Reading Comprehension

The topics for an RC have a wide variety and include such topics as Archaeology/Anthropology. The disadvantage in dealing with such topics is our lack of familiarity with them. It is with the objective of familiarising you with some of these topics that I am posting these here. This one is on Neanderthals from the Archaeology/Anthropology branch of study.

Please read the topic and take the time out to write down the summary for the same. The reason writing a summary is helpful is that you will develop the habit of reading and picking up the important points without having to go back to the passage repeatedly.

Please post the summary in the Comments section.

The first remains now known to be Neanderthal were discovered in Belgium in 1829, and further remains were discovered in Gibraltar in 1848. However, it was the 1856 discovery of a partial skull and an assortment of arm, leg and rib bones in the Neander Valley that led to the recognition of Neanderthals as a separate species by Hermann Schaffhausen. 'Tal' is the word for 'valley' in modern German, having replaced the 'Thal' of the slightly dated 19th Century dialect, hence the confusion between Neandertal and Neanderthal. In the light of Darwin's Origin of Species, published three years later in 1859, Neanderthals became the first bones to be recognised as a 'missing link' between humans and apes, of the type that Darwin predicted.

The Culture:

The culture of Neanderthals is technically known as Mousterian, after Le Moustier in France, where a Neanderthal skull was found. This refers largely to the design of stone scrapers, probably used for either scraping skins or simple woodwork. There is no evidence that Neanderthals ever developed the ability to sew, so it is unlikely that they wore clothing (despite the cold climate). It seems that Neanderthals made use of fire, but probably not for warmth. They do not seem to have constructed any structures, even tents. Mousterian technology includes stabbing spearheads and axes, but no throwing spears or arrowheads.

Animal remains are frequently associated with Neanderthal sites, indicating that they were meat-eaters. Interestingly, these remains are usually of animals in their prime, something usually associated with farming rather than hunting (where elderly or infirm animals would be easier to catch). Injuries found in Neanderthal skeletons are frequently similar to those found in rodeo clowns, which implies that Neanderthals often wrestled with large animals. This most likely indicates a close-quarters hunting method, although it is possible that livestock was also kept. Many of these injuries (for instance those suffered by the aged individual recovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France) would have been debilitating, which indicates a communal structure that tended to the infirm.

Whistles made from the phalange bone of a reindeer leg - what would be a finger or toe bone in humans - are known from 90-100,000 years ago, but it is unclear whether these were used for music; an artefact that may or may not be a flute is known to have come from 20,000 years later, although many maintain it is a bone with bear tooth-holes in it. Neanderthals buried their dead, and one burial at Shanidar in Iraq was accompanied by grave goods in the form of plants. All of the plants are used in recent times for medicinal purposes, and it seems likely that the Neanderthals also used them in this way and buried them with their dead for the same reason. Grave goods are an archaeological marker of belief in an afterlife, so Neanderthals may well have had some form of religious belief.

Some Neanderthal burials appear to show incisions on the bones that would indicate butchery. This may be evidence of cannibalism, either by Neanderthals or sapiens. Whether this was an act of desperation or a religious ritual is not known, but it is generally accepted. However, it must be seen in the light of the other, more careful Neanderthal burials that would indicate a general respect for the dead.

Hypothesis:

The 'Multiregion Hypothesis' was first proposed in 1964, dominated throughout the 1980s, then fell out of favour during the 1990s. Mitochondrial DNA analyses of modern humans show that the most recent female ancestor common to all living humans lived less than 170,000 years ago - long after we diverged from Neanderthals 500,000 years ago. Later Y-chromosome analyses showed that our most recent male ancestor is around 100,000 years old. Although this was good evidence, it could also be explained by all part-Neanderthal lineages passing through an all-male generation, so that no Neanderthal mtDNA was passed on. Recovery in 1987 of mitochondrial DNA from a Neanderthal bone offered further confirmation of this theory.

The discovery in 1999 of a 24,000-year-old adolescent skeleton in Lapedo, Portugal (the Lapedo Child) with an apparent mixture of Neanderthal and sapiens characteristics has led to speculation that rather than going extinct, Neanderthals may have interbred with modern-type humans. More recently, a second alleged hybrid has been unearthed in Romania, and this idea has been backed up by more detailed genetic analyses. Haplotypes are sections of DNA that do not appear to be reshuffled during sexual reproduction. Although the majority of human haplotypes are consistent with 'shallow ancestry' - the idea that Homo sapiens evolved in Asia around 160,000 years ago - a small number seem to show deeper ancestry. A haplotype known as PDHA1 seems to have diverged around 1,800,000 years ago. It is difficult to explain how both varieties survived if humans were reduced to a small population (a bottleneck) much later than that; this gives support to the idea that it was introduced into the population by interbreeding with another population, such as Neanderthals. This re-introduction of genetic material is known as introgression.

Another example is the haplotype microcephalin, which diverged around 1,000,000 years ago but seems to have introgressed around 40,000 years ago. This ties in very neatly with the fossil dates for the appearance of Neanderthals and their simultaneous occupation of Europe with Homo sapiens. Both these examples are of genes that appear to offer an advantage, and have spread throughout the population by natural selection. This makes it impossible to tell whether they were introduced multiple times or just once, so they cannot be used to judge the frequency of Neanderthal/sapiens hybrids. The next step in research is to analyse 'junk' haplotypes, which cannot be selected for or against and are thus unaffected by natural selection. If these are found to be common, it would indicate frequent hybridisation events.

Finally, the RRM2P4 haplotype appears to have diverged 2,000,000 years ago. This pre-dates the separation of sapiens and Neanderthals, so it offers a hint that our ancestors may have bred with another sub-species, Homo erectus.

Any two groups that interbreed in the wild are defined as the same species, so Neanderthals are now recognised as a sub-species of humans, and are officially known as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, as opposed to Homo sapiens sapiens, which covers everything from Cro-Magnon man to ourselves.