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A new study of a Neanderthal child's skeleton has suggested that Neanderthal brains developed more slowly than previous studies had indicated:
A new study shows that Neanderthal brains developed more slowly than ours. An analysis of a Neanderthal child's skeleton suggests that its brain was still developing at a time when the brains of modern human children are fully formed. This is further evidence that this now extinct human was not more brutish and primitive than our species. The research has been published in the journal Science.
Until now it had been thought that we were the only species whose brains develop slowly. Unlike other apes and more primitive humans modern humans have an extended period of childhood lasting several years. This is because it takes time and energy to develop our large brain. Previous studies of Neanderthal remains indicated that they developed more quickly than modern humans - suggesting that their brains might be less sophisticated.
But a team led by Prof Antonio Rosas of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid found that if anything, Neanderthal brains may develop more slowly than ours. "It was a surprise," he told BBC News. "When we started the study we were expecting something similar to the previous studies," he told BBC News.
Also at Science Magazine, NYT, and Discover Magazine.
The growth pattern of Neandertals, reconstructed from a juvenile skeleton from El Sidrón (Spain) (open, DOI: 10.1126/science.aan6463) (DX)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Sunday September 24 2017, @06:02AM (1 child)
Probably not. Were they more intelligent than us, they would have developed advanced society much quicker than we did. If they did half as well as we did over the thousands of years of their existence, we wouldn't have been able to wipe them out.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday September 24 2017, @05:10PM
Not true, because they lived in smaller groups that were more widely dispersed. They evolved that way to survive when the glaciers moved into Europe. Similar adaptations occurred among Sapiens tribes that later moved into the Arctic regions, but they had by then a more advanced technology, and weren't cut off from the gene flow with tribes living further south.
Living in small groups tends to retard cultural change even if you are slightly more intelligent. (I also disagree with the concept of "general intelligence", but that's only slightly relevant here.) If a Neanderthal invents something and shows it around, a wandering tradr may carry it elsewhere. When he visits a CroMagnon site he'll carry it to a lot more people than when he visits a Neanderthal site. He'll also trade with more customers. So ideas/artifacts would naturally tend to travel towards CroMagnon sites, and traders would prefer to go between them, only stopping by Neanderthal sites in passing. The idea of "network effect" may also apply.
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