Developmental Processes That Differentiate Neanderthal Facial Skeletons from Those of Modern Humans

“Cellular processes relating to growth are preserved on the bones,” says Bromage. “Resorption can be seen as crater-like structures—called lacunae—on the bone surface, whereas layers of osteoblast deposits have a relatively smooth appearance.”

The study found that in Neanderthals, facial bone-growth remodeling—the process by which bone is deposited and reabsorbed, forming and shaping the adult skeleton—contributed to the development of a projecting (prognathic) maxilla (upper jawbone) because of extensive deposits by osteoblasts without a compensatory resorption—a process they shared with ancient hominins. This process is in stark contrast to that in human children, whose faces grow with a counter-balance action mediated by resorption taking place especially in the lower part of the face, leading to a flatter jaw relative to Neanderthals.

The team studied several well-preserved Neanderthal child skulls unearthed in 1926 in the British territory of Gibraltar and from the La Quina site in southwestern France, also excavated in the early 1900s. They also compared Neanderthal facial-growth remodeling with that of four Middle Pleistocene (about 400,000 years ago) hominin faces of teenagers from the fossil collection of the Sima de los Huesos in north-central Spain. The Sima fossils are considered likely Neanderthal ancestors based on both anatomical features and genomic DNA analysis.

Image of bone remodeling: Scanning electron microscope images showing details of bone microanatomy. Scale bars, 100 mm. (a) Bone-forming surfaces are relatively smooth, presenting collagen deposits by osteoblast cells. Image taken on the maxillary bone of the Devil’s Tower Neanderthal. (b) Resorption is identified as irregular surfaces carved by osteoclasts on the bone surface as they dissolve and remove bone matrix. Image taken from the maxillary bone of the SH hominin Cranium 16.

“We always considered Neanderthals to be a very different category of hominin,” said Lacruz. “But in fact they share with older African hominins a similar facial growth pattern. It’s actually humans who are developmentally derived, meaning that humans deviated from the ancestral pattern. In that sense, the face that is unique is the modern human face, and the next phase of research is to identify how and when modern humans acquired their facial-growth development plan.”

Moreover, Lacruz says, understanding the process of facial ontogeny can help explain the variation in facial size and shape among modern humans.

Contacts and sources:

 New York University College of Dentistry

In addition to Drs. Lacruz and Bromage, coauthors included: Dr. Paul O’Higgins, Centre for Anatomical and Human Sciences, Department of Archaeology and Hull York Medical School, University of York, United Kingdom; Dr. Juan Luis Arsuaga, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto Carlos III (UCM-ISCHI), Centre de Investigacion de la Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain; Dr. Chris Stringer, Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom; Dr. Ricardo Godinho, Centre for Anatomical and Human Sciences, Department of Archaeology and Hull York Medical School, University of York, United Kingdom; Dr. Johanna Warshaw, Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology, NYU College of Dentistry, United States; Dr. Ignacio Martinez, Department de Ciencia de la Vida, Universidad de Alcala (Alcala de Henares), Spain; Dr. Ana Gracia-Tellez, Department Geologia, Geografia y Medio Ambient, Fac. De Biologia, Ciencias Ambientales y Quimica, Universidad de Alcala, Madrid Spain; Dr. Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana, Burgos, Spain; and Dr. Eudald Carbonell, Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humano i Evolucio Social, Tarragona, Spain.

Project funded by NIH/NIDCR (DE022799) to RSL and Leakey Foundation to RSL. Research support was also provided by the 2010 Max Planck Research Award to TGB, endowed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in respect of the Hard Tissue Research Program in Human Paleobiomics.. CS’s research is supported by the Calleva Foundation and the Human Origins Research Fund. This article has been also sponsored by the Dirección General de Investigación of the Spanish Ministry of “Economía y Competitividad”, Grant numbers CGL2012-38434-C01-02- 03, the “Consejería de Cultura y Turismo of the Junta de Castilla y León”, and the “Fundación Atapuerca”. A. G-T has a contract from the Ramón y Cajal Program (RYC-2010-06152).

Author’s contribution: R.S.L.; T.G.B.; P.O.; J.L.A.; C.S. and J.M.B.C. designed the project;
R.S.L.; T.G.B., P.O.; J.L.A. and C.S. collected data; R.S.L.; T.G.B.; P.O.; J.L.A.; C.S.; R.G.; J.W.;
I.M.; A.G.; J.M.B.C and E.C. analyzed the data and wrote the paper.

Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.