What is a Neanderthal?
A: Neanderthals are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who
lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago.
While the cause of their extinction remains “highly
contested,” demographic factors like “what” are considered likely factors?
A: Small population size, inbreeding, and random fluctuations.
Other scholars have proposed what?
A: Competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome, great
climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors.
The oldest potential Neanderthal bones date to when?
A: 430,000 years ago, but the classification remains uncertain.
Neanderthals are known from what?
A: Numerous fossils, especially from after 130,000 years ago.
Where was the type specimen, Neanderthal 1, found in
1856?
A: In the Neander Valley in present-day Germany.
For much of the early 20th century, researchers
depicted Neanderthals as what?
A: Primitive, unintelligent, and brutish.
Neanderthal technology was what?
A: Quite sophisticated.
It includes the Mousterian stone-tool industry and the
ability to create what?
A: Fire.
Neanderthals crafted at least simple clothes like what?
A: Blankets and ponchos.
Neanderthals used various
cooking techniques such as
what?
A: Roasting, boiling, and smoking.
Neanderthals made use of a wide array of
food, mainly
what?
A: Hoofed mammals, but also other megafauna, plants, small mammals, birds,
and aquatic and marine resources.
Although they were probably apex predators, they still
competed with what?
A: Cave bears, cave lions, cave hyaenas, and other large predators.
A number of examples of symbolic thought and
Palaeolithic art have been inconclusively attributed to Neanderthals, namely
what?
A: Possible ornaments made from bird claws and feathers or shells,
collections of unusual objects including crystals and fossils, engravings,
music production indicated by the Divje Babe flute, and Spanish cave
paintings contentiously dated to before 65,000 years ago.
Neanderthals were likely capable of what?
A: Speech, possibly articulate, although the complexity of their language is
not known.
Compared with modern humans, Neanderthals had a more
robust build and proportionally what?
A: Shorter limbs.
Researchers often explain these features as adaptations
to conserve what?
A: Heat in a cold climate.
They may also have been adaptations for what?
A: Sprinting in the warmer, forested landscape that Neanderthals often
inhabited.
Nonetheless, they had cold-specific adaptations, such
as what?
A: Specialized body-fat storage and an enlarged nose to warm air (although
the nose could have been caused by genetic drift).
Average Neanderthal men stood how tall?
A: Around 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) and women 153 cm (5 ft 0 in) tall, similar to
pre-industrial modern humans.
The braincases of Neanderthal men and women averaged
about 1,600 cm3 (98 cu in) and 1,300 cm3 (79 cu in) respectively, which is
within the range of the values for what?
A: Modern humans.
The total population of Neanderthals remained low,
proliferating weakly harmful gene variants, and precluding what?
A: Effective long-distance networks.
Neanderthals lived in a high-stress environment with
high trauma rates, and about 80% died before what age?
A: The age of 40.
The 2010 Neanderthal genome project's draft report
presented evidence for interbreeding between Neanderthals and who?
A: Modern humans.
It possibly occurred 316–219 thousand years ago, but more likely 100,000 years ago and again 65,000 years ago. Neanderthals also appear to have interbred with Denisovans, a different group of archaic humans, in Siberia.
In all, about of distinctly Neanderthal gene variants
survive today?
A: 20%.
Neanderthal introgression appears to have affected the
modern human what?
A: Immune system and is also implicated in several other biological
functions and structures, but a large portion appears to be non-coding DNA.