The New Neandertal.

NEANDERTHALS; FOSSIL hominids; PREHISTORIC peoples; ARCHAEOLOGICAL human remains; FOSSILS; PHYSICAL anthropology; PALEOANTHROPOLOGY; HUMAN anatomy

The article discusses research on Neandertal fossils. Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the discovery at Neandertal, a little valley near Düsseldorf in western Germany, of the first recognized fossil humans. They were the first known example of an extinct species of human, they evolved mostly in Europe, and we now have an unrivaled fossil record accumulated by a century and a half of research. The New York conference provided a more balanced picture of a "New Neandertal" that is both very similar to and very different from us. Emblematic of this New Neandertal is a composite skeleton created at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and discussed at the conference by Ian Tattersall, one of its curators. Human fossils are precious and fragile, and to study them scientists have embraced or developed new methods in recent years. CT scanning, for example, is used with increasing frequency to assess fine internal details of specimens, such as the inner ear of Neandertals. Modern human specimens are also being digitized, allowing us to assess bone shape and size variations and understand their significance in anatomical evolution. Meanwhile, the genuine specimens have been the object of increased attention through the study of DNA, proteins, and chemical elements that can be found in bones and teeth--giving us a completely new source of valuable information about our remote relatives' biology and their daily lives.