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Neanderthals Evolution

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The developmental differences that do exist between Neanderthals and H. sapiens may have a distant evolutionary beginning. An analysis of some 17 skulls dated to 430,000 years ago discovered at the fossil site of Sima de los Huesos, in the Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain, has shown that members of the population, believed to have been Neanderthal ancestors, had smaller brains than later members of the lineage. The discovery suggests that Neanderthals did not inherit their large brain size from the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans; instead the two species experienced a comparable brain expansion later in their development. Although Neanderthal brains became approximately as large as those of H. sapiens, this independent

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