For the first time in the world, a research group led by Professor Naomichi Ogiwara of Keio University and Professor Hiroki Tanabe of Nagoya University revealed that the Neanderthal brain is relatively small compared to early Homo sapiens.
The newcomer Homo sapiens and the archaic Neanderthals coexisted in Europe about 4 years ago for about 5,000 years, but only our ancestor Homo sapiens survived and the Neanderthals became extinct.It is thought that various factors such as environmental changes and mixed races are involved in this, but this time, the research group has a functional difference between the two "brain", and the adaptation to the environment resulting from it. I thought that the difference in ability finally divided the fate of the two.
Using mathematical engineering techniques to restore the morphology of the brain that was contained within the fossil skulls of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, the Neanderthal cerebellum was of that era, although there was no significant difference in overall brain size. It became clear that it was relatively small compared to Homo sapiens.The group also used modern human data to show that the relative capacity of the cerebellum is also associated with advanced cognitive and social abilities such as language generation, comprehension, and working memory.
This fact is due to the difference in brain function between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, who coexisted for a period of time, and as a result of the difference in their ability to adapt to the environment, they divided their fate and Homo sapiens. It implies that only was the factor that survived.
Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Reconstructing the Neanderthal brain using computational anatomy
