Contrary to erroneous depictions in popular culture, Neanderthals were not hulking, stupid cavemen who were vastly inferior to the ancestors of modern humans. In fact, some Neanderthals were our ancestors. On average, around 2% of modern Homo sapiens DNA comes from Neanderthals and other archaic humans, like the Denisovans.
Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives, lived in Europe and parts of western and central Asia, roughly from 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. Though much of their day-to-day existence remains shrouded in mystery, archaeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals were far more intelligent and sophisticated than their stereotype would have you believe.
In addition to their skill at controlling fire and hunting large animals, Neanderthals cooked food, made stone tools, built hearths, and possibly made ornaments. They also appear to have buried their dead, sometimes with grave goods, markers, or offerings, indicating they had rituals and may have believed in an afterlife. There is evidence of Neanderthals surviving despite significant injuries or deformities, suggesting that communities took good care of their weaker members. More recently, cave paintings discovered in Spain that were previously ascribed to early Homo sapiens have been dated more precisely, suggesting that Neanderthals created art and understood symbolism.
One of the biggest mysteries of the Neanderthals (along with why they went extinct) is how they communicated and whether they used language. Most experts believe Neanderthals had at least some speech and linguistic ability. However, there is little agreement about how developed this ability was, and the genetic and fossil evidence can only provide clues and suggest theories.
Evidence relating to a gene called FOXP2, which helps control speech-producing facial and mouth muscles, suggests that even before Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans diverged, their last common ancestor could already produce articulate speech. According to Boston University neuroscientist Andrey Vyshedskiy, spoken commands may have evolved very early, soon after hominins split from their chimpanzee relatives around six million years ago. Neanderthals likely had at least modifier language, meaning they could understand not only commands but also concepts such as size, numbers, and colors. However, the complex form of language that modern humans use to convey complex narratives (syntactic language), may have only developed as recently as 70,000 years ago.
Based on fossil evidence of bones related to hearing, Neanderthals and modern humans probably had similar hearing abilities (specifically, sensitivity to sounds in the spoken frequency range), implying that this sensory ability was used to perceive speech. The structure of their vocal tracts may have been somewhere between an ape and a modern human, suggesting that they could produce some speech but not to the same extent as a human.
Why “Neanderthal” shouldn’t be an insult:
- Neanderthals were the first hominin species discovered through fossil evidence. They acquired the name Homo neanderthalensis) based on the earliest fossil discovery of the species, found in Germany’s Neander Valley (with “thal” meaning "valley") in 1856.
- Neanderthals had many anatomical features that helped them survive in cold climates, including their very broad noses, which warmed and humidified the cold, dry air they breathed. Compared to anatomically modern humans, they were shorter and brawnier, another asset in cold climates. Neanderthal brains were as large (or proportionally larger) than modern human brains, though with different proportions.
- Much of the popular conception of Neanderthals as knuckle-dragging brutes stems from a male Neanderthal skeleton (which belonged to an older individual with severe osteoarthritis) discovered at La-Chappelle-aux-Saints in France that was incorrectly reconstructed in 1911.
