Fellow Story
Bradman co-author of Nature paper on breast-feeding Neanderthals
Like all mammals, the Neanderthals breast-fed their babies. Scientists wanted to know: For how long?
Today in Nature, a team of researchers, including several from UC Berkeley, say they’ve answered that question by looking at the fossilized tooth of an eight-year old Neanderthal child, discovered in a Belgian cave.
Asa Bradman is an environmental health scientist at UC Berkeley and a co-author on the paper. He says teeth are like a time capsule.
“Because teeth grow in rings, kind of like trees do, you can actually date when a given layer of the tooth was put down.”