Neanderthals: Were they like us?
As the world cools, and ice reigns;
something stocky and hardened remains.
Neanderthals
Most people have heard of Neanderthals. They are the most famous ancient human relative. However, our understanding of neanderthals has really evolved in the last few decades. Initially, it was assumed that they were very different from humans – savage and unintelligent cavemen. However, more recently, as we’ve gotten more fossils, we’ve started to see them as resembling us much more. Let’s dive in, to Neanderthals
Neanderthals: Who were they?
Neanderthals evolved approximately 500,000 years ago and went extinct roughly 40,000 years ago. They lived across almost all of Asia and Europe but did not get to either Africa or Australia. They evolved from some of the earlier migrations of human ancestors out of Africa (see our post), so are probably one of the only human ancestors that did not come directly out of Africa.
Neanderthals physically were not that different from humans. They were a bit shorter, say 160cm tall, but all humans were much shorter at this time, due to a significant lack of food. If you had a couple of generations of Neanderthals be able to eat McDonalds, they’d definitely quickly get a lot bigger. Their limbs were a bit shorter, they were stocky and they also had slightly denser bones – so they were probably a bit stronger than us. Nothing compared to actual apes and monkeys, who are all massively stronger than us, but still significantly stronger than humans. They also had larger more prominent noses to warm air that they breathed.
Neanderthals and modern humans were the first species that had really sophisticated tools. They weaved cloth, had simple clothes, used medicinal plants, sailed in the Mediterranean, cooked food in various ways (boiling, roasting, and smoking). They had some forms of art, including collections of crystals, basic carving and bone flutes. Neanderthal brains were the pretty much the same size as modern human brains. However, they did not seem to migrate as much, and didn’t seem to cross any oceans. They didn’t do cave paintings or seem to have particularly complex social structures – there is debate around whether they buried their dead with ceremonies and grave goods (early humans certainly did), but it is not exactly known.
Neanderthals, Humans and the Ice Age
Neanderthals were the first human ancestors to adapt to the cold of the last ice age. Roughly 100,000 years ago, the Earth cooled significantly to be covered for a large part in ice. This meant that both humans and neanderthals adapted significantly, having both their ranges shortened. Initially, early humans lived all the way up to Russia and Siberia, however, once the ice ages started, the species only survived in the southernmost bits of Europe and Asia. When the Ice Age began to end roughly 50,000 years ago, humans then began to spread out again across the globe, forming the last global migration (see this post about human migrations).
Neanderthals aren’t really direct human ancestors in the way that other species like Homo Erectus were. Instead, Neanderthals and humans both evolved from earlier humans and then neanderthals died out. However, there was significant interbreeding. Roughly 2-5% of modern human DNA comes from neanderthals (with the exception of a few African populations which never interbred).
Neanderthals went extinct for a lot of reasons. Firstly, there were never that many of them in the first place, their populations were always much smaller than other human ancestors. This meant that they had a lot of interbreeding and a large number of diseases including malaria, coeliacs, and other equivalents. Secondly, as the world warmed, it’s likely they had some difficulties with the increase in temperatures with their stockier build. However, much more detail than this is not really known.
So Neanderthals? Were they human?
So were Neanderthals human? This is something we talk a lot about here at the Universal Story. There is room for disagreement here, but our strong view is yes.
The problem with the question is that it is not very precise about what “human” is. If you see a bad model of a neanderthal in a museum, which is probably slightly out of date, wearing animal skins, holding a big club, it’s easy to think they were very different from us.
But imagine this. You took modern humans and put them in a Neanderthal’s environment. You took them away from modern conveniences, fed them an ancient diet of much less food, didn’t let them go to school and they didn’t learn any written language, anything about why the Sun rises or basic things around human health and disease. And made them live a hard life in a European or South Asian cave near the end of the Ice Age.
That person would probably be “not human” by most people’s standards. The knowledge, culture and self-understanding that we associate with modern humans and humanity would be almost completely lacking in them. They would be short, physically stunted, riddled with disease and illness. If you saw them walking down the street in a T-shirt, they’d probably look pretty rough.
Now do the opposite, take a Neanderthal and put them in our modern environment. Let them go to the doctor, let them go to school. How would they look walking down the street in a T-shirt?
It’s a question that’s open for a bit of debate, but we here at The Univeral Story are firmly in the “you wouldn’t notice” camp. They might still be a bit shorter, a bit on the stockier size with a more prominent nose. But frankly, there are plenty of people walking around today who look a bit weird. They might have had a bit more trouble in school than most, or have a bit of a lisp, with less developed vocal cords, but again it was probably within the range we’d register as humans today.
Neanderthals were not that different from us. It’s human pride that makes us think otherwise.
