Dental News - Researchers find Neanderthal-like features in 450,000-year-old teeth

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 23. October 2018

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TOULOUSE, France: In a recent study, French, Italian and Spanish researchers have investigated some of the oldest fossil dental remains from Middle Pleistocene Europe. Using micro-CT scanning and detailed morphological analysis, they examined the shape and arrangement of tooth tissue and compared it with that of the teeth of other human species.

The CT scans revealed a Neanderthal-like signature, also resembling the condition shown by the contemporary assemblage of fossils from Atapuerca Sima de los Huesos, one of a series of caves in northern Spain in which more than 1,600 human remains were found. Head researcher Dr Clément Zanolli, a paleoanthropologist at the Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier in France, believes this indicates that an overall Neanderthal morphological dental template was preconfigured in western Europe at least 430,000–450,000 years ago.

With much debate around the identities and relationships of Middle Pleistocene ancient humans in Eurasia over the years, researchers believe the discovery of Neanderthal-like teeth so early in the record adds support to the suggestion of an early divergence of the Neanderthal lineage from today’s humans, around the Early–Middle Pleistocene transition. Additionally, the teeth are notably different from other teeth from this time in Eurasia, suggesting that there may have been multiple human lineages populating the region at this time, adding to a growing list of evidence that the Middle Pleistocene was a period of more complex human evolution than previously recognised.

The teeth, estimated to be around 450,000 years old, come from two separate sites—Fontana Ranuccio, located 50 km south-east of Rome, and Visogliano, located 18 km north-west of Trieste in Italy. These remains “represent among the oldest human fossil remains testifying to a peopling phase of the Italian Peninsula” according to Zanolli.

The study, titled “The Middle Pleistocene (MIS 12) human dental remains from Fontana Ranuccio (Latium) and Visogliano (Friuli-Venezia Giulia), Italy. A comparative high resolution endostructural assessment”, was published in PLOS ONE on 3 October 2018.

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