Neanderthal Face Shape Was All Over the Air

Neanderthal walks into a bar, bartender says "why the long, forward-
projected face?” Well, according to a new study, it helped the Neanderthal
air condition the large volumes of oxygen he inhaled to support his active life
style. The work appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and the
bartender appears in many, many jokes.

Neanderthals had a distinct facial appearance: Heavy brows, big noses and a
protruding upper jaw and scientists had long wondered why that
configuration. The foreheads, it appears, they inherited from their ancestors.
But the jutting midface, that was an evolutionary innovation all their own.

Some scientists say it's so they could use those prominent front teeth for
some serious chomping. Others say it gave their nasal passages the right size
and shape to warm and moisten the cold, dry Ice Age air.

To put the theories to the test, researchers constructed a set of 3-D

simulations of the skulls of various humans. They included the Neanderthal
and an earlier homo heidelbergensis. As well as a hand full of more modern
noggins: males and females from Europe and Asia and an Artic Inuit. And
they digitally crashed-tested the faces to see how they responded to the
loads imposed by heavy biting.

Seems the protruding choppers of the Neanderthal were not particularly well
suited for forceful mastication. Some of the modern humans seemed to be
more efficient when it comes to using less muscle to take a big bite. Then the
researches modeled how air flowed through Neanderthal nasal passages and
that's when things got interesting. The results indicated that Neanderthals
were better at hitting and humidifying air than H. heidelbergensis. But so are
us modern peoples, whether we hail from cold or hot climates.

Where Neanderthals really stood out was in their ability to move large
volumes of air through their nasal passages in and out of their lungs. That's a
plus when you spend your days running down mastodons. Or running from
other critters whose teeth are better adapted for biting action than yours
are. So if the bartender still listening, that's why the distinctive Neanderthal
face.