Neanderthals Were Not So Stupid After All

A new research carried out by the University of Colorado Denver, shows that this species of early humans was able to adapt, innovate and create a technology of their own, like modern humans do.

For the last fifty years, scientists believed that the only reason Neanderthals developed “modern” tools was because they got in contact with Homo sapiens, and they were actually thick-skulled, primitive “cavemen” surpassed by more advanced modern humans arriving from Africa to Europe.

The scientist who contradicted this long accepted theory is Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at UC Denver.

“Basically, I am rehabilitating Neanderthals,” he said, as “they were far more resourceful than we have given them credit for.”

He studied Neanderthal sites throughout Italy for the past seven years, and he especially focused on the Uluzzian culture.

Scientists discovered that 42,000 years ago, in northern Italy appeared the Aurignacian culture, attributed to modern Homo sapiens, while central Italy remained occupied by Neanderthals of the Mousterian culture (who had been living there for at least 100,000 years).

At the same time, in the south of Italy, arose a new culture, also thought to be created by Neanderthals, the very different Uluzzians.

Riel-Salvatore concluded that Neanderthals were able to adapt after he had found projectile points, ochre, bone tools, ornaments and possible evidence of fishing and small game hunting at Uluzzian archeological sites in southern Italy.

Neanderthals did not have such innovations, so the archeologist suggested that the Uluzzians adapted and evolved differently, most likely because of a change in the local climate, in an are completely separated from modern humans.

“My conclusion is that if the Uluzzian is a Neanderthal culture it suggests that contacts with modern humans are not necessary to explain the origin of this new behavior.

“This stands in contrast to the ideas of the past 50 years that Neanderthals had to be acculturated to humans to come up with this technology," said Riel-Salvatore.

“When we show Neanderthals could innovate on their own it casts them in a new light; it 'humanizes' them if you will.”

he explains that thousands of years ago, southern Italy became open and arid and the Neanderthals living there must have been forced to adapt or risked extinction.

This could be a reason why they started using darts or arrows to hunt smaller animals, as the increasingly larger ones they traditionally hunted, became scarcer.

“The fact that Neanderthals could adapt to new conditions and innovate shows they are culturally similar to us,” the anthropologist said.

This research will be published in December's Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.