7 ms·
Evidence that Neanderthal and Homo sapiens engaged in cultural exchange
- wglb 2y agoPaper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02110-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02110-y
- andsoitis 2y agoI mean, we already knew that we exchanged genes so is it not therefore self-evident that we also exchanged memes?
- ForTheKidz 2y agoAs a response to the headline? Sure. The article is trivially interesting, though.
- readthenotes1 2y agoPlunder/Raping raids don't necessarilyead to trading and meaningful conversations do they?
- dyauspitr 2y agoSure they would. You would have to communicate intention. There would be assimilation where they would take their women and spend time with them etc.
- OgsyedIE 2y agoWouldn't captives carry memes?
- do_not_redeem 2y agoOnly if you and your captives are able to communicate. If you have a fish tank, do your fish give you memes?
- Y_Y 2y agoSadly, no matter how many memes I give them they never give any back. Jerks.
- roywiggins 2y agoPeople can learn from just seeing stuff. You watch a guy preparing food in a different way, now you know that there's a different way. He wears a funny hat, maybe you try and make a copy, etc. Chimps and some other animals do this too.
- mmooss 2y agoWhy wouldn't they learn to communicate, like all other humans do?
- mcswell 2y agoFor the same reason that chimps don't (contrary to some earlier work) learn language.
- roywiggins 2y agoChimps have memes without language! Communication is a lot broader than just language.
- mmooss 2y agoWe are talking about Homo genus; I expect they had language (do we know?). The issue was communicating with others who speak a different language, and my point is that people manage it all the time.
- krapp 2y agoAsk the Vikings.
- BurningFrog 2y agoYou have be able to communicate with your slaves.
- jl6 2y agoIt’s highly unlikely that a small nomadic hunter-gatherer band would have had the food surplus and hierarchical organization needed to control and keep slaves. It’s as likely that ancient humans outcompeted Neanderthals for resources as killed them off directly.
- kleton 2y agoThe Uralic word for slave is very archaic and dates to well before they became sedentary. The Uralic tribes came into contact with the Aryas people on the steppes, and won battles with them enough to take captives as slaves, calling them orjat.
- numbsafari 2y agoThis is not true, as evidenced by the slave taking exhibited by nomadic peoples in North America. It was a pretty routine practice, well documented in history. Losers in battles would often be assimilated by the winner as slaves.
- jl6 2y agoI think you are talking about a far more modern period, in a much more complex, socially stratified society. The Neanderthal period was 50k-100k years ago.
- BurningFrog 2y agoAFAIK, we know pretty much nothing about human or neanderthal societies 50k-100k years ago.
- notfromhere 2y agoSurplus? The captives are there for labor and exploitation. They’re not house pets
- mmooss 2y ago> Plunder/Raping raids What are you referring to? Is there evidence of that being most of the way they interacted?
- cutemonster 2y agoThere are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA) Check out killer ape theory. Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
- satellite2 2y agoAlso Lawrence Keeley, War Before Civilization
- pfannkuchen 2y ago> Also look at how violent humans are to their own species. Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species. Also I think that organisms feel most threatened by same-niche competitors, and least threatened by non-competitors. Similar but just different enough is like the worst case in terms of same-niche competition. Like how geese and ducks will act really adversarial towards each other, and then a beaver can just wander through and no one cares.
- scotty79 2y ago> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species. You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. Nature has no concept of any of those. But the clumping is repeatable enough at everyday energies so that it's useful to think about it in those terms.
- mmooss 2y ago> You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. You could say it, but they are real things that interact with the environment. DNA is a real thing that interacts with the environment. Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world.
- mmooss 2y agoIt's a matter of degree. Of course they learned some things from each other, but did or could the groups have largely similar cultures? The term used in the paper is "behavioral uniformity", which is more than exchanging a few memes. And what does that say about how much and how deeply they interacted? From the abstract: The south Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic (mid-MP; ~130–80 thousand years ago (ka)) is remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominins. ... We suggest that the development of this behavioural uniformity is due to intensified inter-population interactions and admixture between Homo groups ~130–80 ka.
- HexPhantom 2y agoCulture doesn't exist in a vacuum
- fireburning 2y ago[flagged]
- metalman 2y agoso we are all part, Ugg, or is it part Ugg-et, or is it both?, ie: y and x chromasones have nieanderthal bits?, if its both, then that is a strong indication that things were pretty casual, ,hanging out partying, looks like Ugg and Sue are hitting it off, some tasty mastadon on the fire, heard you and the other nieandethals got a saber tooth cat last week
- mkl 2y agoThere is no Neanderthal Y chromosome (male line) DNA in modern humans, and also no Neanderthal mitochondrial (female line) DNA in modern humans, but about half of Neanderthal DNA is still around scattered between different modern humans. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-human-y-chromosomes-replaced-those-neanderthals-quiet-genetic-takeover-180975944/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-human-y-chromo..., https://theconversation.com/modern-human-dna-contains-bits-from-all-over-the-neanderthal-genome-except-the-y-chromosome-what-happened-230984 https://theconversation.com/modern-human-dna-contains-bits-f... Neanderthals and mastodons never met, as they were on different continents.
- GoldenMonkey 2y agoOkay, they didn’t bother to completely sequence neanderthal dna… And now we make the claim that their Y chromosone is non existent in humans. Let’s finish the sequencing before being so definitively factual about it.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoWhy call Neanderthal ugg? Homo sapiens were probably Ugg too.
- HexPhantom 2y agoHaha, yeah, the idea that early humans and Neanderthals were just casually intermingling around the fire, sharing stories and mammoth steaks, is a fun mental image
- saalweachter 2y agoY chromosomes and mitochondria don't have crossover, so you need unbroken patrilineal and matrilineal descent from a particular ancestor to inherit it. So if you are Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Ugg, you have ur-Ugg's Neanderthal Y chromosome, but if you are Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Uggette, daughter of Ugg, you have neither ur-Ugg's Y nor X chromosome (Uggette inherits Ugg's X, which gets crossed over with Maggie's [Ugg's Cro-Magnon missus] X's and passed on to Ugg II, but Ugg II doesn't pass on his X to you, he passed on Magnus's [Uggette's Cro-Magnon mister] Y).
- boredpeter 2y ago[dead]
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago[flagged]
- op00to 2y agoGenetic differences do exist among different human populations. Even so, attributing broad behavioral traits to Neanderthal ancestry is not supported by science. Human behavior is shaped by many factors like genetics, culture, environment, and social structures. No credible geneticist argues that Neanderthal ancestry “explains large portions of variances in human behavior.” As for your comment that “Biologists know this, you won’t catch them saying it in public though.”, this is a classic conspiracy-style statement. You’re suggesting that experts are hiding the “truth,” which is a tactic often used in pseudoscience and race-related theories.
- dmitrygr 2y agoThe interpretation of "you won’t catch them saying it in public though" that you offer is NOT the only one. The one the OP most likely meant is: "out of fear for their careers and livelihoods, they will not state such things given that such facts are outside of the current overton window"
- op00to 2y agoControversial scientific topics are actively discussed in academic journals and conferences. Scientists regularly publish challenging or provocative findings, even those outside mainstream acceptance… Provided they’re backed by credible evidence. The absence of discussion here isn’t due to fear of consequences. It’s because the scientific community hasn’t found convincing evidence linking Neanderthal DNA to major behavioral differences.
- dmitrygr 2y agoI was merely explaining what the OP likely meant, assuming your reply was in good faith and you really did not understand
- 2y ago
- kittikitti 2y agohttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02110-y/figures/3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02110-y/figures/3 The link has images of some of the tools they found. Do you think we could teach a Neanderthal to code?
- scotty79 2y agoSure. 95% of software development is banging rocks together until they fit the purpose anyways.
- b800h 2y agoIt's entirely possible that they were more intelligent in some ways than contemporary Homo Sapiens. How they were overwhelmed is open to question. Perhaps just numerically - they were adapted for cold environments and may have been less fecund.
- setopt 2y agoI’ve also seen estimates that Neanderthals required 2x-5x more calories per day than us, which translates into 2x-5x less population density. That’s one way to get overwhelmed.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> required 2x-5x more calories per day than us, which translates into 2x-5x less population density If you assume that they're equally productive, sure. Why assume that?
- b800h 2y agoI think "than us" here is quite mistaken reasoning, particularly for those of us with lots of Neanderthal DNA.
- saalweachter 2y agoAlso, "than us doing what"? Thru-hikers are often expecting to burn like 6000 calories a day. Arctic explorers burned up to something like 10,000. Would Neanderthals burn 30-50,000 calories in the same situation, or is that just "what Neanderthals did all day", as opposed to me, a guy sitting at a desk, burning 2000-2500 when I get my steps in?
- HexPhantom 2y agoIt's incredible to think that instead of isolated evolutionary tracks, early human groups were exchanging ideas, tools, and even burial customs
- jajko 2y agoProto-religions probably too
- HexPhantom 2y agoAbsolutely! Shared burial customs suggest shared beliefs about death and the afterlife
- yubblegum 2y agoIceman - 1984: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087452/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_3 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087452/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_3 A surprisingly touching film about a frozen Neanderthal brought back to life. Have a feeling you'll like it.
- saalweachter 2y agoI preferred the 1992 remake.
- HexPhantom 2y agoThanks for the recommendation! I hadn't heard of Iceman before, but it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I'll check it out!
- heavymetalpoizn 2y ago[dead]
- bjackman 2y agoThis article really fails to explain anything. Headline just makes a statement then the text waffles on without actually making any arguments to support that statement. So basically from the paper I think they are saying there is morphological variability in the area, but they can see technological consistency (centripetal lavallois, burnt ochre). But I still don't understand why this particular assemblage is evidence for that. Not that I don't believe them, I'm just grumbling that they haven't explained it properly (at least, not well enough for my Sunday morning brain).
- mcswell 2y agoDoes this have implications for understanding the abilities of Neanderthals? For instance, might more advanced tools found in Neanderthal sites have been created by non-Neanderthals, and exchanged in trade or captured/ stolen?