Neanderthals: Uncovering intriguing insights into our ancient relatives

Neanderthals, who went extinct somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 years ago, were just one of the many evolutionary ancestors of modern humans. And while they have been long thought of as crude, unintelligent cavemen who could barely wrap their minds around affordable car insurance, there was actually a lot more to them. So today, we're going to take a look at some surprising facts about Neanderthals. OK, time for some weird prehistory. You might think Neanderthals are named after something having to do with prehistoric times or the anthropological details of their existence. But they're actually named after a dude who wrote gospel music. Allow us to explain. The first Neanderthal remains were found in Germany in 1829. But it wasn't until 1856, with the discovery of additional bones, that scientists began to speculate they had the remains of a human ancestor. In 1864, geologist William King named the hominid species, opting for Homo neanderthalensis, a term only later applied to the initial find from 1829. King used the Neander Valley in the name because that's where the initial discoveries were made. The valley itself, located near Dusseldorf, Germany, takes its name from 17th century pastor and hymn composer Joachim Neander. In an amazing coincidence, Neander is the Greek translation of his name and both mean new man. So a new man was discovered in a valley named after a man whose name means new man. Maybe it's no coincidence at all. It was long believed that modern humans replaced Neanderthals rather than intermingling with them at the prom. But then the ability to evaluate DNA evidence came along and gave everyone a big surprise. Experts believe most people outside of Africa, where Neanderthals aren't known to have existed, have somewhere around 2% Neanderthal DNA in them. 2% may not seem like a lot, but considering human DNA is only 1.6% different from a gorilla's, it's significant. Interestingly, many people who have Neanderthal genes in their DNA are predisposed to pollen and animal hair allergies. It was the caveman who invented Allegra. Picture this. Millions of years from now, alien visitors are digging up the remains of human civilization. But the only complete skeleton they discover belonged to Shaquille O'Neal. They might assume Shaq was an example of an average person and conclude that Earth was a planet of giants who all starred in the motion picture Steel. Similarly, the stereotypical image of Neanderthals as being hunched over came about because the first Neanderthal skeleton ever discovered belonged to a person with arthritis. In 1908, French paleontologist Marcellin Boule reconstructed a complete Neanderthal skeleton, the first of its kind. But Boulle's efforts produced a hunched over figure with bent knees and a brutish appearance, leading him to conclude that all Neanderthals were bestial. However, research conducted in 2018 and 2019 indicated Neanderthals have much better posture than previously believed, affirming earlier speculation that the bones may have been those of an arthritic old man. The remains of Neanderthals have, for the most part, been found in caves, hence the whole caveman nomenclature. But they were much more sophisticated than you may have realized. Stalagmite formations in the Aveyron Valley of France demonstrate that these cavemen had a level of social organization that was more complex than previously thought. Two man-made chambers constructed out of roughly 400 broken stalagmites, columns or mounds formed on cave floors, were deliberately moved into ring formations. The stalagmites varied in size and were placed over 360 feet back into the cave. Researchers speculate as to what these structures were used for, suggesting it was a meeting place for some type of ritual social behavior. We're thinking it's a prehistoric roller rink, But we can't rule out caveman disco either. The Flintstones notwithstanding, when we see prehistoric people in fiction, they usually don't speak a language and just kind of grunt a lot. Given man's evolutionary connections to apes, it wasn't unreasonable for Hollywood to assume that's what early humans would sound like. But an examination of Neanderthal tracheal anatomy suggests they probably had high-pitched raspy voices. In fact, by looking at the trachea of Neanderthals, scientists have determined that not only did they speak, But they did so using sounds comparable to those used by contemporary speakers. Neanderthals, equipped with bigger voice boxes, likely had vocal cords and a hyoid, the bone that supports the tongue, that sit forward of where they sit in modern humans. The shape of a Neanderthal's vocal tract, ribcage, skull, and nasal cavity increased the pitch and added power to their voice. So Neanderthals likely had very powerful, high-pitched, raspy voices. Basically, a whole society of Axl Roses. Or would that be Axl's Rose? Another thing you seldom see prehistoric people do in fiction is get around in vehicles. And while it is fun to imagine cavemen running errands in those Flintstone cars you have to power with your feet, it doesn't really feel like something the writers drew from actual history. But that's why it's so surprising to learn that evidence suggests Neanderthals may have used boats before modern humans, somewhere in the area of 100,000 years ago. Now before you ask, no one has ever found a Neanderthal boat or anything like that yet. So how do we know? Researchers actually based their assertions on Mousterian tools, stone implements used by Neanderthals found on three Mediterranean islands. It's possible Neanderthals could have swum to the islands, which range from 5 to 12 kilometers away, but that does not explain the presence of the tools. Comparable stone tools found on Crete date to 130,000 years ago, which possibly places Neanderthals on the water even earlier. Is anyone suddenly itching for a Neanderthals of the Caribbean movie? Back in Neanderthal times, they didn't have much in the way of entertainment. So people didn't have a whole lot to do at night but gaze up at the sky. And about 70,000 years ago, a red dwarf star passed extremely close to our solar system. Extremely close being a relative term when discussing astronomical distances. But this red dwarf was so close that it actually passed through the solar system's outer shell. known as the Oort cloud. There, the red dwarf, also known as Scholz's star, actually disrupted the gravitational movement of comets and asteroids. The disruption, which is still detectable today, shifted the trajectories of some of the 340 objects in the solar system to a hyperbolic orbit. The whole thing may have been visible to early humans and Neanderthals. And while it's tempting to think it would have been like some prehistoric version of a dark side of the moon laser show, the Scholz's star would have simply look like a small red light in the sky. In modern English, the term Neanderthal connotes a lack of intelligence, a sense of barbarism, and an overall harsh vibe. But a reassessment of Neanderthal skulls tells a different story. It seems that Neanderthals actually had a large occipital brain volume, the part of the brain used for visual processing. The frontal lobe of a Neanderthal brain was smaller than that of a modern human, suggesting a difference in social cognition, but not necessarily of cognitive inferiority. In other words, Neanderthals had significantly larger brains than modern humans in some respects, and our assumed intellectual superiority is up for debate. In fact, while the decline of Neanderthals is often attributed to their lack of intellectual ability, archaeologists have been quick to point out there's not really any evidence for that assumption, which would mean modern humans prevailed even though we might actually have been dumber. Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time someone got a promotion they didn't deserve. Neanderthals must have really been into taking care of each other, because millions of years after they disappeared, we still have evidence of their empathy. In an Iraqi cave, the remains of a Neanderthal known as Shanidar 1, though we hope his actual name was something like Grog, revealed both physical deformities and deafness. Yet the man lived in prehistoric times until the age of 40. That indicates he was supported, fed, and cared for, even though he was likely unable to contribute to hunting and foraging. Similarly, the Neanderthal skull SH14, which belonged to a child, shows signs of a brain deformity that could very well have led to abandonment or worse. Instead, the young child was cared for, living to be about five years old. This same compassion is also seen in how Neanderthals cared for the dead, with evidence suggesting some Neanderthals were buried according to specific burial rites. So maybe the Flintstones wasn't that far off, although archaeologists have yet to discover any evidence of dinosaur-powered appliances. Now, before your heart gets too warm from all that taking care of each other stuff, we should probably mention that Neanderthals also liked to eat each other. It's not entirely clear how the 12 Neanderthals whose remains were found in Sidrón Cave in Spain died, but it is clear that their bones show signs of cannibalism. Skeletons reveal six children and six adults, perhaps a family, had cut marks on many bones, including skulls and mandibles. Comparable evidence has been found among Neanderthal remains found in Belgium and France, alongside evidence of bones used to make tools to touch up the edges of flints to resharpen them. Hey, it was a Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world. Speaking of eating, despite being associated with meat-based diets, Neanderthals actually ate all kinds of food. In fact, by assessing dental plaque and teeth erosion from Neanderthal skulls, scholars discovered mouth microbiomes with much more diversity than previously believed. Seriously, they were not picky eaters. As it turns out, Neanderthals' diets were mostly the result of their environments. So while Neanderthals in northern Europe ate a lot of meat, their counterparts in Spain relied on foraged nuts, tree bark, and plants. When it came to Neanderthals selecting a menu, it was more about what was available than preference. Sort of like every time you've ever eaten at a Long John Silver's. This also means that the so-called paleo diet isn't actually based on anything paleolithic. It actually came from 19th century dieting advocates. Next, they're going to tell us a beach didn't invent the South Beach diet. When it came time to eat, far from the stereotypical image of a caveman clubbing stuff to death, evidence suggests that Neanderthals were actually highly skilled hunters who used stealth and cunning to their advantage. In fact, experts believe that Neanderthals approached their prey until they were very close, and then thrust, not through, their spears at the animals, most likely from an underhand angle. This confrontational way of hunting required stealth, discipline, careful planning, concealment, and close cooperation between individual hunters. Also, incredible cardio. Evidence also shows they used torches and nets to hunt birds in caves by night. It was a fairly sophisticated use of tools that at least has to make you wonder if maybe they really did have those Flintstone cars. Wilma!