Upper-Intermediate B2 / Lesson 1

Study shows that Neanderthals were not your grandparents

You may think your grandparents act like Neanderthals, but U.S. researchers said on Monday they had strong evidence that modern humans are not  ancestors descended leftovers remains from them. A computer analysis of the skulls of modern humans, Neanderthals, monkeys and apes shows that we are substantially different, physically, from those early humans. New York University paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati said Neanderthals should be  considered known thought remembered a separate species from Homo sapiens, and not just a sub-species. "We interpret the evidence presented here as  support supported have supported supporting the view that Neanderthals represent an extinct human species" she and colleagues wrote in a leading scientific journal. Some anthropologists believe that Neanderthals, who went extinct 30,000 years ago,  should may have may might at least contributed to the ancestry of modern Europeans. There is strong evidence that Neanderthals  intacting have interacted interacted interact with the more modern Cro-Magnons, who eventually displaced them. Cro-Magnons are the ancestors of modern humans. Some research has suggested they may have interbred to a  little minimum some limited degree, although this is hotly disputed in anthropological circles. At least one study that looked at fragments of Neanderthal DNA  complained remembered suggested asked any Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon offspring did not add to the modern gene pool. Harvati and colleagues combined modern computer technology and traditional methods of determining species. They  examining examined are examined were examined the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals and 11 existing species of non-human primates including chimpanzees, gorillas and baboons. They  measured lenghted reached elongated 15 standard skull and face landmarks and used 3D analysis to superimpose each one on the other. "From these data, we were able to determine how much variation living primate species generally accommodate, as well as measure how different two primate species that are closely related can be," Harvati said in a statement. Their computer analysis showed that the differences measured between modern humans and Neanderthals were  extreme very significantly largely greater than those found between subspecies of living monkeys and apes.