Comparing Neanderthals and modern humans

A modern human child (left) and the Gibraltar 1 Neanderthal child (right)

Neanderthals differ from anatomically modern Homo sapiens in a suite of cranial features:

a low but elongated and broadened braincase;
characteristic cranial suprastructures such as a supraorbital torus, a small mastoid process, a large juxtamastoid eminence, and a suprainiac fossa;
a large face with rounded orbits, an wide nasal aperture, an inflated paranasal region and an anteroposteriorly slanting infraorbital region;
a mandible with a receding chin region and a retromolar space in adult individuals;

Transformation of an average Neanderthal skull into an average modern human skull,
both at an individual age of ca. 6 years (see Nature412: 534-538 ).

Applying Thin Plate Splining (TPS) procedures, the difference between the shapes of a modern human and a Neanderthal skull can be quantified and visualized.

Accordingly, TPS interpolation functions can be used to extrapolate Neanderthal soft tissue structures:

Clinical CT/MRI data (left) were used to model the soft tissue of the Le Moustier 1 adolescent Neanderthal (right; the TPS deformation grid shows shape differences in the midsagittal plane)

Reconstructing a Neanderthal face

Beyond paleoanthropology

CAP and biomedical applications