Overview
- A peer-reviewed PNAS paper, published Monday by Indiana University researchers, reports that estimated Neanderthal–Homo sapiens brain differences fit within the spread seen in living humans.
- Using MRI scans from 100 Americans of European ancestry and 100 ethnic Han Chinese, the team found larger between-group differences in 9 of 13 brain regions than those estimated between Neanderthals and early modern humans.
- The authors say coexistence in Europe for roughly 2,600 to 5,400 years was too brief for tiny cognitive edges to account for Neanderthal replacement.
- The study points to demography as the better explanation, citing small Neanderthal population sizes, interbreeding, and genetic swamping that can replace a minority group’s genes over time.
- The researchers caution that brain inferences come from skull interiors and only two modern cohorts, and they call for broader datasets to test and extend these results.