Proof that Neandertals hadn’t adapted to cold was right under their noses.
Unique video from the naval cavity of a bizarrely well-preserved Neandertal skull confirms the hominid’s enormous noses were not an adaptation to cold climates, as was proposed in the early 20th century. Neandertal nasal cavities were much the same as those of our own Homo sapiens species, researchers report November 17 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research finally refutes an old idea that Neandertals’ protruding faces were necessary to accommodate large noses that had supposedly evolved to warm and moisten cold and dry air before it reached their lungs.