Evidence that Neanderthal and Homo sapiens engaged in cultural exchange
88 comments
·March 12, 2025HexPhantom
It's incredible to think that instead of isolated evolutionary tracks, early human groups were exchanging ideas, tools, and even burial customs
Spooky23
Why? People are people.
People have been people for 200k years. There’s a built in assumption in these sorts of stories that before the pyramids or whatever, everyone was running around like apes. Pounding their chests and each other.
I’d say of course people communicated and helped each other out. There were far fewer of us, and for the most part they lived in a world of great abundance.
yubblegum
Iceman - 1984: 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
I preferred the 1992 remake.
yubblegum
Didn't know. Will check it out. [edit: nothing on imdb for that year. Are you sure?]
jajko
Proto-religions probably too
mcswell
Does 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?
andsoitis
I mean, we already knew that we exchanged genes so is it not therefore self-evident that we also exchanged memes?
mmooss
It'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.
readthenotes1
Plunder/Raping raids don't necessarilyead to trading and meaningful conversations do they?
BurningFrog
You have be able to communicate with your slaves.
jl6
It’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.
mcswell
Do we have to be able to communicate--in the sense of language--with our pets?
OgsyedIE
Wouldn't captives carry memes?
do_not_redeem
Only if you and your captives are able to communicate. If you have a fish tank, do your fish give you memes?
mmooss
> Plunder/Raping raids
What are you referring to? Is there evidence of that being most of the way they interacted?
cutemonster
There 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.
dyauspitr
Sure they would. You would have to communicate intention. There would be assimilation where they would take their women and spend time with them etc.
krapp
Ask the Vikings.
ForTheKidz
As a response to the headline? Sure. The article is trivially interesting, though.
HexPhantom
Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum
kittikitti
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?
b800h
It'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
I’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.
b800h
I think "than us" here is quite mistaken reasoning, particularly for those of us with lots of Neanderthal DNA.
thaumasiotes
> 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?
scotty79
Sure. 95% of software development is banging rocks together until they fit the purpose anyways.
metalman
so 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
There 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-chromo..., https://theconversation.com/modern-human-dna-contains-bits-f...
Neanderthals and mastodons never met, as they were on different continents.
GoldenMonkey
Okay, 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.
saalweachter
Y 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).
HexPhantom
Haha, 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
IncreasePosts
Why call Neanderthal ugg? Homo sapiens were probably Ugg too.
heavymetalpoizn
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boredpeter
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ldjkfkdsjnv
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kacesensitive
To claim that "we are Neanderthals" is wrong because while modern humans and Neanderthals share a common ancestor and interbred, Neanderthals were a distinct species that went extinct. Genetic contributions from Neanderthals to modern humans are minor, typically around 1-2% in non-African populations, and do not make us Neanderthal in any meaningful sense. Moreover, the idea that specific Neanderthal genes explain large behavioral differences among human populations is not supported by scientific consensus—human behavior is shaped by a complex mix of genetics, culture, and environment. While some Neanderthal-derived genes may have influenced traits like immune response or altitude adaptation, the assertion that they drive major behavioral differences is speculative and echoes outdated, often racially charged ideas about genetic determinism. Biologists do discuss these topics openly, but they do so within the rigorous framework of evolutionary genetics, not unfounded assumptions about "large portions of variances" in human behavior.
Mistletoe
I'm a biologist, I wouldn't be caught saying it in private or public because it's incorrect.
Lots of good discussion here about should Neanderthal and Homo sapiens be a separate species. Like most nature questions the answer seems to always be "It's complicated."
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/mq5u7n/why...
A neat map here showing how much Neanderthal DNA exists in modern humans. Never goes much above 3%.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/hgdioe/prevalence_...
ChoHag
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op00to
Genetic 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
The 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
Controversial 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.
vkou
> Clearly, certain populations have much different mixtures, which explains large portions of variances in human behavior.
Citation needed.
Geneticists can, at best, sometimes figure out what any particular gene does, and yet here you are claiming that you can tie broad behavior differences to traces of the Neanderthal genetic code (Weird, since geneticists can at best, barely correlate the smallest differences in behaviour to particular genes). That's an extraordinary claim, and would require some truly extraordinary evidence.
Behavioral genetics does not have the predictive power that you think it does.
Couching scientific racism behind the fig leaf of 'Behavioural geneticists all know this but refuse to talk about it', fortunately, requires absolutely no actual evidence. In fact, the absence of evidence for it is viewed as evidence for it!
fireburning
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This 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).