everyone living outside Africa today has a small amount of Neanderthal in them. Europeans and Asians have approximately 2 per cent Neanderthal DNA. Interestingly, indigenous sub-Saharan Africans have none, or very little Neanderthal DNA because their ancestors did not migrate through Eurasia. The earliest discoveries of Homo neanderthalensis (who lived from 200,000 years ago to around 24,000 years ago) were in various parts of Europe, including Forbes’ Quarry, Gibraltar (1948), and at the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf (1856). In 2019, original DNA was extracted from the two skulls originally discovered in Gibraltar, which revealed new information about each skull – for example, one skull was male and the other was female.
One of the largest collections of fossilized bones of Homo neanderthalensis in the world was found in Croatia, at a site in Krapina, Hušnjakovo, between 1899 and 1905. The most important finding was a skull that belonged to a young, mature Neanderthal woman. This was particularly significant because of the forty-two thin cuts that were found on the frontal bone (the front part of the skull), which were made shortly after the death of the young woman, suggesting possible ritual behaviour. This information provides important evidence that Homo neanderthalensis had a developed culture.
Recent studies confirm that Homo neanderthalensis were self-conscious beings who lived socially as part of a community. They understood how to treat some illnesses and how to care for children and vulnerable groups. They were also very good hunters. The large number of the various artefacts that they made from stone for different purposes, such as scrapers, reveals much information about their technological development.
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal community based on archaeological excavations at Krapina, Croatia. (© Krapina Museum, Croatia)
STOP & THINK
If other types of early human still existed today, how do you think Homo sapiens would treat them?
Along with a team of researchers, Svante Pääbo, a leading researcher in evolutionary genetics from the Max Planck Institute, sequenced an entire Neanderthal genome, revealing the connections between Neanderthals, as well as uncovering the existence of another group of early humans, Denisovans (see below). Interestingly, genetic evidence has now conclusively confirmed that there was much more contact between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis than previously thought. Furthermore, recent findings from Gorham’s cave in Gibraltar suggest that Homo neanderthalensis survived until much later than previously suspected, up to 24,000 years ago, meaning humans and Neanderthals overlapped for longer than previously thought.
Homo floresiensis
Sometimes referred to as ‘the Hobbit’, due to its diminutive stature, Homo floresiensis was an early human who is thought to have lived until 12,000 years ago. Fossilized remains were first discovered in 2003 in the Liang Bua cave, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Researchers were surprised to find that the first set of remains belonged to a 106-centimetre-tall adult female. The remains comprised a nearly complete skull as well as a skeleton, along with at least eight other similarly sized sets of remains. It is now thought that Homo floresiensis may have lived from 95,000 years ago until around 12,000 years ago. There is some debate about how this early human emerged, with evidence recently suggesting that it evolved from an earlier human related to Homo erectus, a 1.8 million-year-old relative. In terms of culture, researchers also uncovered basic stone tools and animal remains in the Liang Bua cave. They postulate that island (or endemic) dwarfism occurred, whereby Homo floresiensis lacked predators, which accounts for their unusual size.
endemic dwarfism A process whereby some creatures confined to isolated habitats such as islands are known to have become smaller
Homo denisova
While a lot is known about Neanderthals, relatively little is known about Denisovans. Svante Pääbo, mentioned above, having made incredible scientific breakthroughs in understanding Neanderthals, in 2010 went on to sequence DNA from a tiny fragment of finger bone discovered in the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains of Siberia. The results confirmed that he and his team had discovered an entirely new species, the Denisovans. Although there is only a handful of bones and teeth so far discovered from this species, it has been possible to learn that the Denisovans probably lived across much of Asia tens of thousands of years ago. David Gokhman and Liran Carmel, researchers based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, used DNA to reconstruct the appearance of Denisovans. From these studies, it emerged that Denisovans looked similar to the Neanderthals, but with wider heads and more protruding jaws. This information is very useful because it explains how they adapted to their environment and how the genetic traces found in modern humans may have helped this process. Genetic tests show that the Denisovans were close relatives of the Neanderthals and that our ancestors bred with them too, perhaps as recently as 15,000 years ago, which has left modern Melanesians and indigenous Australians with up to 6 per cent Denisovan DNA. Professor Chris Stringer, a human evolution researcher from the UK’s Natural History Museum, states that Neanderthals may have overlapped with Denisovans across Asia for more than 300,000 years.
STOP & THINK
How has recent genetic information challenged the idea that humans evolved separately?
ACTIVITY
What kind of evidence proves that Homo neanderthalensis were social beings with specific cultural practices?
What are the implications of the recent findings that Homo neanderthalensis overlapped with Homo sapiens?
Climate change, human evolution and the Anthropocene
Earlier hominins evolved and diversified in Africa, and the fact that they migrated into Asia and Europe (Homo erectus nearly 2 million years old have been found in Asia) shows that they managed to adapt successfully to diverse climatic conditions. One particularly important characteristic of humans is our ability to acclimatize to changes in the environment. The climate became more changeable around 6 million years ago. Some anthropologists argue that certain adaptations, such as upright walking or tool-making, coincided with periods of environmental change.
One example of this view is the Savannah hypothesis, which claims that many important human adaptations arose in Africa as the savannah, an area of grassland between the rainforest and the desert, expanded. According to this idea, upright walking proved to be an energy-efficient and beneficial way of moving across an open landscape. Furthermore, walking upright had the additional advantage of freeing the hands.
Overall, evidence suggests that early hominins were able to adjust to changing environments in different parts of the world, giving them a huge advantage over other species. This adaptation included the ability to use resources from a vast variety of plants and animals and to employ many specialized tools. Human beings are social and also use communication skills to exchange resources and information to help them survive in a constantly changing world.
In recent years, however, humans have become the dominant force in shaping the Earth’s climate and processes. The Anthropocene is a term that has been adopted by a range of disciplines to describe the time period in which human beings have had an overwhelming impact on planet Earth. It is these changes, which we have ourselves created, that are now presenting
