Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39979299›Full record

ArticleNature communications2025

Semicircular canals shed light on bottleneck events in the evolution of the Neanderthal clade.

Alessandro Urciuoli, Ignacio Martínez, Rolf Quam, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Brian A Keeling, Julia Diez-Valero, Mercedes Conde-Valverde

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Early catarrhine evolution in the light of semicircular canal and vestibule shape.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Alessandro UrciuoliUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain. alessandro.urciuoli@icp.cat.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6265-8962
Ignacio MartínezUniversidad de Alcalá, Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva y Paleoantropología (HM Hospitales-UAH), Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1835-9199
Rolf QuamUniversidad de Alcalá, Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva y Paleoantropología (HM Hospitales-UAH), Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1140-5615
Juan Luis ArsuagaCentro Mixto (UCM-ISCIII) de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5361-2295
Brian A KeelingUniversidad de Alcalá, Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva y Paleoantropología (HM Hospitales-UAH), Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.
Julia Diez-ValeroUniversidad de Alcalá, Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva y Paleoantropología (HM Hospitales-UAH), Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0007-3945-5351
Mercedes Conde-ValverdeUniversidad de Alcalá, Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva y Paleoantropología (HM Hospitales-UAH), Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain. mercedes.conde@uah.es.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1891-5324

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Revealing the evolutionary processes which resulted in the derived morphologies that characterize the Neanderthal clade has been an important task for paleoanthropologists. One critical method to quantify evolutionary changes in the morphology of hominin populations is through evaluating morphological phenotypic diversity (i.e., disparity) in phylogenetically informative bones as a close proxy to neutral evolutionary processes. The goal of this study is to quantify the degree of disparity in the Neanderthal clade. We hypothesize that a reduction in bony labyrinth disparity is indicative of the underlying genetic variation resulting from bottleneck events. We apply a deformation-based geometric morphometric approach to investigate semicircular canal and vestibule shape of a chronologically broad sample of individuals belonging to the Neanderthal lineage. Our results identify a significant reduction in disparity after the start of Marine Isotope Stage 5 supporting our hypothesis of a late bottleneck, possibly leading to the derived morphology of Late Pleistocene Neanderthals.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionNeanderthalsSemicircular CanalsAnimalsFossilsPhylogeny

Identifiers

PMID39979299
PMCPMC11842635

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.