http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/neanderthals http://io9.com/tag/neanderthals

Every day, we get a little closer to bringing prehistoric species back from extinction. Already, researchers are hard at work preparing woolly mammoth tissue for cloning and breeding chickens to more closely resemble the mighty T-Rex. One species on the possible "to-clone" list is modern human's close cousin, the Neanderthal. But if we develop the technology to clone a Neanderthal, does that mean we should? We want to know what you think. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5880249&view=rss&microfeed=true

This isn't about odor — honestly, if the species that invented indoor plumbing doesn't smell better, we're in serious trouble. But we have a far better sense of smell than Neanderthals did, and that reveals some crucial differences in our brains. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5868225&view=rss&microfeed=true

Now that we know for certain that early Homo sapiens had babies with Homo neandertalensis, it's time to get real about what it was probably like when those two groups of early humans met in Europe. Homo sapiens had just trudged up out of Africa, and Neandertals had been living in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. But they were still the same species, capable of forming families together - and of sharing cultural knowledge, too. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5862448&view=rss&microfeed=true

The old idea of Neanderthals as a species of brutish primitives has already been pretty well exploded, but this is as good a nail in the coffin as any: Neanderthals were treating themselves to fancy foods 250,000 years ago. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5854582&view=rss&microfeed=true

Late last year, we learned that early humans and Neanderthals once shared Eurasia with a third hominin group, known as Denisovans. Now, the new discovery of a Denisovan toe bone might indicate that these three hominin groups were pretty much constantly interbreeding. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5829706&view=rss&microfeed=true

The extinction of the Neanderthals remains a matter of intense debate. Were we smarter than them? More warlike? Or perhaps we simply sexed them into extinction? The real answer might have more to do with our quantity than our qualities. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5826353&view=rss&microfeed=true

We can trace our evolutionary heritage back millions of years, but it's surprisingly tricky to say with certainty which hominid species came directly before us. Now it looks like one of our evolutionary cousins is actually our parent species. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5799005&view=rss&microfeed=true

A recently-uncovered Neanderthal burial site in Spain has provided intriguing evidence that these ancient hominids believed in an afterlife and were capable of complex symbolic thought, all possibly before early Homo sapiens demonstrated these abilities. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5794078&view=rss&microfeed=true

A Neanderthal burial site in Italy reveals hundreds of bird bones mixed in with those of our hominid cousins. The bones had the feathers scraped off, as though the Neanderthals had removed them on purpose - and the only plausible reason they would do that is to wear the feathers. It's more evidence that Neanderthals were just as cultured as own ancient ancestors. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5766569&view=rss&microfeed=true

Over the last 30,000 years, the human brain has decreased about 10% in size. This might seem like proof that we're not as smart as our ancient ancestors, but the truth is a little more complicated than that. Our brains aren't just getting smaller - they're also getting more efficient. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5753163&view=rss&microfeed=true

One of the traits that gave humans an evolutionary advantage was their ability to run for long distances. It helped humans catch energy-rich meat to grow big brains. It also looks like it helped us leave Neanderthals in the dust. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5751619&view=rss&microfeed=true

Scientists say woolly mammoths may be cloned and walking around by 2020. But there are other extinct creatures whose DNA could be used to bring them back too. Here are some of the leading contenders for reanimation. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5738260&view=rss&microfeed=true Neanderthals may have been our closest evolutionary ancestors, but they had at least one feature that alway set them apart from early humans: their incredibly large noses. But just why Neanderthals had such huge noses is an enduring evolutionary mystery. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5736103&view=rss&microfeed=true

Eight recently discovered teeth are very similar to those of modern humans and date back 400,000 years... 200,000 years older than our species is supposed to be. To explain this mystery, we must retrace human evolution. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5719894&view=rss&microfeed=true

One explanation for the extinction of our hominid cousins is that Neanderthals weren't as smart about what foods they ate as our ancestors. But newly discovered Neanderthal teeth reveal a complex diet, mixing in fruits and vegetables with their meat. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5719202&view=rss&microfeed=true

49,000 years ago in a cave in northern Spain, twelve Neanderthals were murdered and eaten by another group of Neanderthals. This grisly scene may tell a larger story about the reasons why our humanoid cousins ultimately died out. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5715409&view=rss&microfeed=true

When we're born, our brains are pretty much indistinguishable from those of our extinct Neanderthal relatives. Were our ancestors really so different from Neanderthals after all? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5684169&view=rss&microfeed=true

Neanderthals and ancient ancestors of modern humans were probably far more promiscuous than we are today. How do we know? Because their fingers were shorter than ours are. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5681229&view=rss&microfeed=true

The ultimate fate of the Neanderthals remains a major mystery. We know they went extinct, but why did they die out when our ancestors thrived? New evidence suggests massive, deadly volcanoes killed off the Neanderthals while completely sparing our ancestors. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5657739&view=rss&microfeed=true

The human family tree may be in for a dramatic rewrite. DNA collected from a fossilised finger bone from Siberia shows it belonged to a mysterious ancient hominid – perhaps a new species. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5502216&view=rss&microfeed=true

Scientists have long debated whether Neandertals were as sophisticated as the early homo sapiens who lived alongside them. New evidence from a 50-thousand-year-old Neandertal campsite suggests they were our ancestors' mental equals, wearing jewelry and painting with homebrew pigments. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5444560&view=rss&microfeed=true

For thousands of years, two intelligent hominid species shared the European continent: early humans and Neanderthals. About 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals went extinct. Now one study suggests a possible reason: The Neanderthal population was very small, and very interrelated. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5316474&view=rss&microfeed=true

Are modern humans the hybrid children of early humans and Neanderthals? For over a decade, scientists have wondered what exactly happened to the Neanderthals, low-tech hominids who populated Western Europe, when homo sapiens arrived on the scene from Africa and Asia with sophisticated weaponry and the rudiments of symbolic art. Homo sapiens arrived in Europe roughly 45,000 years ago, and co-existed with Neanderthals for what scientists estimate could have been anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 years. Some remains seem to indicate that the two groups shared the same caves, and might have traded with each other. But what else did they share? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5026043&view=rss&microfeed=true

Now that everybody is talking about that show Cavemen, the question that genomics experts have been researching for the past couple of years is more relevant than ever: Do we have elements of homo neanderthalis in our present-day homo sapiens genomes? In plain English: are we the results of love matches between ancient humans and Neanderthals? New gene-sequencing techniques that work on DNA extracted from Neanderthal fossils have made this an answerable question, but still the scientists are arguing! Two recent, highly-reputable studies have looked at Neanderthal DNA and come up with radically different scenarios. One group, led by Max Planck scientist Richard Green, says the human genome is riddled with Neanderthal, which means the species did some intermingling. In fact, Green argues, there is actually less difference between ancient homo sapiens and Neanderthal than there is between different racial groups today. But another research group, led by Lawrence Berkeley Lab geneticist James Noonan, says that's absurd. It found no Neanderthal DNA in our pristine homo sapiens genome, and suggests that any offspring created by the two species had no significant impact on contemporary homo sapiens. Who should you believe? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=310379&view=rss&microfeed=true