The following is an excerpt from the March
issue of Discover Magazine (March 1997). This is from Anthropology Watch
by Shanti Menon (page 30)
WITH ALL THE ATTENTION given
to the study of Neanderthals over the years, you'd think by now we'd know
everything that made these early humans different from us. But paleoanthropologists
Ian Tattersall, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and
Jeffrey Schwartz, of the University of Pittsburgh, have found something
new in the Neanderthal nose. "When we started this work," says
Tattersall, "we thought, 'My God, people have been looking at Neanderthals
for well over 100 years. How could we possibly find anything they haven't
noticed?"'
One of the reasons may be that the unique
nasal features they discovered aren't preserved in most Neanderthal skulls.
Of the 20 Neanderthal skulls the anthropologists looked at, they found the
structures in only eightthe relevant parts of the nasal sections of the
other skulls had been destroyed. But in those eight, Schwartz and Tattersall
saw two triangular bony projections jutting into the front of the nasal
cavity from either side. They have not found these features in any modern
human skulls or in the skulls of other ancient human ancestors.
Jeffrey Laitman, an anatomist at Mount
Sinai Medical Center in New York who has been studying Neanderthal anatomy,
thinks the bony structures probably helped Neanderthals breathe the cold
air of Ice Age Europe. The jutting projections, Laitman suggests, could
have provided more surface area on which to lay down mucosal coverings to
warm and humidify cold, dry air before it reached the throat and lungs.
Previous studies have suggested that the large sinus cavities of Neanderthals
served a similar function.
Laitman thinks that Neanderthals
breathed more through their noses than modern humans do. From reconstructions
of their upper respiratory tract, he has proposed that the Neanderthal larynx
was higher up in the throat than it is in modern humans. This probably would
have constricted the area behind the mouth, preventing Neanderthals from
gulping in cold air and drying out the delicate tissue of the throat and
lungs. A high larynx, says Laitman, also suggests that Neanderthals couldn't
make the same range of sounds that we can, since a lower larynx allows for
a helped larger sound-modifying airspace above it. Tattersall and Schwartz
believe that their discovery of yet another basic difference in Neanderthal
anatomy supports the view that Neanderthals and modern humans are separate
species. In fact, they say, Neanderthal nasal anatomy not only sets Neanderthals
apart from other humans but is unique among all primates.
....the Neanderthals' highly specialized
noses could have been a drawback once Europe's climate warmed. "In
my work," says Laitman, "we're acutely aware that sinus infections
can be devastating." In warm weather, a cavernous; sticky sinus might
have been fertile ground for infection. "I wonder what type of pressure
Neanderthals would have been under, with absolutely huge sinus systems.
How would that relate to upper respiratory infections? Could that have been
a great problem for them? These are all very tantalizing questions."