text: Jaw anatomy Compared to archaic people, anatomically modern humans have smaller, differently shaped teeth. This results in a smaller, more receded dentary, making the rest of the jaw-line stand out, giving an often quite prominent chin. The central part of the mandible forming the chin carries a triangularly shaped area forming the apex of the chin called the mental trigon, not found in archaic humans. Particularly in living populations, the use of fire and tools requires fewer jaw muscles, giving slender, more gracile jaws. Compared to archaic people, modern humans have smaller, lower faces.
  Body skeleton structure
  The body skeletons of even the earliest and most robustly built modern humans were less robust than those of Neanderthals (and from what little we know from Denisovans), having essentially modern proportions. Particularly regarding the long bones of the limbs, the distal bones (the radius/ulna and tibia/fibula) are nearly the same size or slightly shorter than the proximal bones (the humerus and femur). In ancient people, particularly Neanderthals, the distal bones were shorter, usually thought to be an adaptation to cold climate. The same adaptation is found in some modern people living in the polar regions.
  Height ranges overlap between Neanderthals and AMH, with Neanderthal averages cited as  and  for males and females, respectively, which is largely identical to pre-industrial average heights for AMH. Contemporary national averages range between  in males and  in females. Neanderthal ranges approximate the contemporary height distribution measured among Malay people, for one.