10 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: Did Neanderthals make elaborate cave paintings?
I see. I am quite fascinated by Neanderthals and I honestly feel that their intelligence is still very underestimated by most.
Comment by 7LeagueBoots at 27/01/2025 at 23:56 UTC
13 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of Rebecca Sykes’ book *Kindred*. At present it’s probably the most comprehensive overview of what we know, or suspect, about Neanderthals, and definitely the one with the best and deepest bibliography if you want to dig into the research papers directly.
The bibliography is so extensive she put it up on her website instead of in the book as it would have added far too many pages to the book and pushed the price up too much.
The bibliography link is here: https://www.rebeccawraggsykes.com/bibliography
Comment by Soft_Race9190 at 27/01/2025 at 20:17 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Well considering how many Homo sapiens especially of European heritage have Neanderthal DNA, in some sense they’re us.
Comment by TigerPoppy at 28/01/2025 at 05:24 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It could be that Neanderthals, since they lived in small families, had to be able to learn and know everything necessary to survive. This became quite complex. Modern humans lived in much larger and diverse groups and so could specialize and not actually know how to do everything. Modern humans did not need the bigger brains.