US EditionWhy humans have smaller faces than Neanderthals
- On March 18, 2025, researchers including Trevor Cousins from the University of Cambridge, Richard Durbin, and Aylwyn Scally published findings in Nature Genetics revealing new complexities in human evolution based on DNA analysis from living individuals.
- The study indicates that approximately 1.5 million years ago, a population of early human ancestors split into two groups, with one experiencing a severe bottleneck, potentially being the ancestral population of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
- Around 300,000 years ago, these two groups merged in Africa to form modern humans, with one group contributing about 80% of the genetic material.
- Aylwyn Scally stated that reconstructing events from hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago by looking at DNA is astonishing, revealing our history is far richer and more complex than imagined.
- Alexandra Schuh from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology led a team that found modern humans have smaller, more gracile faces due to earlier cessation of facial bone growth in adolescence compared to Neanderthals and chimpanzees, a difference that has puzzled paleoanthropologists and is linked to cranial gracilization.
14 Articles
14 Articles
Why humans have smaller faces than Neanderthals
The human face is strikingly distinct from our fossil cousins and ancestors—most notably, it is significantly smaller, and more gracile. However, the reasons behind this change remain largely unknown. A team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has investigated why and how our species evolved such a unique facial form.
New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens
New human fossils from Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) document the earliest evolutionary stage of Homo sapiens and display modern conditions of the face and mandible combined with more primative features of the neurocranium. The exact place and time that our species emerged remains obscure because the fossil record is limited and the chronological age of many key specimens remains uncertain. Previous fossil evidence has placed the emergence of modern hu…
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