Evidence to indicate that Neanderthals were likely more intelligent than humans

[TylerDurden]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/new-finding-suggests-neanderthals-had-more-advanced-tools-than-early-humans/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtUSr_WQFUo

http://www.metro.us/news/neanderthals-smarter-than-us/tmWmep---cbIqlMPHnsWo/

Another attempt at explanation:-

http://archive.news.softpedia.com/news/Neanderthals-were-too-smart-to-survive-15264.shtml

Given that hominid intelligence seems to have increased along with increasing brain-size, the fact that Neanderthals had larger brains than early humans does sort of suggest that they were more intelligent than even Cro-Magnon-era humans, let alone modern humans. Admittedly, the above quickly googled links are not in and of themselves all-conclusive, but there is a logic to the claims.

[TylerDurden]

Scientists now suggest that modern humans have c.40% of the Neanderthal genome spread amongst them:-

http://www.livescience.com/42933-humans-carry-20-percent-neanderthal-genes.html

[JeuneKoq]

Given that hominid intelligence seems to have increased along with increasing brain-size, the fact that Neanderthals had larger brains than early humans does sort of suggest that they were more intelligent than even Cro-Magnon-era humans, let alone modern humans. Admittedly, the above quickly googled links are not in and of themselves all-conclusive, but there is a logic to the claims.

I haven't read those articles you submitted just yet, but I read I while ago in the French science magazine "Science & Avenir" an article about Neanderthals and how they compared with Cro-Magnon. Apparently they did have a bigger brain -kinda in an oval, rugby ball shape- while Cro had a slightly smaller, more round-shaped brain. However they explained how the neuronal connections in one another's brain were different, the Neanderthal's being more "primitive", while Cro-Magnon's neuronal connection where more complex, thus making them "smarter" than the former(but smart how?). I think it had to do with heightened social skills and cooperation with others, or better abstract mind, but I'm not entirely sure. Will try to find that magazine again.

Also I doubt that if they were that much more intelligent than Cro's, they would've had their place taken by the southern invader...Plus they where apparently stronger too.

[JeuneKoq]

Just finished reading those articles, interesting stuff.
 
-So Neanderthals could've gone instinct because they where too few, which led to low fertility by inbreeding, driving them to mate with Homo Sapiens.
-They had better tools for some time, then Sapiens innovated quickly and finally had the necessary technology to outweigh their rivals.*
-They couldn't communicate info as efficiently with speech as Sapien because of their larynx and tong placement, which could be a reason why we outplayed them in the end.

I'll add another reason why Sapien outlived Nean, as explained in the "Born to Run" book by Christopher McDougall:

The environment where Nean evolved changed in a way that made their usual hunting method inefficient compared to Sapien's persistent running technique. Forests became prairies, so hiding behind trees to encircle your prey quickly became a lot less successful, whereas running down your prey to exhaustion revealed itself to be a much better suited approach. Sapiens, being faster, more persistent in effort than it's rival, and being used to this way of hunting coming from the African plains, were able to get the food they needed, while Neans quickly started growing hungry...

However it's important to be reminded that intelligence comes in various forms, and while Neanderthals supposedly had bigger brains than Cro-Magnons, the latter might've had a better structured/organized one. It would be like comparing a big mother board from an early 2000's computer to a more compact mother board from a present-day PC.

*note: these are still speculations, as the author pointed out himself, so it is not certain who-taught-who how to make these tools, and if those tools were really left in a Nean or a Sapiens home.

[TylerDurden]

I suspect the above ideas are unlikely for various reasons:-

1) It is possible for a less intelligent species to outcompete another more intelligent species. This happens in Nature all the time. Plus, if the Neanderthals lived in much harsher climates than early modern humans it is not surprising as to why early modern humans were more numerous. Also, the articles suggest that the Neanderthals developed complex tools long before the advent of Cro-Magnon Man and taught the latter how to make them.

2) The idea that early modern humans had more efficient brains  than Neanderthals, albeit smaller ones, does not compute. I think all palaeoanthropologists agree that apemen became more intelligent, not less so, when their average brain-size increased over the eons. It is true that hominid brain-size has been decreasing since the Neolithic era, but a perfectly valid explanation has been given for that, namely that domestication of any species, whether human or otherwise, always leads to smaller brains and correspondingly lower intelligence:-
https://www.pelicanbooks.com/the-domesticated-brain/preface

(Note that wolves have been shown to be more intelligent than domesticated dogs in various studies. Unsurprising as natural selection would kill off the less intelligent wolves, but also domestication means lower testosterone which means smaller brains).

Not sure re the speech claim:- until recently, it was claimed that Neanderthals could not even speak, so I'm a bit leery of  quasi-"stupid Neanderthal" claims like that.

[JeuneKoq]

2) The idea that early modern humans had more efficient brains  than Neanderthals, albeit smaller ones, does not compute. I think all palaeoanthropologists agree that apemen became more intelligent, not less so, when their average brain-size increased over the eons.

I was able to find the magazine I was telling you about. It's a year old and this is what they say (roughly translated by me):

"Both Neanderthal and Sapien infants are born with a sugar loaf shaped skull. Still only little Sapiens enters a phase of "globulizing" (globularisation : in French) after their first year, thus acquiring a spherical-shaped skull, according to the Max Planck institutes recherches. Later, both Neans' and Sapiens' cerebrum developp in a similar manner. However, more than the size of the brain, it is the internal organization/arrangement that matters: the difference in brain shape could modify the neuronal and synaptic "cabling" during the brain's development."

This is the literal translation so hopefully it is still understandable.

Still the author agrees that this remains speculation, and quotes an expert that speaks regarding Nean's social skills and eye vision:

"It is utopian  to believe that from an endocranian, it is possible to tell if the person had better vision or not, or if it  had more or less friends!"


Now here's some good news for anyone that uses their nose to pick the appropriate food of the moment:

"The brain structures that receives olfactory signals are approximatively 12% more developed in H. Sapiens than those of H.Neanderthal [...] Sapiens had a better sens of smell than Nean. [...] Measures of temporal lobes concluded that Sapien's olfactory bulbs where bigger."

As expected they didn't talk about it's use in finding and selecting food.

Not sure re the speech claim:- until recently, it was claimed that Neanderthals could not even speak, so I'm a bit leery of  quasi-"stupid Neanderthal" claims like that.

Their's no point in making Nean. appear more advanced than he was either. Plus being capable of speech is already quite noticeable in itself.

[TylerDurden]

No Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon brain ever survived to the present even in part, so I suspect these claims re olfactory superiority in early modern humans is unlikely. Other claims re Neanderthals was that the bigger visual cortex parts and the movement-related parts  of the Neanderthal brain were the real reason for the increased size of the Neanderthal brain, supposedly allowing them to see more clearly across the tundra and move around better or something:-

http://www.tested.com/science/life/454072-why-bigger-neanderthal-brains-didnt-make-them-smarter-humans/

What I find also of interest is that the size of the Neanderthal and early modern human brain at birth are reportedly  both the same - the idea that a larger brain-size at birth would make birth impossible due to the limits on the size of the vagina. However, it was stated that the brains of the Neanderthal and early modern human continued to increase at the same rate until, eventually brain-growth of the early modern human stopped completely, but the Neanderthal brain would continue in growth until it stopped at c. 1600 cc on average. This apparently means that not only did Neanderthals have a longer path to full maturity as an adult compared to the Cro-Magnon let alone modern humans, but also means that they had a naturally longer lifespan than early modern humans or us. So, it is likely that Neanderthals would have started to exceed human average intelligence while somewhere  in their teens.

[JeuneKoq]

Tyler, it doesn't make sense to say that better sense of smell in Cro-Magon cannot be proven because their is no brain to study, and then go on claiming alleged facts about Nean's brain as compared to Sapiens!


Anyways, brain is not entirely needed to interpret a specie's mental capacity. Specific remaining parts of the skull will do.
So according to these people's researches, measure of the temporal lobes indicates that Cro-Magnon had bigger olfactory bulbs than Neanderthal. Thus a more developed sense of smell.

However, there are certain factors regarding Sapien's uniquely shaped skull that tends to point out to the idea that Nean's bigger brain wouldn't necessarily indicate greater intelligence. In fact Neanderthals's were born with a streched-out, oval brain, and it would remain this way all throughout their life. This brain structure is similar to those more primitive forms of humans, such as homo Erectus, and the ones before that. Oval brains are found all throughout the animal kingdom (chimp, dog, horse, etc...).
Homo Sapiens is also born with the same oval-shaped brain as Nean. What is unique about Sapien's is that the brain reshapes itself into a sphere after about a year of existence.
Spherical brain is exclusive to the H Sapiens specie, as no other animal on earth bear this kind of brain structure.
Due to it's unique shape, the synaptic and neuronal network of H Sapiens is also different from Nean. One can only assume that this uniquely formed organ that is the Sapien's brain comes to be representative of an evolution, a progression in regard of those more primitive form.

That is to say even though Nean carried a bigger brain, it is most likely that Sapien's outperformed it due to it's unique, more "advanced" structure and networking.

Also their is the concept that Neans needed a bigger brain simply because they had more muscles, organs and body mass to command than Sapiens, who were generally lighter and more slender. Nean was in average 30% heavier than Cro-Magnon (76kg against 58,2kg for Sapien).

As a mean of comparison, sperm whale's brain are about five times heavier than human's (7.8 kg). However these whale's brain functions are almost solely focused on commanding their gigantic body. They're not smarter than us for having huge brains.

What I find also of interest is that the size of the Neanderthal and early modern human brain at birth are reportedly  both the same - the idea that a larger brain-size at birth would make birth impossible due to the limits on the size of the vagina. However, it was stated that the brains of the Neanderthal and early modern human continued to increase at the same rate until, eventually brain-growth of the early modern human stopped completely, but the Neanderthal brain would continue in growth until it stopped at c. 1600 cc on average. This apparently means that not only did Neanderthals have a longer path to full maturity as an adult compared to the Cro-Magnon let alone modern humans, but also means that they had a naturally longer lifespan than early modern humans or us. So, it is likely that Neanderthals would have started to exceed human average intelligence while somewhere  in their teens.

This claim is wrong. Researcher Tanya Smith from Harvard actually discovered that teeth growth of Neanderthals happened much faster than of Sapiens, showing that Sapiens had a longer youth and development phase than Neanderthals.
http://earthsky.org/human-world/tanya-smith-neanderthal-teeth-reveal-short-childhood

First picture Left: Neanderthal brain; Right: Homo Sapiens/ Cro-Magnon brain

Second picture Differences between a Sapiens child's brain, and a Neanderthal child's.

[JeuneKoq]

Here's an article on Sapien's better sense of smell:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2011/december/did-a-good-sense-of-smell-give-us-an-evolutionary-advantage107027.html

[TylerDurden]

The better sense of smell claim does not mean that early modern humans were "more advanced/evolved" than Neanderthals, in fact it proves the exact opposite. You see, other primates have been shown to have a far better sense of smell than modern humans, yet were substantially less "evolved" in the brain than early modern humans, thus indicating that, as hominid brains grew, the sense of smell got reduced:-

http://news.sciencemag.org/2003/02/why-monkeys-smell-better-people

thus indicating that the Neanderthals, with their  lesser sense of smell, were more advanced than early modern humans. The idea being that, instead of investing resources into a sense that was no longer needed, the Neanderthals instead used resources to build a better, more complex brain than early modern humans.

Hmm, one thing I overlooked:- I have noticed that my own sense of smell is lessened in effectiveness when in really cold environments. Since Neanderthals mostly lived in  glacially-cold areas, perhaps they needed their sense of smell a lot less?

I am still very leery of this notion that just looking at a skull can determine the size of a particular part of the brain, but then I am no palaeoarchaeologist. I mean, as an example, someone who is blind from birth is highly likely,  to have the visual cortex of his/her brain devoted to the other 4 senses or some other  function of the brain, rather than sticking to vision which cannot even be used. I doubt that the shape of the skull would change to reflect such a change in the brain. Similiarly, if  a caveman had been afflicted with anosmia like his entire tribe, I doubt that looking at his skull would reveal this.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080908-neanderthal-brain.html

The above article shows that Neanderthals had a later sexual maturity than humans, thus disproving your claim re teeth. This makes sense if one assumes that Neanderthals were more intelligent than early modern humans since they needed further development of the brain.

The average weight cited by you is not necessarily correct as the number of Neanderthal fossils is pretty low. Here is a website giving a much lower figure for Neanderthal average weight of 65kg for males and 54kg for females:-

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis

Also, of course, the brain-size to body mass ratio, does have some inherent flaws in it. For example,crows and ravens seem more intelligent than their tiny ratio allows.

The claim you made re the teeth is actually highly controversial and heavily disputed:-
http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2010/11/neandertal-children-developed-fast-track

But, he adds, although it now seems that Neanderthal teeth grew faster, the "jury is still out" on whether they actually reached adulthood faster than H. sapiens.

Part of the problem is that there are no definitive studies showing whether children whose teeth erupt early also reach puberty and adulthood faster than those whose teeth erupt later, says neurobiologist Christoph Zollikofer of the University of Zurich in Switzerland. And more data are needed to show the precise magnitude of the difference in growth rate between Neandertals and us, says ASU paleoanthropologist Jay Kelley.

So, teeth evidence is not really good enough.


Also, one researcher has shown that there is evidence to suggest that there was an extra growth spurt in the Neanderthal face, which presumably affected the teeth, so evidence of teeth is not necessarily a sign that humans had a longer adolescent phase :-
http://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A2989/datastream/OBJ/view

The author above is of the view that Neanderthals and early modern humans had the same adolescent phases in terms of duration.

This article  below claims that Neanderthals had roughly similiar durations as regards brain-growth as early modern humans. That is, Neanderthals and early modern humans started out with the same size brain, on average, at birth, but the Neanderthal brain would then grow at a much faster rate for the same duration as early modern humans' brains, until in the end Neanderthal brains ended up larger than early modern humans' brains.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908203013.htm


This article does suggest a more likely explanation for Neanderthals not being as good at surviving as early modern humans. It is pointed out that Neanderthal women had their first child later as a result of having to cope with larger brains. Given the harsh climates as well, as a factor, a simple explanation is that while Neanderthals were smarter than early modern humans, they had fewer children than the latter, and so were outbred by them over time:-

The large brain brought consequences for the life history (pregnancy, puberty, life expectancy) of the Neanderthals. For children to develop a large brain in a short space of time, they need additional energy and nutrition from the mothers. The only mothers capable of providing this were those who had developed the necessary constitution themselves. They therefore had their first child a little later. If one now compares the entire life history of an average Neanderthal with that of a modern human being, a picture emerges which deviates significantly from existing doctrine: the development of the Neanderthals was just as slow as that of modern people, if not even a little slower.

taken from:-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908203013.htm

This, of course, is the more likely explanation since the interest in interbreeding suggests similiar levels of intelligence:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2062696/Neanderthals-clever-interbred-impressed-humans-say-experts.html

[JeuneKoq]

I can't help but notice that you've started this discussion by stating that Sapiens were unlikely to have developed a better sense of smell than Nean., implying that the latter were also more evolved in this sensory/cerebral area, adding another element to Nean's presumed intellectual superiority. Then when I proceed to give you research material offering refuting results, you start claiming that better sense of smell actually is an indicator of lower, primitive intelligence... Weird huh? 

The better sense of smell claim does not mean that early modern humans were "more advanced/evolved" than Neanderthals, in fact it proves the exact opposite. You see, other primates have been shown to have a far better sense of smell than modern humans, yet were substantially less "evolved" in the brain than early modern humans, thus indicating that, as hominid brains grew, the sense of smell got reduced:-

http://news.sciencemag.org/2003/02/why-monkeys-smell-better-people

thus indicating that the Neanderthals, with their  lesser sense of smell, were more advanced than early modern humans. The idea being that, instead of investing resources into a sense that was no longer needed, the Neanderthals instead used resources to build a better, more complex brain than early modern humans.

The cause-and-effect relationship you claim re "less smell - greater intelligence" is totally faulty.

The subjects studied in this experiment/research were modern people of the XXIth century, people who have stopped using their sense of smell to pick their food since thousands of generation. It is logical that after all this time, their sense of smell would become weaker than that of an animal who still relies on it, such as chimps. It has absolutely nothing to do with increasing intelligence.

So in an age where superior sense of smell was still meaningful to the act of finding and selecting appropriate food, better sense of smell would be considered an evolutionary progress.

However by the time Neanderthals came to be, humanity had already began mastering fire (-250.000 bc, mastery of fire: -500.000 bc), most likely in the more northern regions than in the southern, and thus ate their food cooked. So sense of smell in hominids had already started decreasing, since it was no longer "needed". In theory this is why some groups of Homo Sapiens, coming from the southern regions where fire mastery wasn't probably as spread out a practice (and as useful) could've still used their sense of smell for food foraging, thus keeping more developed olfactory bulb.

"And when the researchers plotted the mutation events on the primate family tree, it became even more obvious that the molecular grim reaper had been winnowing genes from our ancestors with particular zeal: Olfactory genes have been rendered useless about four times faster in the branch leading to humans compared to other primates.

Gilad speculates that culinary habits are to blame for the genetic erosion. Humans have been cooking their food for thousands of years, he says; this could have obviated many smell receptor genes, because cooking can destroy toxic substances that other primates need to keep their noses primed for."

The point being lessened smell doesn't necessarily mean greater intelligence.

Hmm, one thing I overlooked:- I have noticed that my own sense of smell is lessened in effectiveness when in really cold environments. Since Neanderthals mostly lived in  glacially-cold areas, perhaps they needed their sense of smell a lot less?

As I've explained, in specific conditions the opposite is more likely to be true. If they hadn't fallen into cooked food practice and would've still made appropriate use of their sens of smell, wouldn't they have developed stronger smell to overcome the cold obstacle? Wolves and such animals have exceptional senses of smell precisely to overcome the difficulty of evolving in a cold environment. Other cold region animals don't necessarily develop such great sense of smell, and don't need to since they spend the winter hibernating, and wake up when the air is much more... fragrant.


These other studies you linked in your last post are, as you stated yourself, very uncertain ,and open to any kind of ideas and speculation. So are most studies on the matter, knowing that researches and discoveries on the subject are at their infancy, so to speak.

Therefor, no one can claim safely that Neans were likely smarter than Sapiens.

[TylerDurden]

I can't help but notice that you've started this discussion by stating that Sapiens were unlikely to have developed a better sense of smell than Nean., implying that the latter were also more evolved in this sensory/cerebral area, adding another element to Nean's presumed intellectual superiority. Then when I proceed to give you research material offering refuting results, you start claiming that better sense of smell actually is an indicator of lower, primitive intelligence... Weird huh? 

Well, I did not have all the info to hand at the time, so I naturally made the assumption that Neanderthals with their bigger brains had roughly the same sense of smell as humans - as otherwise, if humans had a better sense of smell than Neanderthals due to  having  a larger olfactory area in the human brain, then  that makes it clear that they had correspondingly less space in their (by comparison, already-smaller)human brain for other  purposes). At any rate, after checking, it turns out that not only are primates known for their poor sense of smell compared to other mammals:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040120033216.htm
http://www.bio.utexas.edu/faculty/sjasper/Bio213/humanevol.html
http://www.mapoflife.org/topics/topic_308_Loss-of-olfactory-capacity-in-primates-and-cetaceans/
https://books.google.at/books?id=cXJTAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=homo+erectus++sense+of+smell&source=bl&ots=KrOGsQlkWF&sig=bLWRdswxTqQWXUpzI8gMOPOvsSg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wpuSVNzVI4e7ygPN9YHoCw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=homo%20erectus%20%20sense%20of%20smell&f=false
but humans  have an even less developed sense of smell than primates do. The standard explanation is that  as primates and then hominids evolved, they needed  to switch their brains from using a superior sense of smell to a brain using superior vision. Once homo erectus started walking erect, with his nose far from the ground, there was even less need for a sense of smell. So, the point is that the hominid sense of smell got greatly reduced millions of years ago, not a few thousand generations like you previously claimed. Therefore, my point is valid that the fact that modern humans have a better sense of smell than Neanderthals does not make them more intelligent - indeed, having a better sense of smell is clearly directly and inextricably linked with much smaller-brained, much less intelligent simians/preprimates, so can have nothing to do with increased intelligence, only reduced intelligence!
More data on this:-

Whilst few smell receptors is pretty common amongst primates (who instead have better vision, which is more useful for swinging through trees), humans have few receptors even by monkey standards. Now new research by an international team of scientists have identified that this isn’t the result of chance but evolution is actually decreasing our sense of smell. What’s more it shows no signs of slowing down and it would seem we’ll continue to get worse at smelling into the foreseeable future.

  Our sense of smell will continue to deteriorate. The researchers postulate that natural selection tolerates this “devolution” because our sense of smell isn’t as useful as it used to be. As I already mentioned, apes have focused more on their visual ability to better travel through trees. On top of that, we’re now bipedal and so our nose is a lot further from the ground than it used to be. We aren’t going to be smelling much up here.

Here's a passage below, indicating that our sense of smell was not needed for evolutionary fitness/advancement:-

This second process is known as a “relaxation” of negative selection (since it simply doesn’t bother removing bad traits, which is quite laid back) and appears to be the process by which our sense of smell is getting poorer. An international team of scientists studied the genomes of 1,301 individuals and found that genes associated with our sense of smell had more deleterious mutations than natural selection should allow. These mutations would severely compromise our olfactory ability, rendering many of our smell receptors useless. With no evidence of positive selection for these detrimental mutations the team was forced to conclude that this is a result of the relaxation of negative selection. Damaging our olfactory ability does not harm our chances of survival so they survive to be passed on.

all taken from:-
http://www.evoanth.net/2012/11/15/our-sense-of-smell-is-devolving/

However by the time Neanderthals came to be, humanity had already began mastering fire (-250.000 bc, mastery of fire: -500.000 bc), most likely in the more northern regions than in the southern, and thus ate their food cooked. So sense of smell in hominids had already started decreasing, since it was no longer "needed". In theory this is why some groups of Homo Sapiens, coming from the southern regions where fire mastery wasn't probably as spread out a practice (and as useful) could've still used their sense of smell for food foraging, thus keeping more developed olfactory bulb.

Mastery of fire has only been shown for c.400,000 years at most, the 500,000 figure is heavily disputed(eg:- Zhoukoudian Caves). At any rate, cooking has nothing to do with the hominid sense of smell. In fact, I have noticed that cooking, if anything, increases the smell of the food(albeit in a negative way).

The point being lessened smell doesn't necessarily mean greater intelligence.

See above points I made. I have shown that increased sense of smell is directly correlated with decreased intelligence,  given the hominid/primate evolutionary tree.

As I've explained, in specific conditions the opposite is more likely to be true. If they hadn't fallen into cooked food practice and would've still made appropriate use of their sens of smell, wouldn't they have developed stronger smell to overcome the cold obstacle? Wolves and such animals have exceptional senses of smell precisely to overcome the difficulty of evolving in a cold environment. Other cold region animals don't necessarily develop such great sense of smell, and don't need to since they spend the winter hibernating, and wake up when the air is much more... fragrant.

This argument is easily disproven. For example, bears who hibernate routinely also happen to  have the keenest smell-sense of all mammals!:-
http://sectionhiker.com/bears_sense_of_smell/