Do you know Neanderthals had greater lung capacity than us

Neanderthals may have had a greater lung capacity and a straighter spine than us, claim scientists, contradicting the popularly held notion that the ancient humans were barrel-chested, hunched-over "cavemen."

University of Washington in the US completed the first 3D virtual reconstruction of the ribcage of the most complete Neanderthal skeleton unearthed to date.

They focused on the thorax – the area of ​​the body containing the rib cage and upper spine, which forms a cavity to the heart 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.

The conclusions point to what we have had in our lives today and the future.

"The shape of the chest is key to understanding how Neanderthals moved in their environment because of their breathing and balance," said Asier Gomez-Olivencia, from the University of the Basque Country in Spain.

How Neanderthals would have had a hand in this, said Patricia Kramer, a professor in the University of Washington.

"Neanderthals are highly adapted to those of modern humans, but their physical form is important," Kramer said.

"Understanding their adaptations allows us to understand our own evolutionary path better," she said.

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.

Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens interbred because Neanderthal DNA has been shown to have many populations.

For this model of the thorax, the authors of the current study of the Kebara 2 skeleton, currently 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," he said.

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 shows that it is connected to the spine in an inward direction, forcing the chest cavity outward and allowing the spine to tilt, with a little of the lumbar curve that is part of the modern human skeletal structure.

"The differences between Neanderthal and modern human thorax are striking," said Markus Bastir, a senior research scientist at the National Museum of Natural History in Spain.

"The Neanderthal spine is located more inside the thorax, which provides more stability.Also, the thorax is widened in its lower part," said Gomez-Olivencia.

This shape of the rib cage suggests a larger diaphragm and thus, greater lung capacity.

(With inputs from agencies.)