Jan 28: Ever since their discovery in the 19th century, Neanderthals have been like the uncomfortably odd relatives who show up at family reunions. Should they be seated with the closest kin, sent to the back of the room with the distant cousins or tossed out as rank interlopers, despite a family resemblance? In short, are the now-extinct Neanderthals full members of the modern human species, a subspecies or an entirely different species?

Though many scientists think Neanderthals were a subspecies, which could have interbred with Homo sapiens, new research appears to confirm the more widely held view that Neanderthals and modern humans were significantly different, enough to qualify as separate species.

The findings were based on detailed measurements of variations in the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals as well as 12 existing species of non-human primates. The research team, led by Dr Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at New York University , reported its results on Monday during the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ‘‘What we are really saying is that Neanderthals did not contribute to the ancestry of modern Europeans,’’ Harvati said.
Bureau Report