New insights into the growth of the Neanderthal lineage

The last decade has seen an intense scientific debate on Neanderthal lineage growth pattern. The pioneering use of synchrotron imaging on fossils teeth allowed for the first time to record neanderthal dental growth in a non-destructive way. However, relatively few samples have been analyzed and variability in the growth pattern and associated evolutionary mechanisms are still largely unknown. To answer these questions, we collected a large sample of unpublished and invaluable fossil teeth of the Neanderthal lineage in Europe. We have also selected modern human deciduous teeth with the specific focus of investigating their family relationships based on the heritability of dental growth biorhythms which are under strong genetic control. ID19 is the only hard X-ray beamline in Europe enabling to image dental hard tissues microstructure for paleoanthropology with high coherence, low dose, high energy photons, a large field-of-view, and using phase contrast µCT.