Payre Teeth Reveal Regional Neanderthal Diversity Across Early Europe

Nine teeth from the Payre site in southeastern France, dated to about 250,000 years ago, show a mix of Neanderthal and earlier Middle Pleistocene features when scanned with micro-CT and analyzed geometrically. The variation occurs both within Payre’s layers and relative to other European sites, suggesting that Neanderthal evolution in Europe was shaped by regional population structure rather than a single linear progression.