We’ve learned so much about Neanderthals in the past year. We have to be living through some kind of Neanderthal knowledge Golden age. Not sure what breakthroughs started it, but we’re drowning in recent discoveries, like the fact that Neanderthals were a lot smarter than we’ve given them credit for. So smart that they developed a version of dentistry that was shockingly advanced and absolutely brutal.
We also learned that Neanderthal kids hunted frogs to kill time. And now, thanks to a new study published in Royal Society Open Science, and doubly thanks to a recently discovered Neanderthal baby still in the womb, that young Neanderthals weren’t all that different from young humans.
Using high-resolution micro-CT scans, the research team examined the Neanderthal infant remains, revealing growth patterns strikingly similar to our own.
A Neanderthal Baby Fossil Is Changing What Scientists Know About Ancient Childhood
The fossils were found several decades ago in Germany’s Sesselfelsgrotte Cave. The unborn baby died after around eight months of gestation. The research team also found baby teeth from two young children who lived somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 70,000 years ago.
There are tens of thousands of years of evolution separating us from Neanderthals, yet the end of all babies developed in the womb almost exactly the way humans do today. A little odd, considering that we also recently learned that Neanderthal newborns were friggin’ huge compared to modern human toddlers. That accelerated growth probably helped them survive the harsh Eurasian Ice Age. This new discovery suggests that while there were stark differences between Neanderthals and humans, those differences didn’t emerge until after Neanderthal babies were born.
The researchers also found a couple of health issues that likely led Neanderthals to die young. Some of the baby teeth they found had mineralization defects that hindered tooth development, which might have been caused by vitamin D or calcium deficiency. Or maybe the mother had undergone some stress during pregnancy, which isn’t out of the realm of possibility, given that life back then wasn’t as cozy as it is today.
The post Neanderthal Babies May Have Been More Human Than We Realized, New Study Reveals appeared first on VICE.
