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CHICAGO—Neandertals have long been portrayed as dumb brutes. But a growing body of evidence hints that these extinct humans were much savvier than previously thought. The results of a new study presented here last week at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society bolster that view, and suggest that, in fact, Neandertals acted in much the same way as early modern humans.

To compare the behavior of Neandertals and early moderns, paleoanthropologist Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College studied artifacts from a site in southwestern Germany called Hohle Fels. The site contains several levels of archaeological remains. One of these levels dates to between 36,000 and 40,000 years ago and contains tools manufactured in the Mousterian cultural tradition associated with Neandertals. Another comprises items that are 33,000 to 36,000 years old and are made in the Aurignacian style associated with early modern humans.

What makes Hohle Fels ideal for comparing Neandertal and modern human behavior is that both groups lived under comparable climate and environmental conditions at this locale (cold temperatures and open habitat). They also had the same prey animals available to them, such as reindeer and horse.

Hardy examined the Mousterian and Aurignacian implements under a microscope, looking at their wear patterns and searching for residues from the substances with which the tools came into contact. He found that although the modern humans created a larger variety of tools than did the Neandertals, the groups engaged in mostly the same activities. These activities include using tree resin to bind stone points to wooden handles, employing stone points as thrusting or projectile weapons, crafting implements from bone and wood, butchering animals and scraping hides.

What this means, Hardy says, is that form and function are not linked. “You don’t need a grapefruit spoon to eat a grapefruit,” he told ScientificAmerican.com. Perhaps Neandertals did not bother inventing additional tool types because they were able to get the job done just fine without them.
“Neandertals stuck around for 150,000 years,” Hardy notes. “That’s not a species that doesn’t know what it’s doing.”

Yet if Neandertals were so capable, why did they ultimately disappear? “We don’t really know,” Hardy admits. But he doesn’t think that modern humans killed them off.  It could just be that modern humans had a slight reproductive advantage that, over thousands of years, allowed their population to swamp the Neandertal one.

Photo of Bruce Hardy courtesy Kenyon College

11 Comments

1. 1. DonPaul 09:23 AM 4/6/09

   Language seems the likely difference twixt humans and Neandertals. Even if Neandertals were just as clever as humans, human language would allow storage of the more complex technological knowledge that both groups were inventing. As the store of human technological knowledge grew, the humans would gain a huge competitive advantage at exploiting a limited environment. Is there any evidence of the relative degree of language use?

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2. 2. luzdekorum 12:36 PM 4/6/09

   CroMagnon man is a modern human, not a Neanderthal. Neanderthal's as a species had a specific genetic profile that would distinguish it from Homo Sapiens. Some think we absorbed the Neanderthal species into our own. Others would say the evidence may point away from interbreeding as their primary path to extinction.

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3. 3. angalar 04:32 PM 4/6/09

   Human women are pregnant for nine months. If Neanderthals were pregnant for 12 months eventually that would have added up.
   
   Is there a way to calculate the time period that would take, all other things being equal, for humans to outbreed Neanderthals?

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4. 4. wonderkind 10:42 PM 4/8/09

   It is quite remarkable that so many scientists have not hit on the most obvious "likely" cause for the demise of the Neanderthals. From written articles it appears they lived in much smaller family-oriented groups, and that they had a very high caloric requirement (better than 5000 calories per day on average). Imagine then what would have resulted to such a collection of scattered groups when they first came into contact with Homo Sapiens Sapiens, modern men emerging out of Africa, bringing with them a host of new diseases? There is no doubt that both species exposed each other to new diseases, a move which would have elevated the rate of sickness and death. But for a small Neanderthal group, heavily dependent upon a much smaller number of hunting adults, any serious illness would have diminished their daily catch. This reduced caloric harvest for a species with such a high metabolic rate, would have weakened the remaining members of the group, making them even more suseptible to disease. Result, a quick demise of each small family group. Like bursting soap bubbles, each layer of Neanderthal family groups would have diminished and died off as Homo Sapiens Sapiens expanded their territory. There would be no need for above normal hostility. Disease would have done it all, much the same way as disease borne by Europeans killed off the majority of aboriginals in North America. Even here, the aboriginals held an advantage of having the same caloric requirements as Europeans. With Neanderthals, extinction would have been much swifter.

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5. 5. Darwufche in reply to DonPaul 03:23 PM 4/9/09

   It seems to be generally agreed from bone analysis that Neanderthal had speech capability, so basing their demise on lack of speech is likely incorrect.

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6. 6. TaniaWinter 03:16 PM 4/10/09

   So Neandertals ate with their hands because they didn't feel like forking with it?

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7. 7. DonPaul in reply to Darwufche 11:18 PM 4/10/09

   Sometimes consensus is correct sometimes not. Bone structure by itself is not evidence that the bones were used for symbolic communication such as language requires. Symbolic messages on a cave wall would however suggest the ability to produce symbolic communication. Is there any physical evidence which compares symbolic messaging between the two groups. For example, some sort of totems or something?

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8. 8. kdsandeep@gmail.com 11:37 PM 4/11/09

   sciam rocks

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9. 9. Dr. S. Pennington Gregory 07:44 PM 4/13/09

   I have studied paleoanthropology for some 32 years now and that digital recreation of a bearded neanderthal man that this page provides is absolutely exceptional. How did Mr. Hardy decipher that "Neanderthal man" had chest hair? And what is being implied by having "Neanderthal man" were glasses? Is there something wrong with neanderthal vision that would place there visual acuity below that of homo sapiens?
   I commend Mr. Hardy for his work and am excited to hear more from what seems to be just that start of a great research agenda.

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10. 10. Pedr ap Gwilym 03:04 PM 4/17/09

    One of the best ways of finding out what particular peoples do is to actually get out there and ask them. This may seem a little silly in the light of the common observance of the Neanderthals having died out - Not so because they never did die out. How can I say this? Because I working for a guy who had to be a typical Neanderthal he was about 1.70m; also I working a guy in a previous job who was also absolutely typically Neanderthal (he was 1.93m). Iknow another guy who married a Neanderthal girl, I met her and she was Neanderthal and really beautiful standing at about 1.85m. They are still with us. Just get out of the laboratory and find them. The Neanderthals did not die out, that's a myth!

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11. 11. jerryd 09:38 PM 7/28/09

    I agree as I've met one name hugh in key west harbor i the 80's that looks just like the best pics of them

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