6 Neanderthal Myths You Still Believe

[00:00:00]Call someone a Neanderthal and they probably won't take you well, but they should because Neanderthalss weren't the dumb cave that people think they were.

[00:00:07]Their brains were actually bigger than yours and every other human alive today.

[00:00:12]And that's not even the most impressive thing about them. Because when you see what they built,00 ft underground and in total darkness, you might realize you believed one of these six myths about Neanderthalss. Now, brain size doesn't actually equal intelligence. I mean, hell, if it did, we'd see African bush elephants on the moon since their brains are about five times larger than ours.

[00:00:34]But we can't see other ways Neanderthalss put their intelligence into action. The real proof is a Shannondar man. Imagine being blind, missing an arm, and in the middle of the wilderness 40,000 years ago. You'd last what, maybe a day or two? Well, this guy lived into his 40s. These guys were far from stupid. They had early forms of societies with social hierarchies. They could make complex tools to survive in the wilderness. And they even figured out how to smoke their food for preservation. Oh, and they also understood medicine. Paleontologists found hints of anti-inflammatory and even antibiotic plants in their teeth.

[00:01:11]That's right. These guys understood medicine. Not that I trust them to perform open heart surgery, but still Neanderthals clearly had some understanding of basic science. So then, how does a blind one-armed man survive in his 40s in the wilderness 40,000 years ago? Because he had a community that took care of him. This was a species that survived for 400,000 years.

[00:01:32]That's 100,000 more years than even modern humans have managed. Clearly, Neanderthalss were doing something right. And most people don't even know that. But here's something even fewer people realize. The way I've been showing you Neanderthalss this whole time, that's not even what they look like. And the reason you picture them that way is actually kind of embarrassing. This all traces back to one guy, a French paleontologist named Marceline Bool, working in 1911 from the very first complete Neanderthal skeleton ever found. Before that, everything we'd found were just fragments. So, you really can't blame him when the reconstruction he came back with was this. There was nothing else to compare it to. And that's exactly why he didn't realize the skeleton he was working from belonged to a severely arthritic old man. First impressions are a powerful thing, my friends, because this 70-year-old man with severe arthritis made his entire species look like a bunch of hunched over apes. And that one disease skeleton defined Neanderthalss in popular culture for over a century.

[00:02:30]The normal Neanderthal look nothing like that. And honestly, if you saw them today, you would probably just think they look like an ugly dude. So, let's change you up a bit. And perfect. But then there's another problem. The people who see Neanthalss as some roid raging prehistoric super hulks. That's not quite right either. Sure, their stockier build made them stronger than us pound-for-pound, while that same build made long-distance running a real struggle, and long-distance running is actually what made us such deadly hunters. So, they'd have a great bench press, but not the best treadmill. Now, take a look at this. These are white-tailed eagle talons, and they're about 130,000 years old. If you look very closely, you can see these delicately carved markings, which are small enough to thread a piece of string through. So, someone made this into a necklace. Now, who do you think made it?

[00:03:21]Because it wasn't us. Homo sapiens weren't even in Europe yet. This thing belonged to a Neanderthal. And before you say, "Okay, nice. They made a necklace. So what?" It's way more than that. To make something like this, you need patience, fine motor skills, and something even more important, you need to want to. You need to look at an eagle town and think, "Bro, my girl would love this." That's abstract thinking and plain old creativity. Ironically, an extinct species is more creative than all the AI slop out there. So, if you're enjoying this video, please subscribe.

[00:03:53]It truly helps us homo sapiens to keep making more videos like this. Anyways, a necklace is just the beginning. In a cave in France, paleontologists found what are essentially the same doodles everyone used to draw in their school notebooks, which is pretty cool. But that's nothing compared to what we found in Budy Cal Cave, a place that was only properly analyzed back in 2016. And what makes it so insane is the thing we found wasn't anywhere near the entrance. It was,00 ft deep inside the cave. And in case you were wondering, this is what the inside of a cave looks like. There's absolutely no natural light. So, whoever built this had to carry fire with them just to see what they were doing. Then they had to walk over 1,000 feet into complete darkness and then spend time carefully breaking over 400 stagmites and arrange them in ring shapes on the cave floor. Why they did it, nobody actually knows. It's too deep to be shelter. So maybe it was ritual or something religious. Now, the thing that I want you to remember is that just because we find lots of their remains in caves doesn't make them cavemen. It's just selection buys in action. The only stuff that's going to survive thousands of years has to be tucked very far away from the elements. So that's why we find a lot of their stuff in caves. So then if they were so smart, where are they now? Why don't we have Neanderthalss driving down the street? The story goes that Homo sapiens and Neanderthalss were bitter rivals locked in a relentless struggle for survival until we eventually came out on top. That's not quite right because the way Neanderthalss went extinct is a whole lot freakier in a lot of ways. First off, let's get one thing straight.

[00:05:26]Neanderthalss weren't just a European thing. Their range stretch from Western Europe all the way to Siberia. These guys lived all over the place. With a range like that, it takes a bunch of different things all at once to wipe you out. That's why paleontologists now believe it was the perfect storm.

[00:05:41]Changes in the climate messed up hunting patterns, so tribes got pushed outside of their usual spots, and then we showed up. But what we brought with us was the part they had to worry about. We likely brought diseases they had no immunity to. Think of it like what happened when Europeans arrived in the Americas thousands of years later. But the part that probably sealed their fate, their species was kind of like the introverted version of us homo sapiens. They traveled in smaller packs and had fewer kids. Meaning when big shocks hit, they just couldn't recover as quickly as we could. So in other words, as a fellow introvert myself, I guess that makes me a Neanderthal, too, which isn't exactly as crazy as it sounds. Now, here's the bigger problem with the humans wiped them out myth. Neanderthalss aren't actually extinct. Look in the mirror.

[00:06:26]There's a chance the real Neanderthal all this time was you. Okay, not really.

[00:06:31]But the reason I say that is because Homo sapiens and Neanderthalss actually interacted and interbred. Depending on where you're from, there's a good chance a significant part of your DNA is actually Neanderthal in origin. In some corners of the planet, the percentages can hit as high as 4%. For a species that's been wiped out, that's pretty persistent genetically speaking. In fact, anthropologists found that if you're from the following continents, you very most likely have some level of Neanderthal in you: Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Oceanania. Oh, wait, hold on. That's pretty much everywhere. The only continent that seems to be Neanderthal free is Africa.

[00:07:09]The theory goes that when our ancestors first moved out of our ancestral home, those homo sapiens interbred with the Neanderthalss. But those who stayed in Africa didn't. And even then, a pretty recent study has started to find Neanderthal DNA in Africa, too. So, it looks like these guys got pretty much everywhere. It's really only a small slice in West Africa that we find the most genetically homo sapien homo sapiens [music] out there. Everyone else, someone in your family tree is a Neanderthal. And this makes sense once you really start seeing what Neanderthalss were. They weren't some primitive version of us we left behind.

[00:07:42]Evolution isn't a straight line from caveman to modern human. It's more like a tree. Branches split off in different directions with each one adapting to its own conditions. Neanthals were just a different branch that happened to thrive in completely different conditions to us. So, stop thinking of them as our ancient grandparents. They were basically our cousins and apparently for some of our ancestors very close cousins. Speaking of which, did you know that Neanderthalss weren't the only human species we live with at the same time? Like I said before, old textbooks and comic culture have this image of human evolution, but that's not accurate. At one point in time, there were a bunch of other human species all alive at the same time as us Homo sapiens. Neanderthalss were just one of the more recent ones, but we also had Homoiti chilling with us 300,000 years ago. Homophorentis existed with us about 60,000 years ago and were known for being really short. Denisins looked quite similar to Neanderthalss but had a little extra melanin sprinkled in. And they were with us about 25,000 years ago. And that's not even all of them.

[00:08:44]There's also Homolonensis found in the Philippines. And even some of the last Homo erectus populations were still hanging on around 100,000 years ago.

[00:08:52]Throughout the vast majority of human history, we were never alone. But today, every single one of them is gone. It's just us. And just because we were the ones lucky enough to live on doesn't mean we were the only ones that could have. Neanderthalss built structures, made jewelry, understood medicine, and their DNA is literally running through your veins right now. So next time someone calls you Neanderthal, take it as a compliment. YouTube thinks you'll like this video, please subscribe. And if you like the dark background, consider becoming a YouTube member. And as always, J Hona out.