Neanderthal Skull vs Human Skull: How to Tell Them Apart

The Smithsonian Human Origins Program and the Natural History Museum in London describe the same set of features, and the table below lines them up. Read each row as a tendency, since individual skulls vary.

Two terms in that table deserve a closer look. The occipital bun is a rounded projection at the back of the skull. The suprainiac fossa is a small depression in the same area, linked to the attachment of neck muscles, and the Natural History Museum lists it among Neanderthal features. Seen from above, a Neanderthal braincase tends to look oval, and a modern human one more rounded.

Who has bigger brains, humans or Neanderthals? The numbers overlap. The Natural History Museum gives a Neanderthal range of at least about 1,200 to 1,750 cubic centimetres, and says their brains were as large as modern human brains but differently shaped. The museum's Swanscombe fossil, about 400,000 years old and generally regarded as an early Neanderthal, preserves impressions of brain folds and blood vessels. Its brain matched a modern human brain in size and differed in form. The museum's page on the first adult Neanderthal skull makes the same point.

The rounder, more globular brain of modern humans developed over time. Philipp Gunz and colleagues used CT scans and geometric morphometrics on 20 *Homo sapiens* fossil endocasts, the internal casts of braincases. In The evolution of modern human brain shape, they report that brain size in early *Homo sapiens* 300,000 years ago was already in the modern range, while the globular shape developed gradually between about 100,000 and 35,000 years ago.

Does a bigger brain mean a smarter species? Volume and endocast shape do not directly measure intelligence, language or social ability, and scientists disagree about how particular brain-shape differences relate to thinking. The Natural History Museum notes Neanderthal skill at hunting and toolmaking, their use of fire, care for injured group members, burial practices and symbolic activity. So, who was smarter? There is no reliable scientific ranking between the two species, and brain size cannot give a simple score.

Behind the textbook comparison are real finds with names, places and dates. Many replicas in shops and classrooms are casts of these.

Feldhofer 1 was the first Neanderthal fossil recognized as a distinct ancient human. It became the type specimen for *Homo neanderthalensis*, the species name given in 1864. Gibraltar 1 turned up eight years before Feldhofer, which makes it the first adult Neanderthal skull ever discovered, though its importance was only recognized after the German fossils had been identified. The "Old Man" of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, as the Smithsonian notes, was the first relatively complete Neanderthal skeleton to be discovered.

Shanidar adds a human story. The Smithsonian's page on Shanidar 3 places the individual between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago. Shanidar 1 suffered serious injuries, including damage to the left eye socket and to the brain area controlling the right side of the body, yet lived to an estimated 35 to 45 years.

What does it mean if you have a Neanderthal skull? It does not mean anything about your own head. A living person does not have a Neanderthal skull because a brow or face resembles a reconstruction. Modern people vary widely, and the shape of a skull cannot diagnose Neanderthal ancestry.

What can show a link is DNA. Svante Pääbo's genome research showed that Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of modern humans. The Smithsonian reports that people with ancestry outside Africa generally carry about 1% to 4% Neanderthal-derived DNA, with the amount varying by population and region. Some Neanderthal gene variants therefore entered modern populations through ancient gene flow. That does not make a living person a Neanderthal, and it does not mean any inherited trait looks Neanderthal. Pääbo received the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries about extinct hominin genomes and human evolution, as the Nobel Prize committee explains.

Is there a child of a Neanderthal and a *Homo sapiens*? No individual is known by name as a confirmed first-generation child of those two groups, though genetic evidence shows they had children together and that some of their descendants contributed DNA to living populations. The famous first-generation case is a different pairing. The young person nicknamed Denny, formally Denisova 11, was found in Denisova Cave in Siberia and had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.

Faces of Neanderthals come from reconstruction. Specialists work from skull anatomy, comparative fossils, estimates of muscle and tissue, and in some cases genetic evidence. Reconstructions usually show heavy brow ridges, a broad projecting nose, a large midface, a low forehead and a robust jaw. They are informed interpretations, not photographs. The Natural History Museum explains how it built its model in Bringing a Neanderthal to life, and the Smithsonian shows John Gurche's Shanidar 1 reconstruction among its reconstructed faces.

Colour is harder. In 2007 Carles Lalueza-Fox, Holger Römpler, Michael Hofreiter and colleagues identified a Neanderthal-specific MC1R variant in remains from El Sidrón, Spain, and Monti Lessini, Italy. Their experiments suggested the variant reduced MC1R activity and could have been linked to pale skin and red hair in some individuals, as they describe in A melanocortin 1 receptor allele suggests varying pigmentation among Neanderthals. That result applies to those individuals. It does not show that every Neanderthal had red hair or pale skin, and it does not establish eye colour for the species.

One reconstruction has a local twist. A skull fragment lifted from the North Sea floor off the Dutch coast, dated to about 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, became a Neanderthal the Kennis brothers rebuilt as a young man named Krijn, with a small tumour above his right eyebrow. The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden tells the story in The first Dutch Neanderthal now has a face.

Who existed first? Neanderthals and *Homo sapiens* grew from a shared ancestral population. The Neanderthal lineage was established in Europe by about 400,000 years ago, while *Homo sapiens* evolved in Africa by at least about 300,000 years ago. Whether "humans" came first depends on whether you mean *Homo sapiens* or the broader genus *Homo*.

Are there Neanderthals alive today? No living Neanderthal population is known. The fossil and archaeological record ends at about 40,000 years ago, although Neanderthal-derived DNA remains in many living human populations.

How long did a Neanderthal live? A single average is not secure, because fossil samples are incomplete and shaped by childhood deaths, accidents, disease and what survives in the ground. In one sample discussed by Trinkaus, about 80% of Neanderthal adults aged 20 or more died before 40, and some individuals reached their forties and beyond. Neanderthal Demographic Estimates by Bocquet-Appel and Degioanni takes up the evidence, and Shanidar 1 is a reminder that survival into the forties was possible.

If you came for the skull itself, the story of human skull facts covers the modern side of this comparison, and how many bones are in the human body puts the skull in context. For the earliest human skulls, read about the oldest human skull, and for how specialists read age and origin from remains, see what bones tell archaeologists and how old these bones are. If you wonder whether skull shape ever revealed character, the story of the phrenology skull answers that.