Homo sapiens were quite unremarkable until they met the highly sophisticated Neanderthals. Assimilating the Neanderthal led to the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution since it caused a drastic increase in Homo sapiens’ brain size and consequently brought about their rapid evolution by combining the creativity, resourcefulness and inquisitive spirit of Neanderthals with the ambition and networking skills of Homo sapiens, thereby creating modern humans.
The bias against them has led most scientists so far to look at the facts and interpret them unfavourably for the Neanderthals, and archaeologists tend to attribute inventions and milestones to them only if nobody else was around at the time. Furthermore, Neanderthals are only being compared to modern humans (who are the result of our interbreeding), never to their Homo sapiens contemporaries, in order to justify the notion of their inferiority. But the more evidence emerges, the more difficult it becomes to portray these people, who happened to have a larger brain than any other hominins (including ourselves), as naive savages.
Neanderthals emerged in modern-day Spain 430,000 years ago
and spread over most of Eurasia. This coincides with the Marine Isotope Stage 11, an interglacial that began 424,000 years ago and during which temperatures in Europe became less hostile for humans. The interglacial lasted for 50,000 years after which the next glacial period gripped the continent.
The Schöningen spears, found in present-day Germany and also made by Neanderthals or proto-Neanderthals between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago, already demonstrate the cognitive abilities and co-operative skills they would later pass on to modern humans.
Neanderthals looked after their sick and old (demonstrating that they had already evolved beyond capitalism) and
buried their dead. There are also indications they might have
laid them to rest with gifts or flowers, and the Shanidar Cave in Kurdistan is thought to be a Neanderthal graveyard.
While vegetables seem to have been a regular side dish, Neanderthals were carnivores who specialised in big game such as bison, mammoths, lions and bears. Many of them lived in the mountains where they
cornered herd animals from which they chose their prey. Some of them were also quite partial to seafood, including dolphins and seals.
Of course coordinating ambushes requires organisation, and organisation requires complex language. Fortunately their hyoid bone was located in a similar position to ours, and their FOXP2 gene was identical to ours, which means they not only had the need but also the
ability to speak in full sentences - once again, long before Homo sapiens even came into existence. This similar gene variation is usually explained by crediting it to the last common ancestor; however, since it is only present in modern humans and not in pre-contact Homo sapiens, it is more likely that we inherited it directly from the Neanderthals.
Their stone tools were of the Mousterian class from which they developed the
Châtelperronian industry, and they also may have used
projectile spears; it seems they produced wooden tools as well which, sadly, don’t fossilise. In 2005 it was discovered that in order to attach stone spearheads to wooden shafts, or knives to handles, they developed a strong adhesive from the heated bark of birch trees in a technique
that has not been duplicated with the resources available to them until 2023, making them the first known people to have employed chemical synthesis at least 200,000 years ago.
They
lit fires (in contrast, there is no evidence of Homo sapiens having been able to make fire, rather than merely use and control it, prior to Neanderthal contact), and while most of the known Neanderthals lived in caves, some of them
constructed tents from mammoth bones. They also cleared forests for settlements.
The Neanderthals were artists and appreciated beauty. They adorned themselves with
jewellery, ornaments and
feathers and created
cave art.
Neanderthals are the inventors of
string,
hearths,
herbal remedies,
the lissoir,
make-up, the hashtag and the
world’s first musical instrument, a bone flute
(and this is what it sounded like).
In the recently discovered Bruniquel Cave in France, in a chamber not reached by sunlight, Neanderthals had constructed two ring structures from stalagmites around 176,000 years ago, demonstrating that they not only were able to build but also had developed a means of artificial lighting. The purpose of the structures is still debated; one possible explanation is that they were built by two families who spent their nights away from the glacial temperatures outside and who built them to protect their privacy as well as to keep the heat of their fireplaces in. Traces of fire on top of the stalagmites also indicate that they may have been used for illumination purposes.
It also appears that Neanderthals were
the first human seafarers, at least 100,000 years ago. Their Mousterian tools have been discovered on Crete, an island that is separated from the mainland by 40 km of open sea (even during glacial periods).
In the Contrebandiers Cave at the coast of present-day Morocco, dated to between 120,000 to 90,000 years ago, a number of bone tools for the processing of clothes, including one made from a cetacean tooth, were discovered which are highly reminiscent of Neanderthal technology, even though researchers assume they were produced by Homo sapiens. However, back then consistent use of formal bone tools was quite rare amongst Homo sapiens, and the presence of sea mammal remains in sediments associated with Homo sapiens in North Africa was unheard of.
We (i.e. modern humans) tend to believe that early Homo sapiens shared our traits of adaptability and resilience, but in fact only a few of them did. With the Marine Isotope Stage 6, the ice age took a grip on Africa 195,000 years ago, leaving most of the continent uninhabitable and killing off the vast majority of Homo sapiens. All living humans descend from one female survivor of that bottleneck event ('Mitochondrial Eve') who, according to genetic evidence, lived around 150,000 years ago; all other Homo sapiens lineages went extinct.
Between 57,000 and 48,000 years ago (when the Sahara became inhabitable and traversable again) the first Homo sapiens arrived in Europe. They are the only known diaphoraphobic species, and they probably were already used to killing off any people who were different from them - and it is most likely that they had to flee to Europe during the peak of the ice age because they had been displaced by other Homo sapiens themselves.
The Aurignacian Industry which started around 43,000 years ago demonstrates a drastic advance in toolmaking and artistic expression, including the first figurines.
The fact that all living humans carry Neanderthal DNA does not mean that Neanderthal genes reached all populations of Homo sapiens; it merely proves that only populations with Neanderthal DNA survived. It appears that Neanderthals saved Homo sapiens from extinction.
Assimilating the Neanderthal caused a dramatic increase in the brain size of Homo sapiens. However, after the last Neanderthal had been assimilated, Homo sapiens only had each other to reproduce with; this has led to the ongoing gradual decrease of their brain size since the Cro-Magnons or EEMH (European early modern humans). And while some scientists take a size-doesn’t-matter-unless-mine-is-larger attitude, others are concerned about this.
In the past most people considered Neanderthals somewhat like a parody of mankind, the hillbillies of the Upper Pleistocene. Today we know better, or at least we should.
Even though the physique of the Neanderthals had made them more resistant to cold weather, human life in these conditions would have been
impossible without clothes, and an animal hide thrown across one’s shoulders simply wouldn’t do the trick.
The oldest bone tools for smoothing leather were found at Castel di Guido near present-day Rome and dated to 400,000 years ago. Back then only Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis were around, and there is no indication in the fossil record of the latter ever having worn clothes. Furthermore, it appears that Neanderthals evolved from Homo heidelbergensis, so these tools most certainly were made by either Neanderthals or proto-Neanderthals.
It appears that Homo sapiens learnt to bury their dead from Neanderthals (who already did so at least 130,000 years ago, but who possibly had continued the practice from their direct ancestors throughout their existence).
The earliest known burials of Homo sapiens took place around 100,000 years ago in the Qafzeh and Es Skhul Caves in the Levant, an area they would have shared with Neanderthals, by a group who preceded the large out-of-Africa migration by tens of thousands of years. They may simply have copied the custom from their neighbours, as well as their Mousterian industry, but there is more to it. Although classified as Homo sapiens in the meantime, they were initially believed to be Neanderthals due to their distinct Neanderthal features, such as their brow ridges and projecting facial profiles. This suggests that these people were already the result of interbreeding, and their disappearance would indicate either assimilation by Neanderthals or their return to Africa due to the cooling climate. The second scenario would also account for the presence of Neanderthal DNA in African populations. (Unfortunately it hasn’t been possible to extract DNA from them to settle the question of their species.)
They were also the first known hominins to have employed complex cooking methods, involving multiple ingredients and several steps of food preparation.
With this in mind it might be worth considering the possibility of Neanderthals having crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa; this would be another possible explanation for the presence of Neanderthal DNA in African populations as well as for the fact that interbreeding of the two species already occurred 100,000 years ago, long before Homo sapiens left Africa. (Imagine the Neanderthals in Gibraltar: an inquisitive, adventurous and seafaring people who could see another continent across the water. It is almost impossible to believe they didn't explore it.)
One possibility is that some Neanderthals indeed crossed the strait of Gibraltar into Africa where they may have shared their technology with local Homo sapiens and gradually been absorbed into their population. Another possibility is that these tools were made by Homo sapiens who had already met Neanderthals, probably in the Levant, and learned their technology.
Yet Homo sapiens, who had not significantly evolved at that stage, would not have stood a chance against those who already inhabited the area: Neanderthals were physically stronger, familiar with the terrain, had advanced technologies and knew how to survive in a frozen world approaching another low in global temperatures. Fortunately for the newcomers they were also more welcoming of different cultures than Homo sapiens.
Therefore it is most likely (albeit difficult to imagine in today’s world) that both parties established friendly relationships and joined forces right from the start.
The Neanderthals would have taught Homo sapiens how to hunt, gather food, light fires, build shelters and make clothes and tools, and the large numbers of Homo sapiens would have made their hunts of large prey such as mammoths more effective.
Not all Homo sapiens who arrived in Europe were lucky enough to cross paths with Neanderthals, though, and those who didn't found themselves unable to cope with the harsh conditions and went extinct.
Generally, even in this day and age and despite the information we have now, Neanderthals are still played off against Homo sapiens when facts are presented, despite growing evidence that they weren’t competitors but collaborators and lovers.
We know that
all of today’s humans have Neanderthal ancestors. Taking into account that the overall Neanderthal population was quite small (it is estimated that Homo sapiens outnumbered them 10:1), it is reasonable to conclude that they were
entirely assimilated into Homo sapiens (seeing that such a small group found their way into all our DNA suggests they must have been quite attractive), to the benefit of both (well, maybe not so much for the Neanderthal): combining the creativity, resourcefulness and inquisitive spirit of the Neanderthals with the ambition and networking skills of Homo sapiens led to the
Great Leap Forward (also known as the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution), an unstoppable force that conquered the world, beginning with the Cro-Magnon culture 45,000 years ago. Around the same time Homo sapiens also acquired their current brain organisation.
Scientists assume that this industry was the work of modern humans, and while I agree that post-contact Homo sapiens are the most likely suspects, I imagine that it started out as a collaboration of Neanderthals with those who had already commenced to assimilate them. After all, cultural exchange boosts creativity by combining different ideas, skills and knowledge.
(Considering that modern humans, due to the Neanderthal assimilation, are entirely different from the misnamed extinct pre-contact Homo sapiens, it might be time to rename the latter in order to distinguish them from us, maybe as Homo socialis.)
There are two possible reasons for the extinction of populations without Neanderthal genes. The first is that they simply weren't adaptable enough to survive in the long run, like many other hominins. The second is that, due to Homo sapiens' genocidal nature, different populations killed each other off, and that those with Neanderthal ancestors prevailed because of their intellectual advantage.
And it is not the amount of Neanderthal DNA we carry that matters but the type of it; what makes the intellectual difference between pre-contact Homo sapiens and modern humans could be down to a handful of Neanderthal genes, or even less.
This theory is part of the interdisciplinary Autistic Neanderthal Theory. However, since the autism part of the theory seems to distract from the paleoanthropological aspects, I decided to publish this part separately.