This Neanderthal child grew up just like us

[Still Waters]

Some 49,000 years ago in what's now Spain, a Neanderthal boy died a few months shy of his eighth birthday. Now, scientists have examined his skeleton in detail—and they claim that the boy's growth largely mirrored that of today's human children.

The find, announced on Thursday in the journal Science, adds more evidence to the notion that long, slow development—thought to help to nurse a larger brain—isn't necessarily unique to Homo sapiens.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/09/neanderthals-humans-development-brain-anthropology-science/

[Eldorado]

"Discerning the differences and similarities in growth patterns between Neanderthals and modern humans helps us better define our own history. Modern humans and Neanderthals emerged from a common recent ancestor, and this is manifested in a similar overall growth rate," explains CSIC researcher, Antonio Rosas, from Spain's National Natural Science Museum (MNCN).

As fellow CSIC researcher Luis Ríos highlights, "Applying paediatric growth assessment methods, this Neanderthal child is no different to a modern-day child." The pattern of vertebral maturation and brain growth, as well as energy constraints during development, may have marked the anatomical shape of Neanderthals.
Article: http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/reconstructing-how-neanderthals-grew-based-el-sidr-n-child-008838

At the Smithsonian: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/did-neanderthal-children-grow-lot-modern-human-children-180964993/

Edited September 24, 2017 by Eldorado
Added link

[Trihalo42]

The human brain doesn't fully develop until the mid-twenties. The last thing to fully develop is the prefrontal cortex, responsible for reason and impulse control. Teenagers = Neanderthals?

[Parsec]

Pretty interesting article. 

 

Given the title on UM homepage, I was afraid it was one of those publications trying to paint Neanderthals as "more stupid" than us ("their brain grew slower than our, thus they were dumber"). 

Hopefully it is not. 

 

I don't get why some people are so scared of the idea that Neanderthals could have been exactly like us, if not more intelligent and more developed/sophisticated. 

I thought anthropocentrism died centuries ago. 

[Parsec]

On 24/9/2017 at 7:41 PM, Trihalo42 said:

The human brain doesn't fully develop until the mid-twenties. The last thing to fully develop is the prefrontal cortex, responsible for reason and impulse control. Teenagers = Neanderthals?

Why are you drawing that comparison? 

The article doesn't say they didn't develop the prefrontal cortex. 

[Nostrodumbass]

Can these scientists claim this from one skeleton? Maybe he dropped out of school and played video games all day. Games like GTA (Grand theft Antelope), COD (Call of Dysentery), Farcry Primal (literal edition), WOW (World of What i'm experiencing every day), Minecraft (Hit hard things with your fist edition), Don't Starve, Don't Starve Together etc.

[MisterMan]

What?  Neanderthals were similar to modern humans?  Next they'll be finding Neanderthal DNA in modern humans.  Oh, wait.

[kobolds]

I think it's too early to make such claim with only few fossil

[glorybebe]

7 minutes ago, seanjo said:

Have they found Neaderthal DNA in modern Humans?

Yes they have.  Mostly in the Northern European countries.  According to one study I read red hair is a trait of Neanderthal DNA.

[Awhis]

I am part Neanderthal. I have a huge 3 inch occipital bun and I am extremely hairy. Plus I am very strong I can leg press 2000 lbs. I have never broken a bone even when I fell 30 ft from a building!

[+DanL]

The truth is that if we discovered the Neanderthal now it would probably be classified as almost more of a race of Homo Sapiens than a seperate species. The problem was that the first skeleton remains of a neanderthal were massively misinterpreted. He was seen as a stoop shouldered bent apish sort of being.

We now know that this specimen was actually an old man suffering with terrible arthritis and injuries and not representative of them as a whole. A Neanderthal could walk down the street in any city in the world and nobody would doubt his humanity. They were so close that they obviously had viable hybrid children with "standard" people and their genes are still a part of our human genome.

Understand, at one time there was a general understanding that negroid and Mongoloid people were almost another species. The difference is that the Neanderthal wasn't around to prove us wrong. I have known people that had a lot in common with Neanderthals. We have all seen them. they can almost scratch their knees without shrugging their shoulders and are barrel chested and usually massively strong and sometimes hairy. 

It seems to be a human trait to see others that are different as less than us in some way and not as "human" as we are. The Neanderthals were just like the Caribbean Natives and the Native Tasmanians and so many Tribes of Native Americans...They didn't survive meeting their cousins for long...