Press Releases Archive
29.11.2016
Neandertals: More Advanced Than Previously Assumed
Prehistoric humans actively adapted their survival strategies
Scientists from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen discovered that Neanderthals modified their survival strategies even without external influences, such as environmental or climate changes. Using a new method, the team was able to show by means of carbonate isotopy in fossilized teeth that 250,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern man were more advanced in their development than previously thought. The new results are expected to aid in understanding the development of modern humans. The study was recently published in the scientific journal “Quaternary Science Reviews.”
If the climate becomes cooler or warmer, species are forced to adapt their survival strategies – this also holds true for our ancestors, the extinct Neanderthals. “We have now discovered that the Neanderthals were able to advance in their development even in the absence of external influences. Thus, they were more similar to modern humans than we had previously assumed,” explains Professor Dr. Hervé Bocherens of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.
To this end, an international team around the biogeologist from Tübingen used a new method to examine fossils from the excavation site at Payre in southeastern France. “We examined carbonate from the teeth of several Neanderthal children. The results show that 250,000 years ago, our ancestors already developed different survival strategies – even when the environmental and climatic conditions remained constant.” Carbonate is an essential mineral component of the hard tissue in bones and teeth. Among other things, the isotope composition in the carbonate reflects an organism’s drinking and feeding habits.
In order to gain insights into the environment these young Neanderthals inhabited, Bocherens and his colleagues also examined the isotope composition in the carbonate from herbivorous and carnivorous large mammals. “The carbon and oxygen isotopes of the horses, red deer, rhinoceroses, wolves and hyenas that lived during this time period were stable. We can therefore assume that no changes in the environmental conditions occurred during that time.”
In contrast, the Neanderthal fossils reveal that one group primarily hunted rhinos and horses in the valley, while the other group specialized in hunting red deer on the high plateau. “Around the same time, our ancestors in Schöningen used wooden spears to hunt horses. We can thus recognize three different methods that were used 250,000 years ago to tap into the environmental resources and utilize them. At that time, hominids had reached a point that clearly led to the behavior of modern humans,” adds Bocherens.
The method developed by Bocherens and his colleagues of examining carbonate from fossil tooth enamel harbors a great potential. Based on the collagen in bones, it had only been possible to date to gather information on fossils that are younger than 100,000 years. After this time, bones only very rarely contain any usable collagen. However, in the tooth enamel, carbonate and the information contained therein is preserved significantly longer. “I am very curious to see what other insights this method will reveal regarding older hominid fossils,” offers Bocherens in preview.
 | The excavation site also contained many animal remains, including this rhinoceros tooth. © Marie-Hélène Moncel |
Contact
Prof. Dr. Hervé Bocherens
Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeo-environment (HEP)
Eberhard Karls University Tübingen
Phone 07071- 29-76988
<link>herve.bocherens@uni-tuebingen.de
Judith Jördens
Press Office
Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung
Phone 069- 7542 1434
<link>pressestelle@senckenberg.de
Publication:
Hervé Bocherens, Marta Díaz-Zorita Bonilla, Camille Daujeard, Paul Fernandes, Jean-Paul Raynal, Marie-Hélène Moncel, Direct isotopic evidence for subsistence variability in Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals (Payre, southeastern France), Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 154, 15 December 2016, Pages 226-236, ISSN 0277-3791, <link http: dx.doi.org j.quascirev.2016.11.004>dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.11.004.
To study and understand nature with its unlimited diversity of living creatures and to preserve and manage it in a sustainable fashion as the basis of life for future generations – that has been the goal of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung (Senckenberg Nature Research Society) for almost 200 years. This integrative “geobiodiversity research” and the dissemination of research and science are among Senckenberg’s primary tasks. Three nature museums in Frankfurt, Görlitz and Dresden display the diversity of life and the earth’s development over millions of years. The Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung is a member of the Leibniz Association. The Senckenberg Nature Museum in Frankfurt is supported by the City of Frankfurt am Main as well as numerous other partners. Additional information can be found at <link http: www.senckenberg.de>www.senckenberg.de.
The University of Tübingen
Innovative. Interdisciplinary. International. Since its foundation, the University of Tübingen has encompassed these guiding principles in its research and teaching. For more than five centuries, the University of Tübingen has attracted great minds, both from Europe as well as internationally. Time and again, it initiated and effected important new developments in the humanities and natural sciences, in medicine and social science. Tübingen is among the global leaders in the field of neuro-sciences. Along with medical imaging, translational immunology and cancer research, microbiology and infection research as well as molecular biology of plants, this defines Tübingen’s research focus in the field of life sciences. Additional focal points are geological and environmental research; astro-, particle and quantum physics; archeology and anthropology; language and cognition; as well as education and media. The University of Tübingen is among the eleven German universities that were awarded the title “excellent.” It regularly occupies top positions in national and international rankings. In recent decades, this attractive and highly innovative research environment has attracted a number of non-university research institutions and young, ambitious companies with which the university has established a close cooperation. Through a tight interlinking of research and teaching, the University of Tübingen offers ideal conditions for those who come to study here. More than 28,000 students from across the globe are currently matriculated at the University of Tübingen. A wide spectrum of approximately 300 study programs is available to them – from Egyptology to the cellular neuro-sciences.