Early weaning suggests Neanderthals matured faster

NEANDERTHALS may have begun weaning their babies at 7 months, and ceased breastfeeding altogether 7 months later.

Manish Arora from the University of Sydney in Australia and colleagues discovered that levels of barium in tooth enamel rise while a child is breastfed but drop off when they are weaned. So they tested barium levels in a 100,000-year-old molar from a Neanderthal child and concluded it was weaned at 14 months (Nature, DOI:10.1038/nature12169).

This is "intriguingly early", says Louise Humphrey at the Natural History Museum in London. It suggests they matured faster than modern humans, who tend to be weaned at 30 months in hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Neanderthals quick to leave the breast?"

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