Neanderthals and Modern Humans Diverged Earlier than Thought: Study

By calculating the changes to tooth shape of Neanderthals over time and comparing them to SH hominin tooth shape, Gómez-Robles approximated how long it would have taken for early Neanderthals to evolve and eventually become the SH hominins. Using those estimates, she suggests the time Neanderthals and modern humans diverged to be between 800,000 and 1.2 million years ago. “This would make the evolutionary rates of the early Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos roughly comparable to those found in other species,” Gómez-Robles tells Newsweek.

The rate of tooth shape evolution could be variable, which is why she provides a time range. “If you have a very young divergence time what we see is a very high evolutionary rate for the change in Neanderthal teeth shape, and if we have a very old divergence time then we have a very low evolutionary rate,” Gómez-Robles tells the Natural History Museum.

Although this study presents compelling evidence, experts may disagree. “I just don’t see the argument that dental rates of evolution are absolutely known to the point where we can then say that for certain the Neanderthal-modern human divergence must have been earlier than 800,000 years ago,” says Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institution to Smithsonian.