X-rays reveal how Neanderthal teeth grew

Neanderthals were a species of the Homo genus who inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia approximately 24,000 ~ 350,000 years ago. It has even been suggested that Neanderthals achieved adulthood faster than modern humans do today. At the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble, France, the enamel dentine junction of both a deciduous and a permanent Neanderthal molar tooth (about 130,000 years old) was studied recently by using high-resolution tomography. It was found that the dental development of Neanderthals was very similar to modern humans. The permanent molar tooth studied had completed its root growth at about 8.7 years of age, which is typical of many modern human children today. For more information on the experimental results, see the paper, "How Neanderthal molar teeth grew", R. Macchiarelli et al., Nature, published online 22 November 2006. For other recent interesting data on Neanderthals, see the paper, "Palaeoanthropology: Return of the last Neanderthal", E. Delson1et al., Nature, 443, 762-763 (2006).