Superior Neanderthals

[Dragonrock]

According to wikipedia, neanderthal brains were about 25% larger than average human brains. But, they disappeared about 24,000 years ago. I get the idea that most people view them as less intelligent then their human cousins and that we simply took their land with our superior abilities.

Also, If I recall correctly, humans in the wild have something like a 20% infant mortality rate with a 10% chance that the mother would die during delivery. This was a result of our need for larger heads. A balance was struck between a maximum brain size and a minimum amount of fetal development that would allow the baby a good chance to survive.

Is it possible that the neanderthals were actually our intellectual superiors, but this larger brain led to higher infant and mother mortality rates. Neanderthals lived nicely enough as their greater intelligence gave them superiority over most creatures they competed with. Then, along came humans, someone who filled the exact same niche as neanderthal. Now, competition began and the neanderthals were winning pretty much every contest due to their greater strength and intelligence. However, because of their higher infant mortality every loss on their side had longer term effects. Even though more humans died, we were better able to replace our losses. Eventually, shear numbers crushed the superior (as the average person would think of it) species leaving the inferior (again, as some would perceive) spieces to continue to spread.

As anyone advanced this hypothesis before? Has it already been shot down? If not, how might it be determined short of cloning a neanderthal?

 

[drkitten]

Is it possible that the neanderthals were actually our intellectual superiors, but this larger brain led to higher infant and mother mortality rates.

What does "intellectual superiors" mean in this context?

My understanding is that the Cro-Magnons had a certain amount of technological superiority over the Neanderthals for at least some of the areas/times where the two would have come in contact. Of course, the English also had a substantial technological superiority over the Powatan tribe, but that doesn't mean that the Powatan tribe was intellectually inferior.

And it's not like we can compare GPA scores or graduation rates between the two groups.

 

[El Greco]

Larger brains (eg sperm whales) or even greater brain-to-bodyweight ratios (eg some dolphins) don't necessarily mean higher intelligence; brain complexity is an important factor as well.

 

[3bz]

I've also heard that before, I haven't bothered to look up if larger means in volume or area though, bigger in volume doesn't necessarily mean more cortex area due to different degrees of cortex folding. So does anyone know which it is?

 

[andyandy]

interestingly there have been two significant spurts of brain enlargement -

1) the first 2.0-1.5 million years ago, around the crossover of Australopithecus, homo habilus and homo erectus.....

2) the second about 500,000-200,000 years ago with homo erectus and neanderthal....

the first spurt (1) is tentatively attributed to toolmaking - but archaeologists can find no major change in the archaeological record correlating with the second period of brain expansion (2)....as the same hunter-gatherer lifestyle with limited tools was maintained....

so there is no strong relationship between brain size expansion and the known changes in human behavior - and as such there's no simple relationship between brain size, "intelligence" and behaviour.....

the two really dramatic transformations in human behavior occurred long after the modern brain size had evolved...

(1) the cultural explosion 60,000-30,years ago - when first art, religion and complex technology appeared

(2) the rise of farming c.10,000 BC

And athough Neanderthals (200,000-30,000BC) had brains as large as ours their culture remained limited - with no art, no complex technology and most probably no religon...




note.

in the last 100,000 years both Neanderthal and homo sapien spaien had larger brain volume than present day. - h. sapiens sapiens were pretty fixed around 1,450,000mm^3 and Neanderthal had a much bigger range from 1,100,000mm^3 and 1,600,000mm^3......

but the living day human mean brain size is significantly smaller at around 1,250,000mm^3

info from "The prehistory of the mind" S. Mithen - an interesing read

 

[Zygar]

And athough Neanderthals (200,000-30,000BC) had brains as large as ours their culture remained limited - with no art, no complex technology and most probably no religon...

No religion? They were our intellectual superiors after all!

 

[andyandy]

No religion? They were our intellectual superiors after all!

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Neanderthals did have art. They didn't have huge cave paintings that we've found, but then not very many human cultures made those. A triangular stone placed over a triangular (in both dimensions) grave for a young male (disarticulated, skull at the pointy/shallow end and rest of skeleton stacked in the deep end) showed carvings.

 

[andyandy]

Neanderthals did have art. They didn't have huge cave paintings that we've found, but then not very many human cultures made those. A triangular stone placed over a triangular (in both dimensions) grave for a young male (disarticulated, skull at the pointy/shallow end and rest of skeleton stacked in the deep end) showed carvings.

i wonder what archeologists mean by "art" - it is a rather vague term...

certainly all that we say about the early hominids needs quite a large asterix next to it "as we currently understand it"

the "neanderthal flute" is a rather good example of how in anthroplogy one should always accept that a paridigm shift or some hasty revision may be just around the corner....

The find of a "Neanderthal flute" is certainly one of the archaeological discoveries in Slovenia to have excited the most interest, and to have initiated the most debate. The find in question is the fruit of long-term archaeological-paleontological research in the cave of Divje babe I, in the Idrijca valley in western Slovenia. This 45 metre long, horizontal cave is only one of around 6500 Karst caves in the world famous Slovene part of the Dinarid Karst and its underground. Many of these caves are archaeological sites, but few of them are 100 thousand and more years old like the Palaeolithic site of Divje babe I

The pierced bone, suspected of being a flute, was found in circumstances which do not allow any real doubt about its absolute (c. 45,000 years) or relative age (earlier than the Early Upper Palaeolithic, Cro Magnon man), nor about the possible archaeological context (Middle Palaeolithic, Neanderthal man) in the framework of the European Palaeolithic. This is despite the fact that Divje babe I is not classified in European terms as among the richest of Palaeolithic sites (more than 600 archaeological finds in at least ten levels, the remains of 20 hearths, modest remains of hunted animals and enormous remains of cave bear). The site is thus essentially a combination of typical lair and graveyard of bear on the one hand, and a classical Palaeolithic cave dwelling on the other, with a series of open questions about the activity of people at the site.

The real challenge for the profession is how to explain the find of, to date, the only femur of a young cave bear pierced in the form of a flute which, on the basis of all the evidence, originates from a time (Middle Palaeolithic) at which neither the technology of working bones nor the necessary artistic (symbolic) behaviour are supposed to have been developed, although weak signals exist for both, the number of which is gradually increasing with new finds.

In explaining the find, the crucial question is the origin of the holes: Are they of natural or artificial origin? In other words, were they made by a carnivore (e.g. cave hyena, cave bear) with their teeth, or by man with technical aids (pointed stone tools used in an appropriate manner)? For the moment, there seems no other possibility. It has to be said that, on the basis of experiments, it is easier to demonstrate the hypothesis of an artificial (human) than a natural (carnivore) origin of the holes. In either case, it is unfortunate that there are no reliable traces evident on the bone itself, and especially by the holes, of either factor which could provide conclusive evidence. This, together with damage (broken ends, various scratches, etc.) which occurred subsequently and which may be the cause of all the professional dilemmas, allows sufficient room for all sorts of guesswork. Unfortunately, all such guesswork is more or less unfounded until the key question of natural or artificial origin is resolved.

http://www.uvi.si/eng/slovenia/background-information/neanderthal-flute/

now, if they find another flute then people may really need to get their rubbers (hmm, maybe "erasers" may be a little less open to interpretation ) out.....

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

From what I have learned, in class, 'art' in terms of archaeology is defined as something created or altered by humans, something not required for immediate survival. The oversize bifaces of the Acheulaen tradition skirt the edge between used item and art, as they are too big to use and indeed were only rarely used if at all, but yet were made in large numbers.

 

[Segnosaur]

Neanderthals lived nicely enough as their greater intelligence gave them superiority over most creatures they competed with. Then, along came humans, someone who filled the exact same niche as neanderthal. Now, competition began and the neanderthals were winning pretty much every contest due to their greater strength and intelligence.

Keep in mind that greater strength may not necessarily be an advantage in all circumstances. Neanderthals did have a more muscular build than cro magnon (on average), but it also requires a lot of protein to maintain that build (i.e. more food requirements). If the extra strength wasn't needed for survival then the extra muscles might actually be a detriment.

Also, I remember seeing a documentary on TV (one of the cable science shows) where they mentioned that Neanderthals may not have made good use of regular cycles in nature (such as catching salmon during spawning cycles). This would also be a detriment to their survival. (Of course, this was on TV, so you may want to take it with a grain of salt.)

 

[articulett]

I had heard that Neanderthal's probably died out because they were carnivores--which limits a diet...;wheras, our ancestors were omnivores (like pigs and dogs) and that made adapting to assorted environments easier... I think they also found cannibilism amongst Neanderthal's (they found neanderthal bones broken and with the marrow sucked out amidst similar bone debris from other animals in "petrified garbage pits".

 

[greeng]

I had heard that Neanderthal's probably died out because they were carnivores--which limits a diet...;wheras, our ancestors were omnivores (like pigs and dogs) and that made adapting to assorted environments easier... I think they also found cannibilism amongst Neanderthal's (they found neanderthal bones broken and with the marrow sucked out amidst similar bone debris from other animals in "petrified garbage pits".

Are they extrapolating that from fossil teeth?

 

[articulett]

Are they extrapolating that from fossil teeth?

Not completely. Like I said, they found Neandertal bones in presumed Neandertal garbage dumps amidst other carnivore bone debris. I heard a good podcast on it recently. Let me get find some links.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/787918.stm (sums up the fact that they were carnivores and how it may have been their downfall)

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2006/3/Isotopes.cfm :

To get at the question of what Neanderthals ate regularly, scientists measured stable isotopes in a protein called collagen that was extracted from Neanderthal bones. Isotope ratios in collagen reflect an individual's diet over several years, while an array of butchered bones are merely evidence of a single meal. Studies of stable isotopes in Neanderthal remains from different parts of Europe demonstrate that Neanderthals were pretty strict carnivores, with isotope signatures comparable to those of the carnivores they coexisted with. This means that, like wolves and lions, Neanderthals were active hunters of meat on the hoof.

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=BAFOS0603

http://www.answers.com/topic/neandertal

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=3415 (brain size and carnivore vs. omnivore)

http://www.ecotao.com/holism/hu_neand.htm (pretty thorough overview).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991005071615.htm
(regarding cannibalism in particular).

(I hope these help; I wasn't sure if the dentition question was in regards to the fact that they were carnivores or cannibals or that they died out while humans survived--)

 

[greeng]

Thank you! (Dentition re: carnivorism.) I was just curious.

 

[Gravy]

I was lucky enough to get a tour of a deep Neanderthal cave that isn't open to the public, in a remote part of Corsica. The improvements dated to 90,000 B.P. Around the hearth was a complex and formal arrangement of dozens of deer antlers. Art? Religion? Functional purpose? No one knows. The archaeologist gave me a charred rock from the hearth. It comforts me for some reason.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Brain size need not correlate with intelligence, even in modern humans, where most conscious activity seems concentrated in the frontal cortex.

Neanderthal brains, though larger, were larger in different places. They might well have had far better sense of smell or hearing. They might have had better muscular control to cope with their more robust bodies. They might have had perfect pitch and communicated by singing.

It's just a pity they are not around to ask. So near and yet so far. We just missed them- and mammoths and mastodons and cave bears and cave lions and sabre tooth cat, Moas, giant kangaroos... it's almost as if something killed them all, just as we were arriving.

Synchronicity, I suppose. So it goes.

 

[Samnite]

One speculation that I have heard (and I'm sorry, but I don't have cites. Just assume that I'm relating this without endorsing it.) is that, as Soapy Sam said, Neanderthal brains were functionally different. They may have organically specialized in a different way than H. sapiens sapiens did. In line with the "strict carnivore and active hunter" idea is that they may have been solitary hunters, or perhaps hunted in small, family groups. As a result, they may not have formed complex social groups, and therefore may have been organically stunted in their abilities to develop complex communication. According to this idea, it was then much easier for H. sapiens sapiens to coordinate food-gathering activities much more efficiently, and thus outcompete the Neanderthals for nutrition.

 

[articulett]

I have read recently that a significant percentage of people in Northern Europe carry DNA that is thought to be Neanderthal in origin. So, although the common ancestor of all humans and all Neanderthals is a primate that preceded the two lineages...some humans have Neanderthals in their direct ancestry. (The Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA reveal them to be biological cousins to humans...but approx. 5% of Northern Europeans have "disequalibriums" corresponding with Neanderthal ancestry.) http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1722109.htm

 

[Badger]

A couple of things:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061107/sc_nm/science_neanderthals_dc

and don't forget that Neanderthals didn't disappear overnight, when AMH's appeared. The two co-existed (there is debate about what that means but they did inhabit territories close to eachother) for tens of thousands of years.

The second point indicates to me that they were out-competed, but only by a very slight margin. I kind of wonder if they were not assimilated, instead.

Work continues on sequencing the Neanderthal genome, and when that's done, it'll no doubt be very interesting!