Our ancient cousins, Neanderthals, adapted to their habitats in many ways. One example of their adaptation to their habitat is their body shape and changes in their diet.
Neanderthals chests became larger to accommodate their needs. Neanderthals mainly lived in drier spaces and colder climates such as the Polar Urals and Southern Siberia. This meant that they needed more energy, which meant more oxygen as well. So their chests expanded to form a bell-shaped chest that could in turn, hold bigger breathing systems. This was different from humans, who have smaller, barrel-shaped chests.
The colder climates also changed the food Neanderthals could access. During the winters, there were no fruits or vegetables, so they relied on fat and protein from animal meat. But, during the winter, the animals also became skinnier, so fat was sparse. Consequently, Neanderthals consumed a lot of protein to fuel their bodies for longer periods of time. Protein is harder to distribute throughout the body than fat, so, their enlarged livers and kidneys had to get rid of the toxic chemicals that the meat contained. These rather large organs led to larger pelvises. This was also different from humans, because it is potentially dangerous for humans to subsist primarily on protein.
Since Neanderthals ate more protein, they ate larger animals like mammoths. As those animals began to die out, they moved on to smaller, quicker animals that were harder to hunt due to their larger frames. As the Neanderthal population began to fall, it gave room for early humans to rise.
[Source:
Smithsonian Magazine
]
