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Neanderthals and modern humans — chimps and bonobos: similarities and differences in development and evolution

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Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives

Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Being our closest living relatives, chimps and bonobos provide the best available comparative evidence to study the evolutionary split between our sister taxon — the Neanderthals — and ourselves. Here, we analyze craniofacial development in these taxa from birth to adulthood using geometric morphometric methods. In both Homo and Pan, ontogenetic trajectories of sister taxa differ by their length, position and/or direction in shape space, as well as in the relationship between cranial size and shape. Modern human and bonobo ontogenies represent “abridged” versions of Neanderthal and chimp spatiotemporal developmental patterns, respectively, where “shortening” of trajectories is likely to represent evolutionary novelty. When examined in detail, however, the Neanderthal-human and chimp-bonobo splits do not represent equivalent forms of evolutionary developmental diversification. Rather, it appears that each bifurcation is the result of a different unique evolutionary event, during which the ancestral mode of growth and development was modified in a taxon-specific manner.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anthropologisches Institut und Museum, Universität Zürich-Irchel, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zürich, Switzerland

    M. S. Ponce De León

  2. Anthropologisches Institut und Museum, Universität Zürich-Irchel, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zürich, Switzerland

    C. P. E. Zollikofer

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  1. M. S. Ponce De León
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  2. C. P. E. Zollikofer
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Evolution, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

    Jean-Jacques Hublin

  2. Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

    Katerina Harvati

  3. Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, USA

    Terry Harrison

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De León, M.S.P., Zollikofer, C.P.E. (2006). Neanderthals and modern humans — chimps and bonobos: similarities and differences in development and evolution. In: Hublin, JJ., Harvati, K., Harrison, T. (eds) Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5121-0_5

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