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Modern humans andNeanderthalsmay have deviate at least 800,000 days ago , agree to an analytic thinking of nearly 1,000 teeth from world and our close relatives .
This new estimate is much older than former estimates based on ancient DNA analysis , which put the split between humans andNeanderthalsas happening between 500,000 and 300,000 yr ago .
Here, a cast from a reconstructed Neanderthal skull. Researchers just examined tooth shape among Neanderthals, humans and our close relatives to figure out when the groups diverged.
However , while outside researchers call the young dental analysis impressive , they note that it ’s base on one big laying claim : that tooth shape evolves in a firm fashion , specially in Neanderthals . If tooth shape does n’t evolve at a steady charge per unit , then " the twist of this paper collapses , " said Fernando Ramirez Rozzi , director of research specialise in human evolution at France ’s National Center for Scientific Research in Toulouse , who was not involved in the study . [ Photos : See the Ancient Faces of a Man - Bun Wearing Bloke and a Neanderthal Woman ]
That said , it is quite possible that teeth ( and neandertal teeth in particular ) do evolve at a predictable pace , meaning the new study ’s calculation might be on target . " At the mo , there is the estimate of a steady evolutionary pace change in the shape of cheek - teeth , " Ramirez Rozzi say .
Tons of teeth
The research worker examined 931 tooth belonging to a minimum of 122 soul from eight groups , including humans and our faithful congenator . Of those , 164 of the tooth were from the early Neanderthals from theSima de los Huesos(“Pit of the Bones " ) site in Spain , a sample that includes almost 30 individuals that know about 430,000 eld ago , during the middlePleistocene epoch .
By comparing the differences in tooth figure between samples , study research worker Aida Gómez - Robles , a paleoanthropologist at University College London , was capable to depend the evolutionary rates for dental shape change and then reckon the divergence meter from the last common root between humans and Neanderthals .
The result — that Neanderthals and modern humans probably diverged more than 800,000 age ago — shows that the last common antecedent of these two group is probably notHomo heidelbergensis , as some scientists think .
In all, researcher Aida Gómez-Robles examined 931 teeth belonging to a minimum of 122 individuals.
" H. heidelbergensiscannot occupy that evolutionary position because it postdates the divergency between Neanderthals and modernistic humans , " Gómez - Robles assure Live Science in an electronic mail . " That means that we need to attend at older specie when looking for this common patrimonial species . "
The finding also " has unfathomed implications for the way we see the fossil record and the evolutionary relationships between specie , " Gómez - Robles said .
Outside takes
Pushing back the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans " is spread a new door " because it evoke that the two groups were discrete for much prospicient than previously think , Ramirez Rozzi said .
However , this nurture a question , he said . Humans and Neanderthals interbredaround 60,000 years ago , when innovative humans left Africa . ( This interbreeding explains why the genomes of some advanced humans containnearly 3 % Neanderthal DNA . ) But if humans and Neanderthals break off apart at least 800,000 years ago , it ’s surprising that they were still able-bodied to interbreed just 60,000 years ago , Ramirez Rozzi said .
" In other words , almost 1 million years of phylogenesis was not enough to build barriers ( inherited , endocrinological , behavioral , etc . ) to divide definitively these two species ? " he asked .
The disceptation is lay out well by Gómez - Robles , who is " a well - known specializer of the Neanderthal lineage dental morphology , " aver Bruno Maureille , director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research ( CNRS ) , in Paris , who was not involve in the study .
But , it appear that thedental remains of Neanderthalsfrom different pocket of Europe each have " their own particularity , " Maureille told Live Science . " Can we simply assay to reap such global scenarios ? [ I ’m ] not so sure . "
The study was published online May 16 in the journalScience Advances .
in the first place published onLive Science .
