Astro Hacker News - Revealed: Face of 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal from cave

Beestie |next [-]

I'm just glad that the dumb idea that Neanderthals were dumb, club carrying knuckledraggers is finally being laid to rest. I hope we eventually learn what happened to them. They survived the choke point of 75,000 years ago only to disappear 30,000 years later. So cool to put a face to the name :-)

eweise |root |parent [-]

I never thought they were dumb once I saw that they could power a car with their feet.

maerF0x0 |root |parent [-]

(flinstones reference, for our younger readers)

groos |next |previous [-]

I wonder have the reconstruction techniques been verified by a double-blind experiment to reconstruct the face of a homo sapiens from a skull with a known photograph. Otherwise, you're just wondering how much of it is just artistry and how much solid, verified technique.

bombcar |root |parent [-]

Even that has the problem of assuming that they're basically human - similar to the artist's depiction of a cat from it's bones: https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...

cryzinger |next |previous [-]

> Neanderthal skulls have huge brow ridges and lack chins, with a projecting midface that results in more prominent noses. But the recreated face suggests those differences were not so stark in life.

This surprised me enough to scroll back up and look at the reconstruction again, because it looks the woman definitely has (what I would think of as) a chin--which supports the "not so stark in real life" part. But if the skulls are that different, how would a Neanderthal face end up looking so similar to a human's? Did they have cartilage or something that doesn't get preserved in these skeletal remains?

quantified |root |parent [-]

Whatever the differences, they would have been attractive enough to Homo Sapiens to breed with.

bediger4000 |root |parent [-]

Maybe not willingly, though. Look up Danny Vendramini's neanderthal predation theory, and consider that modern X chromosomes carry no neanderthal DNA, indicating that all interbreeding involved neanderthal males and human females.

loudmax |root |parent |next [-]

A man passes his X chromosome (inherited from his mother) to any daughters. Any female offspring of a neanderthal father and a homo sapiens mother would have a neanderthal X chromosome and a sapiens X chromosome. If it's true that there's no neanderthal DNA on modern X chromosomes, this is not the cause.

What would be stronger evidence for an absence of neanderthal mothers among neanderthal/sapiens hybrid children would be a lack of neanderthal mitochondrial RNA in modern populations. This would point in the direction of no neanderthal grandmothers for us modern humans, though I'd be reluctant to present this as solid evidence. Maybe sapiens mitochondrial RNA is just better and there's selective pressure against neanderthal mitochondrial RNA.

None of this is to suggest that all neanderthal/sapiens couplings were loving affectionate parents. Just that the absence of neanderthal DNA on modern X chromosomes means nothing in this context.

pinkmuffinere |root |parent |previous [-]

> consider that modern X chromosomes carry no neanderthal DNA, indicating that all interbreeding involved neanderthal males and human females

This is a false implication, it’s possible that Neanderthal X chromosome just doesn’t “play nice” with human dna, and can’t result in fertile offspring. Admittedly I have not read the sources you recommend, so maybe they address this?

joshuaissac |root |parent |next [-]

Or Neanderthal women lived with their tribe and their hybrid children died with that Neanderthal tribe, whereas modern human women and their hybrid children (or at least the ones who have living descendants) lived with modern human tribes and had a better chance of survival.

IAmBroom |root |parent |previous [-]

> This is a false implication

No, but it is an overconfident assertion.

Maybe all neanderthalis x sapiens were the results of rape. Maybe the fetuses were only viable from the n. sperm to s. eggs. Maybe something else.

All are possible.

kazinator |next |previous [-]

They had no privacy laws in the Paleolithic era, so this sort of doxxing is totally legit. Neanderthals cannot simply rely on the flesh being gone and bone being replaced by stone to conceal their faces.

amanaplanacanal |previous [-]

I'm skeptical. Is this kind of facial reconstruction from a skull legit? Or is it pseudoscience?

prox |root |parent |next [-]

It’s legit in the sense that they use this originally in forensics to reconstruct faces I think , say a victim or unknown so they can put out a search pamphlet.

They know the relative muscular thickness for each area as to compile a likeness. Is it 100% a look-a-like? Probably not, but the main features and composition should be comparable to the original face.

thangalin |root |parent |next |previous [-]

> Is this kind of facial reconstruction from a skull legit?

What did you search for when you tried to verify this yourself?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klxUyd3CgrE

Aside, a similar approach was used in a MacGyver episode nearly 40 years ago ("The Secret of Parker House"):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0638792/mediaviewer/rm119321036...

stronglikedan |root |parent [-]

> What did you search for when you tried to verify this yourself?

That's quite the assumption, considering most people here would trust HN users here over a google search, understandably.

ethanrutherford |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I'm not sure what would be "pseudo-science" about it, but it is as legit as it can be. Reconstruction of a face from a skull is possible, but the goal is not to create an image that's indistinguishable from a hypothetical photograph of the subject. Rather, the intent is to form a general idea of what people of the time period would have looked like. Facial reconstruction is guided by current understanding of anatomy, musculature, aging processes, etc. Muscles and skin are attached to the skull based on modern human and primate anatomy, so what we get is a plausible representation of what someone with this exact skull shape may have looked like. Like with the dinosaurs, we cannot be 100% certain what the superficial exterior features looked like exactly. But, unlike with the dinosaurs, we know neanderthals are very closely related to modern humans, so we have a much more reasonable base to start from, as we can assume their facial muscles, skin, hair etc. would be similar to humans, but with different proportions. Plenty of real science goes into the process.

quantified |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I'm not sure about how much we know of musculature and fat layers of neanderthals. Working from skeletons of non-humans can be really fraught.

goodJobWalrus |root |parent [-]

Neanderthals are humans.

Beestie |root |parent [-]

Neanderthals are a distinct species. If "human" in the context you are using it is confined to Homo sapiens then no, Neanderthals are not human. If your definition of human is anything in the genus homo then yes, Neanderthals are human.

ASalazarMX |root |parent [-]

Neanderthals are considered archaich humans, they were humans. Homo sapiens are modern humans.

I guess it can be argued that early archaich humans can barely be considered humans, but neanderthals were close enough to sapiens to interbred.