3D Ribcage Indicates Neanderthals Looked Nothing Like We Thought

An International Team of Scientists has completed the first of its kind.

The team, which included researchers from universities in Spain, Israel, and the United States, including the University of Washington, focused on the thorax – the area of ​​the body containing the rib cage and upper spine and lungs. Using CT scans of fossils from an approximately 60,000-year-old male skeleton known as Kebara 2, researchers were able to create a 3D model of the chest – a long-term image of the barrel-chested, hunched-over caveman. " The conclusions point to what can be had in the future with greater capacity and straighter spine than today's modern human.

The study is published Oct. 30 in Nature Communications .

"Asea Gomez-Olivencia, an Ikerbasque Fellow at the University of the Basque Country and the study's lead author," said Asier Gomez-Olivencia, an Ikerbasque Fellow at the University of the Basque Country.

And how Neanderthals would have been impacted, said Patricia Kramer, professor in the UW Department of Anthropology and Corresponding author on the paper.

"Neanderthals are highly adapted to those of modern humans, but their physical form is important," she said. "Understanding their adaptations allows us to understand our own evolutionary path better."

Our Upright Ancestor?

Neanderthals are 400,000 years ago, Western Europe to Central Asia. They've been hunter-gatherers who, in some areas, lived in cellars and have been chilled for several years before going extinct about 40,000 years ago. Studies in recent years have suggested that Neanderthals and early interbred Homo sapiens, because Neanderthal DNA evidence has turned up in many populations.

Over the past 150 years, Neanderthal has been found in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This team worked with a skeleton labeled Kebara 2, also known as "Moshe," which was found in Kebara Cave in northern Israel 's Carmel mountain range in 1983. most complete Neanderthal skeletons ever found. Two different forms of dating from the surrounding soil, thermoluminescence and electron spin resonance, put the age between 59,000 and 64,000 years.

The Neanderthal remains in the Kebara Cave, Israel. (The Subversive Archaeologist / CC BY ND 3.0 )

Discoveries and studies of other Neanderthal remains in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and hurricane-over caveman. Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, Neanderthal et al.

New View of Neanderthals From 3D

Over the past decade, Kramer explained. The approach is useful with fossils such as the thorax, where fragile bones make physical reconstruction difficult and risky.

Nearly two years ago, the same research team created a virtual reconstruction of the Kebara 2 spine, the first step in the Neanderthal biomechanics. The team's paper, published in the book "Human Paleontology and Prehistory," reaffirmed the likelihood of upright posture but pointed to a straighter spine than that of modern humans.

This image from the virtual reconstruction shows how the ribs attach to the spine in an inward direction, forcing an even more upright posture than in modern humans. Source: Gomez-Olivencia, et al.

For this model of the thorax, the authors of the current study of the Kebara 2 skeleton, currently housed at Tel Aviv University, and medical CT scans of vertebrae, ribs and pelvic bones, along with 3D software designed for scientific use. "This was meticulous work," said Alon Barash, lecturer at Bar Ilan University in Israel. "We had to scan each vertebra and all of the ribs fragments individually and then rebademble them in 3D."

They then used a technique called morphometric badysis to compare the images of Neanderthal bones with medical scans of bones from present-day adult men.

"In the reconstruction process, it was necessary to virtually 'cut' and realign some of the parts that showed deformation, and mirror-image some of which were not well-preserved in a complete thorax," said Gomez- Olivencia.

The reconstruction of the thorax, coupled with the team's findings, shows that the direction of the spine in the direction of modern human skeletal structure. "The differences between Neanderthal and modern human thorax are striking," said Markus Bastir, senior research scientist at the Laboratory of Virtual Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History in Spain.

"The Neanderthal spine is located more inside the thorax, which provides more stability," said Gomez-Olivencia. "Also, the thorax is wider in its lower part." This shape of the rib cage suggests a larger diaphragm and thus, greater lung capacity.

"The wide lower thorax of Neanderthals and the horizontal guidance of the ribs suggest that Neanderthals relied more on their diaphragm for breathing," said senior author Ella Been of Ono Academic College. "Modern humans, on the other hand, rely both on the diaphragm and on the expansion of the cage for breathing." Here we see how new technologies in the study of fossil remains.

What is it for how Kebara 2 lived is ripe for further research, Kramer said. How did Neanderthals breathe, and for what physical demands might they have needed powerful lungs? What does that tell us about how they moved, and the environment in which they lived? Did any of these physical traits make them more or less adaptive to climate change?

Reconstructing the thorax was a exercise in starting from scratch, Kramer said, Neanderthals looked or lived.

"What about the pieces tell us?" she said. "People have told you it should be some way, but you want to make sure you're not over-reconstructing, or rebuilding it the way you think it should be."

Other authors of the study were Daniel Garcia-Martinez of the National Museum of Natural History and Mikel Arlegi, of the University of the Basque Country.

Top image: Neanderthal man with spear in hand. Source: ginettigino / via Fotolia

The article, originally titled ' Neanderthal reconstructed ribcage, offering new clues to ancient human anatomy 'Was first published on Science Daily .

Source: University of Washington. "Neanderthal ribcage reconstructed, offering new clues to ancient human anatomy." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 October 2018. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181030121921.htm