The objective is to know how they disappeared

For decades, paleoanthropologists have grappled with a biological paradox. Neanderthals, a species supposedly adapted to the frigid cold of Europe, had huge, wide noses. A feature that in theory is completely inefficient to be able to warm the frigid air before it reaches the lungs. But due to the lack of fossils, experts could not explain what exactly had happened to this species until now.

A reconstruction. In order to understand what was happening here, the experts they have managed to rebuild digitally the inside of the ‘noseAltamura Man‘, the best preserved Neanderthal in the world, without even touching it. And what they have found dismantles much of what we thought we knew about the face of our evolutionary cousins.

The objective in the end has been quite clear with this study: to know one more reason why they became extinct from our planet. And all because right now the extinction of this species remains a mystery, although the latest studies suggest that They are more integrated with us than we think.

The calcite prisoner. To understand the magnitude of this finding, you must first understand the subject. The ‘Altamura Man’ was discovered in 1993 by a group of spologists in the Lamalunga karst system, southern Italy.

And it is not a normal fossil. The skeleton is complete, but it fell into a natural well and became trapped in a chamber where, over the millennia, water and limestone did their work. Today, the Neanderthal is literally embedded in the cave walls, covered in “popcorn” calcite formations that have protected it, but also made it impossible to extract it without destroying it.

This mineral “prison” has had an unexpected advantage: it has preserved bone structures so fine and fragile that they normally disappear in the fossil record, such as the nasal turbinates and ethmoid laminae. It is the first time in history that we have a complete Neanderthal nasal cavity.

Virtual dissection. Since they couldn’t remove the skull to put it in the laboratory’s scanner, they had to take the laboratory to the cave itself. Something that at first seems like a completely impossible mission.

The solution found was endoscopic technology, since using high-resolution medical probes (such as those inserted into the bronchi to explore them) they passed through the ocular and nasal cavities of the fossil. The magic came from combining these images with photogrammetry techniques, since an exact 3D model of the inside of the skull was generated.

Central heating. Once we had a pretty good photograph of the inside of this Neanderthal’s nose, it was time to interpret. For years there was a hypothesis in mind that to compensate for having a wide nose in a cold environment, Neanderthals must have unique internal structures. There was talk of vertical projections and medial thickenings that would act as radiators to heat and humidify the air. Two fundamental points so that you could breathe correctly.

But the result of the analysis has said different things. First of all, the inside of the nose is strikingly similar to that of a modern human, just in a larger facial “frame.” This means that the supposed exclusive adaptations they had were not present in this fossil, and the airways did not have an ‘alien’ architecture as might be expected.

A new extinction. In this way, Neanderthals do not seem to be able to adapt to such cold environments to be able to breathe properly. We as humans have many mechanisms to heat the air before it reaches our lungs to guarantee gas exchange. But this is something that was not found in our ancestors.

In this way, if cold air reaches the lung, respiratory difficulty can be found, which at high temperatures can effectively cause the death of a species if we contextualize ourselves in extremely cold environments.

Why his face. If the giant nose wasn’t an ultra-specialized “air heating machine,” why did they have it? The study suggests that we should stop looking only at the climate. The very characteristic face that this species had seems to be the result of two specific factors:

1. Genetics of the ancestors.
2. Very high energy demand that required a lot of oxygen and that is why a huge air intake was needed.

Altamura Man lived during MIS 6 (about 130,000-170,000 years ago), a cold time, but in southern Italy he enjoyed a more temperate climate. Its nose, “normal” on the inside but enormous on the outside, suggests that the facial evolution of this species was not a straight line directed solely by the thermometer.

Images | Aldo Hernandez Paul Pastourmatzis

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