Some Neanderthals may have had fair skin and red hair, making them look like modern Europeans, international researchers say.
Light skin may have been an evolutionary advantage for Neanderthals as this could have allowed them to generate more vitamin D from sunlight
"The papers make Neanderthals more like modern Europeans, with light skin and hair colour and language abilities, and yet there are no signs of interbreeding with modern humans," says Professor Carles Lalueza-Fox, a molecular biologist at the
University of Barcelona in a commentary in
Science.
Taken together, the two studies are the first to extract nuclear DNA from Neanderthal remains and represent a new way to learn more about the extinct early humans, the researchers says.
The researchers homed in on the MC1R gene linked to hair and skin colour.
This allowed the team to determine that the gene produced the same level of the chemical melanin as in people with red hair and light skin.
clipped from: www.abc.net.au 