Drawing together the previous chapters’ discussions of feminine respectability, the Conclusion focuses on the tensions young women experience as they attempt to reconcile personal ambition with societal expectations and as they navigate quotidian life in the city alongside the longer-term objectives of ending their single status. The Conclusion reiterates the book’s two arguments, articulating how feminine youthhood is a period shaped by contingencies, which not only render young women vulnerable but also encourage them to contribute to the uncertainties that shape urban life in contemporary Nigeria. While the previous chapters have discussed how dissimulation, illusion, and concealment shape young women’s lives, and the ambiguous attitudes young women have towards these forms of uncertainty, the Conclusion questions when the fake is categorically immoral. Doing so, young women are inserted into a broader discussion of the means of sustaining, as well as the perceived threats to, social reproduction in urban Nigeria.

Chapter 4 further considers how the city informs young women’s means for realising their much hoped-for futures by focusing on how they navigate the social infrastructure that underpins its daily life. Paying particular attention to young women’s friendships with other young women, the chapter details this group’s fears of ‘fake friends’ and the anxieties they have towards those close to them having the potential to cause them (and their futures) harm. As the ethnography shows, mobile phone communication has afforded young women new styles of communication that allow them to overcome the fears of social intimacy, helping them to stay connected with others while maintaining social distance. Enabling young women to remain visible in urban life from the confines of their homes, and to engage in conversation without revealing personal information, mobile phones provide young women with an alternative social life, re-ordering their experiences of the city while enabling them to remain embedded within the social relationships that sustain it.

This chapter starts with a basic description of Neandertal tooth size and morphology, emphasizing similarities and differences from the teeth of modern humans. The chapter then proceeds to highlight how the study of Neandertal teeth has advanced our understanding of Neandertal phylogenetic relationships, diets, behavior, growth and development, and finally, dental pathology. Dental distinctions between Neandertals and modern humans appear to have been present one million years ago, with Homo antecessor already showing morphology in the direction of Neandertals. Evidence from the study of Neandertal teeth suggests that Neandertal diets were more diverse than originally thought, and in some times and places included plant material. Differences in dental developmental timing between Neandertals and modern humans seem to primarily emerge during later childhood, especially in relation to third molars. Neandertals, like earlier hominins, had low caries rates, but their most common dental affliction appears to have been periodontitis.

In this chapter, Neandertal foot remains and footprints from the fossil record are analyzed and comparatively studied in relation to other Homo samples. In general, the Neandertal foot is broader and more robust than those of recent modern humans. Some of the Neandertal features of the foot are a rectangular talar trochlea with a strongly projecting malleolar articular facet, a broad talar head, a broad calcaneus with a projecting sustentaculum tali, a wide and wedged navicular with projecting medial tubercles, large and broad bases of the lateral metatarsals, and mediolaterally extended and robust phalanges, which also show hallux valgus in a strongly built hallux. A fairly complete inventory of the feet is provided for the entire Neandertal foot fossil record. Finally, estimates of body size (stature and body mass) in relation to other anatomical parts, and some metrical and morphological traits are offered for the Neandertal foot remains.

The distinctive morphology of the Neandertal midface has long intrigued researchers. A comprehensive understanding of their upper airways, encompassing the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses, is essential for unraveling Neandertal paleobiology. These airways are integral to vital functions such as respiration, olfaction, and speech. Analyzing their structural interconnections across various craniofacial units sheds light on Neandertal skeletal anatomy and evolutionary dynamics. This review delves into recent studies exploring respiratory air conditioning, olfaction, and metabolic functions associated with the nasal and paranasal cavities. Additionally, it examines hypotheses and research pertaining to phonation and speech involving the pharynx and larynx. Lastly, the review scrutinizes the overall airway structure, its morphological aspects, growth patterns, and relationships within the Neandertal craniofacial system, considering the organism’s energetic demands.

This chapter synthesizes the known examples of skeletal paleopathology in Neandertals including nonspecific stress indicators (mainly dental enamel hypoplasias), oral pathology (periodontal disease, caries, and tooth loss), osteoarthritis, trauma, infections and inflammations, neoplasms, and congenital disorders. Frequencies of lesions can be assessed for the dental/oral pathologies based on their larger sample sizes, but the other examples are predominately individual cases. Issues of the “osteological paradox,” mortality profiles, taphonomy, burial versus incidental preservation, and behavior must also be weighed when attempting to reconstruct aspects of Neandertal health and trauma from bony and dental lesions. Considering these skeletal pathologies together provides an indication of the levels of risk and general health experienced during the Middle Paleolithic as well as the larger biosocial implications of a foraging subsistence strategy in the Pleistocene. Overall, these abnormalities are not unique to Neandertals and reflect larger hunter-gatherer skeletal biology patterns.

This chapter reviews what is known about the paleogenomics of fossil humans with a focus on Neandertals. It argues that the mode and tempo of the evolution of differences between humans today and Neandertals was roughly equivalent to that of the evolution of differences among humans today. Rates of evolution of cranial morphology are fast and accord well with a neutral model of evolution by mutation and random genetic drift. The chapter then reviews the state of the art in the genetics of complex traits demonstrating that simple Mendelian traits are vanishingly rare and that most genetic variation in morphological traits arises from many loci with small effects. It concludes by discussing ways in which paleogenomics and complex trait genetics can be merged into a more cohesive body of thought that will allow scholars of human evolution to build a holistic account of the evolution of the whole human organism.

The bones of the Neandertal arm and forearm are remarkable for their robusticity and for the rugosity of their muscle entheses. In addition to having had proportions characteristic of humans adapted to cold environments, Neandertal upper limb remains bespeak a way of life that required relatively great upper body strength in the performance of subsistence tasks. It is clear that Neandertal upper limbs were built to be able to exert large forces in the context of surviving in Pleistocene Eurasia with relatively simple Mousterian technology. What is less certain is the degree to which Neandertals were using their muscular upper limbs to throw heavy Mousterian spears during hunting, and the relative importance of long-range projectile weapons in their subsistence ecology. Resolving this question, which involves careful consideration of the functional morphology of the bones of the upper limb, is important for a fuller understanding of Neandertal ecology.

The vertebral column in the genus Homo has a unique morphology compared with other primates and mammals due to the posture of the trunk (orthograd, i.e., vertical) and locomotion (obligate bipedalism). Neandertals are the best represented extinct hominin species and the studies in the last 15 years have drastically altered our view on their spine and thorax. In this chapter we provide a brief historical account of the changing ideas on the morphology of the Neandertal vertebral column and thorax and provide a comprehensive account of the most up-to-date view that we have on these anatomical regions based on the latest paleontological research. Neandertals show a distinct morphology of their vertebral column and thorax, which covaries with other anatomical regions and is a mixture of primitive and derived features. Neandertal-derived features did not appear all at once, and some of them can be found in European Middle Pleistocene populations.

The distinctiveness of Neandertals’ leg bones results from a complex set of environmental, evolutionary, and anatomical factors. Their lower limb morphology includes robust bones with hypertrophied muscle attachments and thick cortices, anteriorly curved femoral diaphyses, absence of pilaster, low femoral neck-shaft angle, large joints, and low crural indices. Although some of these features reflect their massive bodies and high activity levels, few aspects of Neandertal lower limb morphology can be considered separately from their cold-adapted body proportions. However, although cold adaptation can explain European Neandertal intralimb proportions, it fails to account for the same limb proportions in West Asian Neandertals, suggesting additional factors shaped their limb proportions. Their lower limb anatomy may represent a model of morphological integration, a balance between elevated activity levels and adaptation to the rigorous demands of an ice age climate, all superimposed on the expression of more canalized traits controlling rates of bone remodeling.

Neandertal hands are adapted primarily for forceful gripping during manipulation, yet there are no indications that Neandertals lacked precision movements. As more Pleistocene remains are analyzed, the Neandertal hand morphological pattern continues to lose its distinctiveness. Features related to the transmission of high levels of forces, the maintenance of hypertrophied musculature, and high levels of mechanical advantage are variably shared between Neandertals and the Sima de los Huesos, the H. naledi, and to a lesser extent, the H. floresiensis hand remains. The Middle Paleolithic early modern human hands, however, resemble Upper Paleolithic hands in their overall pattern. Accompanying the transition to the Upper Paleolithic are increased stabilization of the capitate-metacarpal 2/3 region, enhancement of first finger precision movements, and reductions in mechanical advantage in Upper Paleolithic hand remains that are characteristic of Holocene human hands. Thus, the Neandertal hand should be conceptualized as an archetypal tool-using archaic human hand.