Message #186743

[Killik]

Maybe not nasty and brutish, but still short

First recognized in the Neander Valley in Germany in 1856, Neanderthals revealed that modern humans possess a rich and complex family tree that includes now-extinct relatives.

Neanderthals — also called Neandertals, due to changes in German spelling over the years — had robust skeletons that gave them wide bodies and short limbs compared to us. This made them more like wrestlers, while modern humans in comparison are more like long-distance runners.

They were probably less brutish and more like modern humans than commonly portrayed. Their brains were at least as large as ours. They controlled fire, expertly made stone tools, were proficient hunters, lived complex social groups and buried their dead. The discovery of the remains of an adult male Neanderthal with severely deformed arm bones, suggesting a major disability perhaps since childhood, hints they may have taken care of their sick. Genetic research even suggests they might have shared basic language capabilities with modern humans.

"They were a lot more closely related to us than anything alive today," said paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati at the University of Tübingen in Germany.