we outlived Neanderthals  The Times The strange role of lead poisoning in humanity’s success  The Economist Ancient lead exposure may have helped humans evolve over Neanderthals, study finds  ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News and Videos Did Lead Limit Brain and Language Development in Neanderthals and Other Extinct Hominids?  UC San Diego Today Ancient lead exposure may have …

Lead is often thought of as a modern toxin, but a new study has found that it’s been haunting us and our ancestors for almost 2 million years. Stranger still, exposure could actually have given humans an edge over our closest relatives. An international team of researchers analyzed the lead content of 51 fossilized hominid teeth, dated to between 100,000 …

Svante Pääbo, father of paleogenetics: ‘The reason for the Neanderthals’ extinction lies in how numerous we’ve become’  EL PAÍS English Source link

The Algarve coast now offers one of the clearest windows into Neanderthal life on the Iberian Peninsula. Two new hominin track sites discovered on Portugal beaches change how we view Neanderthals’ relationship with coastlines. Led by Carlos Neto de Carvalho of the University of Lisbon and Fernando Muñiz of the University of Seville, with collaborators across Europe and China, the …