Neanderthals : Recent Study
Neanderthals who lived 50,000 years ago were infected with three viruses that still affect modern humans today, researchers have discovered recently.
- Neanderthals were an extinct relative of modern humans once found across Europe, extending into Central and Southwest Asia.
- Species: Homo neanderthalensis
- They are our closest extinct human relative.
- Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago.
- The last populations of Neanderthals are thought to have died out roughly 40,000 years ago, several thousand years or so after a wave of modern humans migrated deeper into Europe.
- Although they are long extinct, their genes are still present in modern human DNA.
- Some defining features of their skulls include the large middle part of the face, angled cheek bones, and a huge nose for humidifying and warming cold, dry air.
- Their bodies were shorter and stockier than modern humans, another adaptation to living in cold environments.
- But their brains were just as large as modern humans and often larger-proportional to their brawnier bodies.
