User:LittleHow/development
Childhood
[edit]Neanderthal children could have grown faster than modern human children. Modern humans are biologically unique in their unusually slow growth in the period of childhood between infancy and puberty with this being made up in an adolescent growth spurt[1] [2] [3]. The possibility that Neanderthal childhood growth was different was first noted in 1928 by the excavators of the Mousterian rock-shelter of a Neanderthal juvenile[4]. Arthur Keith in 1931[5] wrote “Apparently Neanderthal children assumed the appearances of maturity at an earlier age than modern children”. The earliness of body maturation can be inferred from the maturity of a juvenile's fossel remains and their age of death provided age of death can be estimated. The age of death of juveniles can be indirectly inferred from their tooth morphology, development and emergence. This has been argued to both support [6] and question [7] the existence of a maturation difference between Neanderthals and modern humans. Since 2007 tooth age can be directed calculated using the noninvasive imaging of growth patterns in tooth enamel by means of x-ray synchrotron microtomography [8]. This research supports the existence of a much quicker physical development in Neanderthals than in modern human children [9]. The x-ray synchrotron microtomography study of early H. sapiens sapiens argues that this difference existed between the two species as far back as 160,000 BP [10].
References
[edit]- ^ Walker R, Hill K, Burger O, Hurtado AM. 2006. Life in the slow lane revisited: Ontogenetic seperation between chimpanzees and humans. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129: 577-83 PMID 16345067
- ^ Bogin B. 1997. Evolutionary hypotheses for human childhood. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 104: 63-89 abstract
- ^ Bogin B. 1999. Patterns of growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ Garrod DAE, Buxton LHD, Elliot-Smith G, Bate DMA. 1928. Excavation of a Mousterian rock-shelter at Devil's Tower, Gibraltar. Journal of the Royal Antrhopological Institute 58: 33-113 p. 84
- ^ Keith, A. (1931). New discoveries relating to the antiquity of man. London, William and Norgate (1931, p. 346).
- ^ Ramirez Rozzi, F. V. and J. M. Bermudez De Castro (2004). Surprisingly rapid growth in Neanderthals. Nature 428(6986): 936-9. PMID 15118725
- ^ Macchiarelli R, Bondioli L, Debénath A, Mazurier A, Tournepiche JF, Birch W, Dean MC. How Neanderthal molar teeth grew. Nature. 2006 Dec 7;444(7120):748-51. PMID 17122777
- ^ Tafforeau, P. and T. M. Smith (2008). Nondestructive imaging of hominoid dental microstructure using phase contrast Microtomography X-ray synchrotron microtomography. J Hum Evol 54(2): 272-278. PMID 18045654
- ^ Smith, T. M., M. Toussaint, et al. (2007). Rapid dental development in a Middle Paleolithic Belgian Neanderthal. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104(51): 20220-5.PMID 18077342
- ^ Smith TM, Tafforeau P, Reid DJ, Grun R, Eggins S, et al. 2007. Earliest evidence of modern human life history in North African early Homo sapiens. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104: 6128-33. PMID 17372199