Neanderthals May Not Have Been as Inferior as Suggested

May 1, 2014 | by Lisa Winter

When Neanderthals went extinct
about 40,000 years ago, Homo
sapiens became the last remaining
human species on Earth. The story
frequently goes that they were
inferior in a variety of ways to
anatomically modern humans and
just couldnt compete. A new study
turns this notion on its head and
highlights a series of ways that
Neanderthals were actually
superior. The analysis was
conducted by Paola Villa of the
University of Colorado Museum
and Wil Roebroeks of Leiden
University. The results were
published in PLOS ONE.
"The evidence for cognitive inferiority is simply not there," Villa said in a press release. "What we are saying is that the
conventional view of Neanderthals is not true."
Their analysis looked at the top hypotheses for why our species beat out Neanderthals. After all, there is evidence that
we interacted and and even interbred with them, so how did we succeed when they did not? Most of the ideas centered
around the inferiority of Neanderthals in terms of cognition, technology, language, and hunting.
What they discovered, however, is that there isnt evidence to support those explanations. There is evidence, they
explain, that Neanderthals hunted in groups, and used cliffs and other features of the landscape to hunt large animals.
This speaks to their ability to effectively plan, communicate, and cooperate as a group. Other evidence has shown that
they ate a wide variety of foods, dismissing the idea that a narrow diet wiped them out as food sources changed.
The researchers note that some of these predictions of why Neanderthals went extinct was due to an error of comparing
Neanderthals to the Homo sapiens of today, and not the Homo sapiens that would have been contemporary to them.
"Researchers were comparing Neanderthals not to their contemporaries on other continents but to their successors,"
Villa explained. "It would be like comparing the performance of Model T Fords, widely used in America and Europe in the
early part of the last century, to the performance of a modern-day Ferrari and conclude that Henry Ford was cognitively
inferior to Enzo Ferrari."
While the researchers made a good case that general inferiority to Homo sapiens wasnt the cause for the
disappearance of the Neanderthals, they werent able to come up with an evidence-based explanation. They state there
were probably several reasons that went into play, such as genetic depression due to inbreeding, as many Neanderthals
lived in small groups. The male offspring between Neanderthal/Homo sapiens pairings are also believed to have a lower
fertility, making it difficult to sustain the species.





















Winter, L. (2014). Neanderthals may not have been as inferior as suggested. I Fucking Love Science. Retrieved from
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/neanderthals-may-not-have-been-inferior-suggested