Not long ago, 17 skulls have been found in a Middle Pleistocene cave in Spain. Some show some Neanderthal features and other more primitive ones, and this suggests that Neanderthals didn’t evolve these defining characteristics all at once but in stages. In fact, despite having some Neanderthal features, some of the findings had small brain cases, while Neanderthals could even have brain cases bigger than humans.
These fossils have some features in common with Neanderthals but are too primitive to be Neanderthals but too young to be some primitive human ancestors so specialists conclude that these fossils are the oldest reliably dated proto-Neanderthals.
The Neanderthal features they had were related to chewing. Modifications were made due to the intensive use of the frontal teeth, often used as a “third hand”, used to grip objects like meat, so they could have free hands to steady the object and cut it with a tool.
The findings suggest a mosaic pattern of evolution, with different traits evolving separately at different rates, making Neanderthalization more like a build-up rather than a linear evolution.
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