Some of the secrets of early hominid evolution might have been revealed thanks to teeth discovered in Southern Europe . Dental samples uncovered in Spain and Italy , are helping researchers see when feature distinctive of Neanderthals evolve .
Neandertal had very thin enamel compare to other hominins . Researchers looked for this feature in hominin ascendant and discovered new evidence suggesting where and when certain feature of speech evolved . These findings , published in two studies on PLOS ONE bestow to the growing complexness of human evolution during the early and middle Pleistocene period .
Thefirst studyfocuses on teeth belong toHomo antecessor , a nominate archaic human nowadays in westerly Europe between 1.2 and 0.8 million year ago . Researchers look at 17 molars using CT scan and get wind that whileH. antecessordidn’t have the same thin enamel as Neanderthals , the overall distribution of tissues was close than to other Homo species .
" The Early Pleistocene species , Homo antecessor(Atapuerca , Spain ) divvy up the same molar enamel thickness with most hominins , including Homo sapiens . However , as former as 900,000 ago , Homo antecessorshows a few morphologic characteristics that are absent in the rest of the hominin species and will become the typical Neanderthal conformation , " conduce writer Laura Martín - Francés of the University of Bordeaux , enounce ina statement .
Thesecond studyfocused on teeth from roughly 450,000 years ago discovered in two site in Italy , Fontana Ranuccio near Rome and near Trieste called Visogliano . The analytic thinking show teeth that are very similar to Neanderthals a few ten of one thousand of years before the first Neanderthals walked the solid ground . These tooth are not only different from our own , they are also dissimilar from other contemporary metal money of hominins . There must have been several lineages in Eurasia at the time .
" The remains from Fontana Ranuccio and Visogliano represent among the oldest human fogy remain testifying to a peopling form of the Italian Peninsula , " loss leader of the second field of study Clément Zanolli of the Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatierexplained . " Our analyses of the tooth interior structural organization reveals a boorish - like signature , also resemble the condition show by the contemporary assemblage from Atapuerca Sima de los Huesos , designate that an overall Neanderthal morphological dental template was preconfigured in Western Europe at least 430,000 to 450,000 ago . "
These findings suggest that , in the past times , researchers may have underestimated just how much variety was happening in the human evolutionary path about 500,000 years ago .
