14 DAY TRIAL // Researcher Paola Villa with the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States claims that, contrary to popular opinion, Neanderthals were neither stupid nor primitive, at least not when modern humans are taken as a reference point.
Consequently, the theory that they became extinct because of the ancestors of modern humans, who supposedly were much brighter, does not really make much sense, Paola Villa goes on to argue.
In a paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal PLOS ONE, the University of Colorado Boulder specialist details that, according to evidence uncovered thus far, Neanderthals thrived between 350,000 and 40,000 years ago in Europe and Asia.
It is said that they became extinct shortly after our ancestors, who researchers have labeled anatomically modern humans, arrived in Europe all the way from Africa. There are many who think that the Neanderthals' demise was due to the fact that these new arrivals were of a superior intelligence.
More precisely, it has been argued that these anatomically modern humans were more efficient when it came to hunting, they communicated better with one another and were capable of quickly adapting to new environmental conditions.
Together with Wil Roebroeks with the Leiden University in the Netherlands, Paola Villa took the time to compile and analyze information provided by recent studies on Neanderthals. The researchers found that, contrary to expectations, there was no evidence to suggest that Neanderthals were in any way inferior to our ancestors.
Specifically, the University of Colorado Boulder specialist and fellow researcher Wil Roebroeks claim that there is no evidence to indicate that, when compared to anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals were poorer communicators, lousy hunters, or had a narrow diet that might have had a negative impact on their survival chances.
“The evidence for cognitive inferiority is simply not there. What we are saying is that the conventional view of Neanderthals is not true,” Paola Villa commented on the findings of this latest investigation into Neanderthals and their ways.
Archaeological evidence indicates that Neanderthals used to hunt in groups and made the most of their surrounding landscape when trying to kill a bison or some other large animal. They fed not just on meat but also on wild olives, pistachios and the like, and were no strangers to body paint and ornaments, meaning that they did have a culture.
The specialists believe that the only reason why Neanderthals are widely considered as dimwitted or with an inferior intelligence is due to the fact that too many studies compared them not to their contemporaries, but to modern humans who roamed the Earth later on, i.e. in the Upper Paleolithic period.
“Researchers were comparing Neanderthals not to their contemporaries on other continents but to their successors. It would be like comparing the performance of Model T Fords, widely used in America and Europe in the early part of the last century, to the performance of a modern-day Ferrari and conclude that Henry Ford was cognitively inferior to Enzo Ferrari,” Paola Villa explained.
Now that the theory that Neanderthals were driven to extinction by brighter anatomically modern humans coming from Africa is off the table, specialists say that, although the causes behind their demise are quite complex, it is likely that interbreeding resulting in reduced fertility also had a say in the matter.
They further argue that, since Neanderthals used to live in fairly small groups, odds are that this increased their chances to be assimilated by the new arrivals.