Neanderthals Grew Faster than Modern Humans

There's no living creature the same size with us to have such a long childhood. And a new research makes us even more unique: teeth show that Neanderthals matured faster than modern humans, thus the long childhood and slow development are specific to us.

Amongst all primates, humans and Neanderthals included, the age of molar eruption is connected to developmental issues, like weaning and sexual maturity. There has been a vivid debate amongst anthropologists whether the timing of such events had been the same or different in Neanderthals.

A team at the Max Planck Institute, in Germany, focused on the growth lines on the 100,000-year-old teeth of a juvenile Neanderthal, discovered in the Belgian Scladina caves, in order to determine this. The period of tooth growth appeared to be shorter for the Neanderthal, than for modern humans, as the researchers revealed in their research, published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences".

This more rapid growth rhythm was betrayed by a more advanced dental pattern of dental than in the case of the modern humans: the Neanderthal child had a complete teeth set in a shorter period of time and had more teeth inside its mouth than fossil and living Homo sapiens of the same age.

In fact, the Neanderthal child investigated by this research looked developmentally similar to a 10- to 12-year-old human child, even if it could have had no more than 8 years when it died.

This means that other physical traits developed more rapidly, as well, in Neanderthals than in modern humans, strengthening the concept that delayed development and long childhood of modern humans could be a recent unique evolutionary achievement.

"Given the well-established relationship between molar eruption and major events in life history, this work suggests that the Scladina Neanderthal developed more rapidly than living and fossil H. sapiens, experiencing a shorter childhood and a life history that was accelerated relative to that of H. sapiens," wrote the authors.