Science News8%
Neandertal babies were a lot like ours — but didn't stay that way 4%
By Tom Metcalfe6%
7/9/2026, 12:00:00 PM
Topics: Archaeology, Humans
BS Summary: This article contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Overconfidence Bias, and Framing Effect, with Representativeness Heuristic as the most egregious example at 13% saturation with 55 hits. Analysis detected 342 faulty-reasoning hits from 422 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 18.8% and a BS Rank of 4% (19,595 of 20,378 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 96.20% of the article peer group.
Neandertal babies seem to have started life much the same as modern humans, then grew a lot faster.
Two studies, published June 17 in *Royal Society Open Science*, looked at the remains of a very young Neandertal child — a late-term fetus, stillborn or newborn — from a rock shelter in southern Germany.
The 12 tiny bones, unearthed decades ago, came from sediment dated to about 55,000 years ago.
Using X-ray imaging to examine the tiny remains, archaeologist and geoscientist Alvise Barbieri and colleagues created digital reconstructions of the bones as they were at death.
The team found that the bones of the child would have been about the same size as those of modern human newborns.
But they also saw signs of advanced development in the ancient arm and leg bones — they were thicker and denser than in *H. sapiens* babies.
The study “highlights both similarities and differences in [Neandertal] growth and development compared to *Homo sapiens*,” says Barbieri, of the University of Algarve in Faro, Portugal.
The other study, published April 15 in *Current Biology*, examined the remains of a six-month-old Neandertal from a cave in northern Israel.
That study also used X-rays to scan and digitally reconstruct several bones and teeth.
Scientists don’t know exactly when the infant died, but dating of sediment layers in the cave indicates it was roughly between 51,000 and 56,000 years ago.
While the Neandertal infant’s teeth were like those of a modern human of the same age, its arm and leg bones resembled those of a modern human about twice as old, paleobiologist Ella Been and colleagues report.
Clearly, Neandertal growth trajectories were different from those of *H. sapiens*, says Been, of Ono Academic College in Kiryat Ono, Israel.
“Their [physical] growth in infancy and early childhood is more rapid than that of modern humans.”
Barbieri agrees: “These findings suggest that this faster bone development probably began towards the very end of pregnancy and became more evident during the first years of life.”
Paleoanthropologist Michael Petraglia of Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, who wasn’t involved in either study, notes that growth rates among Neandertals may have varied at different times during their evolution, as well as in different regions.
But the two studies imply that Neandertal and *H. sapiens* development did not follow the same rate after birth.
Neandertal development was certainly like that of modern humans, he says, but with differences in the timing and pace of growth.
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68%flagged-word coverageAlvise Barbieri
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