Synchrotron Reveals Human Children Outpaced Neanderthals by Slowing Down

While it may seem like kids grow up too fast, evolutionary anthropologists see things differently. Human childhood is considerably longer than chimpanzees, our closest-living ape relatives. A multinational team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Harvard University and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility found a similar pattern when human kids are compared to Neanderthals. The specialists applied cutting-edge synchrotron X-ray imaging to resolve microscopic growth in 10 young Neanderthal and Homo sapiens fossils and found that despite some overlap, which is common in closely-related species, significant developmental differences exist. Modern humans are the slowest to the finish line, stretching out their maturation, which may have given them a unique evolutionary advantage (PNAS, November 15, 2010).