| Title | Lack of Culture, Not Brains, Probably Did in Neanderthals | |
| Date | Saturday February 06 2016, @05:31PM | |
| Author | cmn32480 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the oog-drag-girl-to-cave-by-hair dept. | ||
What happened to the Neanderthals? They left their African homes and migrated into Europe 350,000 to 600,000 years ago, well ahead of modern humans, who showed up only about 45,000 years ago. But within about 5,000 years of our arrival, the indigenous Neanderthals had disappeared.
Anthropologists have proposed that they may have been done in by terrible epidemics or an inability to adapt to climate changes of the era, but a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1524861113], now suggest culture wars of a sort might have spelled the end.
The researchers came to their conclusion after creating mathematical models that demonstrated that it wasn't necessary for the humans to outnumber the locals in order to prevail. A smaller band of humans with a more highly developed level of culture could eventually push out the Neanderthals, the models showed.
The edge wasn't just raw intelligence. Archeological findings have shown that brain size was essentially the same for humans and Neanderthals, and recent paleo-anthropological studies suggest that Neanderthals were capable of a range of advanced intellectual behaviors typically associated with early modern humans.
Original study. The role of culture in competitiveness has been debated by many, including Max Weber. The question is far from settled. Also, there have been other recent studies that suggest Neanderthals were better tool makers and had more culture than had previously been supposed.
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