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Neanderthals lived in Europe and Central and Southwest Asia.
Neanderthals were described as stupid and brutal creatures, like cavemen and primitive apemen, closer to gorillas than modern humans…
“They were actually very intelligent and accomplished humans. They weren’t ‘ape-men’. So it’s unfair to them that the word Neanderthal is used as an insult today,” reports the UK Natural History Museum, which dedicates space to Homo neanderthalensis.
These men disappeared forty thousand years ago and recognized as a human species only one hundred and sixty years ago, Neanderthals have been underestimated by science for decades.
In recent years, however, research has shown a much more complex picture of our distant cousins.
Here are five recent examples of discoveries that show why this extinct species was much more advanced than originally thought.
1. Our ancestors crossed with them
Humans of the 19th and 20th centuries may have thought that Neanderthals were a very different and inferior species to Homo sapiens, but some early modern humans did not.
Neanderthals and humans not only lived together in Eurasia, they also had sex and had children together.
According to genetic analysis of Neanderthal fossils, Homo sapiens repeatedly mated with Neanderthals over tens of thousands of years.
So today there are people with up to 2% Neanderthal DNA.
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It is possible that up to 2% of your DNA is that of Neanderthals.
If it is not known exactly why, after surviving three hundred and fifty thousand years, Neanderthals disappeared, it is certain that it is not due to the greater cognitive capacity of sapiens, as has been claimed for centuries, decades.
Some of the current theories claim that they couldn’t reproduce quickly enough, that modern humans took resources from them and infected them with new diseases.
Some also point to climate change as an influential factor in its demise.
In a study published last year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers reconstructed the climate of prehistoric Central Europe by analyzing stalagmites from two caves in Romania.
They found that the region experienced two periods of extremely cold temperatures as Neanderthal populations declined and then disappeared.
During this Ice Age, Sapiens may have survived better on a more varied diet, including a higher proportion of plants and fish, than Neanderthals, who relied more on large mammals killed by the climate.
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The diet of Neanderthals, more dependent on large mammals, made it difficult for them to survive.
According to Rick Potts, an expert on human origins at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in the United States, our species was probably no more astute than the Neanderthals: we simply outlived them.
2. They could hunt and kill from a distance
According to a study by the University College of London and published in 2019, Neanderthals created weapons sophisticated enough to kill from a distance.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers conducted a study using wooden spears excavated in Schöningen, Germany, in the 1990s. Spears estimated to be around three hundred thousand years old.
The team tested the performance of these weapons by creating replicas, with which a group of darts tried to hit a target at different distances.
The spears could accurately hit a target up to 20 meters away.
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The Neanderthals’ accuracy in hunting from a distance is further evidence of Neanderthal intelligence.
Annemieke Milks, the researcher who led the investigation, told the BBC that this discovery once again proves the intelligence of Neanderthals.
3. Neanderthals buried the dead
One of the most famous Neanderthal sites is the Old Man at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, discovered in 1908, which contains the remains of a man with spinal deformities.
This Neanderthal’s companions dug a grave for it and protected its body from scavengers, according to a website analysis published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.
But this is not the only example of a Neanderthal burial.
In Teshik-Tash Cave (Uzbekistan), a Neanderthal child was found buried and surrounded by goat horns, while in Regourdou (France), bear bones were placed around a body.
Scientists agree that our closest evolutionary relatives intentionally buried their dead for at least part of their lives.
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Neanderthals had a brain of 1,200 to 1,750 cubic centimeters, were 1.50 to 1.75 meters tall, and weighed 64 to 82 kilograms.
4. They can take care of their elderly and disabled.
Experts also claim that Neanderthals were more empathetic than initially thought.
In 1957, archaeologists found the remains of a Neanderthal with multiple injuries in Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan.
According to a 2017 study by anthropologists Erik Trinkaus of the University of Washington in Saint-Louis and Sébastien Villotte of the French National Center for Scientific Research, this being was deaf.
And despite this handicap, he lived to be 40, a pretty old age by Paleolithic standards.
According to anthropologists, he could only have lived to such an advanced age with the help of other people.
The old man from La Chapelle-aux-Saints also seems to have been taken care of by his companions.
According to the team of researchers that analyzed the site, his injuries and missing teeth, coupled with his advanced age, show that he was cared for by the community and kept himself alive through good and bad times.
5. They were also artists
Forty-two thousand years ago, Neanderthals were already able to make small jewelry out of animal teeth, shells and ivory.
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Neanderthals, the first artists in history, created, for example, geometric figures.
A study published by the journal Science in 2018 claims that they even made drawings in caves in Spain, some twenty thousand years before modern humans arrived in Europe.
Made with red pigment, the cave paintings include hand stencils and geometric shapes.
Homo sapiens: the discovery that demands a revision of history textbooks
Historically, works of art and symbolic thinking have been presented as evidence of the cognitive superiority of modern humans, as unique to our species.
“In my opinion, this discovery ends the debate about Neanderthals,” said João Zilhão, a researcher on the University of Barcelona team that discovered the paintings in 2018.
“They weren’t cognitively different or less intelligent in terms of intelligence. They’re just a variant of humanity that no longer exists.”
Neanderthals, the first artists in history, created, for example, geometric figures.