Neanderthals Were Absolute Freaks Of Nature

of all the human species who have walked the Earth it is perhaps the Neanderthals that people are most fascinated by their likeness and close relationship to us has even LED some to dub them as our sister species and even their DNA can still be found within most of us to this day while dates aren't clear it is thought that this group of archaic humans inhabited parts of Eurasia between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago most of this time falls under the chanian stage of the pine a time when Eurasia was generally even older than it is

today and filled with an abundance of megap that made life no walk in the park therefore to survive and thrive in harsh conditions neanderthals evolved some of the most insane biology seen in any homo species and if alive today some would most likely even consider them to be superhuman in a few senses from afar their anatomical differences to us would not be so obvious with the likeliest contrasting feature being their height as recovered specimens show that on average neanderthals were quite a bit smaller than modern humans typically being 14 cm or 5.5 in shorter than

post World War II populations the tallest known Neanderthal specimen dubbed Amud 1 is believed to have been about 1.78 m or 5' 10 in tall which really doesn't seem that tall All Things Considered however when comparing neanderthals to European populations of 20,000 years ago we find that neanderthals were actually equally as tall and if not slightly taller so that's really all to say that we don't know how tall they could have been what's fascinating though is that despite being shorter than modern humans neanderthals were quite a bit heavier with the average male having weight up

to 83 kg or 183 lb while the females usually hovered around 66 kg or 146 lb making them 20% heavier than the average Homo Sapien the reason behind this paradoxical sounding information is that neanthal had crazy robust skeletons that were much more compacted than our own with virtually every single bone being thicker and heavier with them sometimes even being twice the density their shoulders femurs chest triceps arms and kneecaps were especially bulky which are all signs that they were extremely powerful and muscular in life and it is widely agreed upon that they were much stronger

than us a possible adaptation to their Close Quarter hunting tactics that involved them using giant Spears to take down medium and large-sized prey which included various rhinos horses elephants and of course willly mammoths which were equivalent in size to African bush elephants and sported thick coats of fur that made it that much harder to kill them and speaking of African bush elephants it's no secret that they're endangered just like their willly cousins were before them when they were still around as within just three generations 50% of the global population of African bush elephants have died

off and while I love making videos about extinct animals I would rather not have any more animals to be added to the list of potential videos which is why I'm really excited to be partnering with planet Wild Planet wild is basically crowdfunding for nature conservation and it operates by offering a paid membership in which funds are given to a new project partner every month one such project that hooked me is the elephant conservation program that they're doing in Tanzania like the global population tanzania's elephant population has declined drastically since the 1970s and Now farmers have

started to increasingly expand directly into both the elephant's habitat and their migration route leading to only more elephant casualties at the hands of human to curb this problem Planet wild and their partner org wild survivors has come up with a pretty nifty solution using teeny tiny bees to scare elephants and create a natural barrier in a more interesting twist instead of unleashing bees on elephants they're actually building a bee fence which will help to keep the elephants out of Harm's Way and hopefully reducing overall deaths and this is only one of the many projects that

you can support through Planet wild as like I mentioned they release new ones every month they're also 100% transparent about how your funds are used as they make a new video each month here on YouTube showing you how much funding was used and how the community's contributions were put to use I of course already signed up myself because I think it's an absolutely great way for individuals to get involved in conservation so if you want to protect Mother Nature I highly highly recommend signing up you are free to give whatever amount big or small as

every dollar counts and for the first 150 people that sign up I will cover the first month so scan the QR code on the screen use my code extinct 10 or click the link in the description or pinned comment and if for whatever reason you sign up and no longer feel like supporting you can cancel at any time and if you want to learn more about the project I described earlier check out the video link in the description this widespread and presumably lifelong use of these Spears is also what some researchers partially believe led to

the distinct popey like arms seen in many neanderthal specimens that would have allowed them to wield weapons with ferocious intensity the well-defined nature of their arms and overall muscular build was possibly also a sign of extreme levels of hormones according to at least one study specifically the researchers believe that neanderthals were naturally pumped up with large amounts of hormones that added to their increased muscle mass and provided them with the ability to pull off some pretty crazy Feats of Strength such as lugging up to 50 lb or 27 kg of meat for 30 m or

48 km the same distance as walking 138 laps around a soccer field what's more is that thanks to their larger chests shoulders and tri BPS scientists assume that neanthal would have been pretty great wrestlers and powerlifters if still around with males possibly being able to bench press 500 lb or 200 kg without training while the females could have done 350 lb or 160 kilos for a little bit of context just 2third of this weight would have been considered Elite Levels by our own standard their short bulky builds played a big role in this strength too

but it wasn't only Power that they gained from the robustness as it bestowed upon them incredible durability as well a nice touch to complement the brutally hard lives that many neanderthals endured in fact a systemic analysis on recovered skeletons found that between 79 and 94% showed signs of extreme trauma that had fully healed these injuries ranged from blunt force fractures all the way to traumatic amputations with a particularly gruesome case involving an elderly Neanderthal who during his younger years had lost his right arm damaged his left clav was smashed so badly in the face that

he was blinded in one eye and had ears so banged up that the ear canals themselves were shut off by new bunny material that had grown after repeated injury rendering him deaf in both ears the high degree of damage seen in the anthol specimens is thought to have come from a mix of their aggressive face-to-face hunting technique interpersonal conflicts and animal attacks the latter of which actually seems to have been a common occurrence as nearly 74% of Neanderthals based on one study reflected evidence of having survived violent animal encounters with 21% having been with big

cats 177% with wolves and 36% with bears the most hardcore part of all of this is that scientists do not think that these animal attacks were predation attempts rather the opposite that the animals had been defending themselves during the anthol attacks talk about hardcore and to really drive this home even their skin was designed for battle as genes found in the thals are associated with thickened skin nails and hair that theoretically help them cope with getting banged up and enduring the cold and yet another adaptation that seemed to benefit their rough lifestyle were large joints

that allowed them to perform strous movement that would have been extremely hard or nearly impossible for a homo sapien to do and while not necessarily larger neanthal hands were also much different from our own with their fingertips being broader and their thumbs sticking out at a much wider angle which likely affected the way they gripped objects and to some their handshape possibly meant a reduction in Precision capabilities which they made up for though by powerfully gripping their items and weapons so clearly neanderthals were absolute units on the outside but they were pretty crazy on the

inside too with one of the more obvious signs being their barreled chests which accommodated a wider rib cage and larger lungs with studies finding that on average neanderthals had a lung capacity 20% greater than our own yet this number widely varies and some exceptional Neanderthals have us beaten even more badly in this area as best demonstrated by kabara 2 a male whose lungs can most likely hold 9 L of air which is 40% greater than the capacity of the average modern man's lungs and to make this even more impressive keep in mind that until recently

the largest lung capacity ever recorded in an athlete was only 8.5 lers neanderthals noses further supported this notion that they gobbled up air as they were quite long and wide which help them move air faster as in 100% faster than what's seen by any man or woman today the Need for Speed through their noses and their ridiculous lung capacity is thought to have been an adaptation to support their heavier bodies and to help them survive in the colder climates since animals who do live in the cold neanderthals included typically evolve a faster metabolic rate to

compensate for the rate of heat loss that they experience this is then of course reflected by their energy requirements as well as in the case of neanderthals it's believed that an individual needed between 4,500 and 6,700 calories every single day so if they were still alive you could expect food items to have two completely separate nutrition labels distinguishing between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals the bulky nature of their noses seems to have helped directly with the cold as well since more room in the nasal cavity would have helped to heat and humidify the cold dry air

that was coming in now because neanderthals breathe like Champs you may be thinking that they were exceptional long-distance Runners who could Tire their prey to complete exhaustion much like what is seen in modern humans however on the contrary neanthal were surprisingly poor endurance animals who were instead built for burst of speed there's actually more than one biological trait that points to this one example being their toes which were fairly long and wide allowing them to stay in contact with the floor for a longer period And Thus allowing them to generate more power and faster starts

not to mention that their leg bones were quite short something that's not usually seen in endurance athletes of today who typically have longer legs to increase each stride even their Achilles tendons were not designed for distance having been long and narrow making them not the best at storing energy needed for longer runs and this is once again in contrary to endurance athletes who almost always have stiff short and wide Achilles tendons and yet while their lower extremities were the most blatant signs of speed over stamina the true proof in the pudding came from something unseen

to the naked eye their muscle fibers as you may know especially if you've done a 23m me humans have differing types of muscle fibers that each specialize in a certain level of power generation to stamina ratio for example someone can have a higher ratio of fast twitch or slow twitch muscle fibers the former of which helps to generate bursts of energy while the latter can possibly help people perform better and longer lasting activities such as endurance running in modern humans these fibers are mixed and this was also the case in the anals but they typically

had a way higher concentration of these fast twitch muscle fibers than we do a likely adaptation for their hunting style which required quick bursts of speed to get close and personal with their prey this also means that for whatever reason if neanderthals came back be sure to challenge one to a marathon instead of a Sprint to at least give yourself the best shot of winning all this power and speed no doubt gave gave them quite a lot of Braun but interestingly enough they were also a lot of brain as well as they had freakishly large

Brain cases on average the male brain cases tended to be 1,640 cubic cm and in the woman it was usually around 1,460 cubic cm which makes them about 30% bigger than what's seen in contemporary humans now pure size alone does not paint the full story of intelligence but their huge brains were a good sign that were at least far more intelligent than first thought and today it's widely believed that neanderthals could perform a whole host of complex tasks such as coordinating hunts making tools creating Arts taking exceptional care of the sick and of course communicating

yet despite the size of their brains researchers do not necessarily think that neanderthals had Superior mental prowess compared to us as their brains were also structurally different than ours having a more circular bomb likee shape that had to operate a large body and devoted larger areas to certain senses such as smell and eyesight as their aital loes were relatively huge and their eyesight is actually what some scientists think is to blame for the massive brains as neanthal also had unusually big eyes which would have required much more brain power to process what they were seeing

of course though no one has ever found an intact Neanderthal eye but based on the size and shape of their eyes saw sockets it is estimated they were about 15% larger than our own which would have helped them see a lot better and sharper than we do while also giving them better night vision These Eyes in conjunction with their big brains and large noses gave neanderthals some pretty sizable heads and skulls that might have led to their sturdy thick necks seeing that they had to be able to support such giant Noggin furthermore their heads relative

to ours were not just bigger but more elongated and forward projecting as well and unsurprisingly their other facial features were super sized too including the jaw and teeth it was originally thought that their thick wide jaws and sturdy Chompers were an indication of an insane bite force that would have let them gnaw bones tough meat and a variety of abrasive Foods however subsequent studies revealed a bite force not far from our own with it being comparable to the bites seen in the upper range of modern humans and would have registered at around 700 Newtons so

that's to say while it would hurt a L to be bit it would most likely not cause any catastrophic wounds at least most of the time this does call into question though why did they have such large mouths and teeth if not for a strong bite and one interesting idea claims that the answer is that the jaw was simply widened in order to accommodate the teeth themselves which had essentially evolved to be a third hand to be exact a group of researchers believed that neanderthals would have used their teeth to grip and manipulate different items

thus freeing up both of their hands for other uses and there is some evidence that backs this as besides being grippy in structure and nature neanthal dentici have wear and tear patterns to the front that don't really align with eating or chewing and is only found in the anthol suggesting that they bid objects with their front teeth quite a lot the bulky nature of each tooth may have also been an important part in processing their diets which we know based on isotopic analysis consisted of large amounts of meat so much so in fact that they

are considered to have been hyper carniv s in other words 70% of their huge caloric need came from meat alone at this point I wouldn't blame you for thinking neanderthals are quite funky and different compared to us you may be wondering what impact this has on you if you're one of the many with the andal DNA for example if a means super strength or vicious appetite for meat well simply put nearly every study in the matter so far has not yielded any significant results and most maintain that Neanderthal DNA usually only has subtle effects on

athletic feet and physical appearances although there is a growing list of studies that suggest that their DNA may have had greater impacts on our internal systems than we once thought that being said many of these Studies have conflicted with each other and there is a lot of disagreement in General on just how impactful neanthal DNA really is but what no one is in disagreement with is just how amazing these extinct humans were thanks for watching and until next time onx in Zo