Razib points me to this press release announcing a study estimating Neandertal intelligence by way of their stone tool set. The press is running wild with this news. The Independent put out a piece on it. So has the Guardian. Even the BBC has got something to say about it. And the story has made it to front pages of Slashdot, Digg, and Wired. Unfortunately, the research paper has not yet been published, but it will be appearing in the Journal of Human Evolution under this title, “Are Upper Paleolithic blade cores more productive than Middle Paleolithic discoidal cores? A replication experiment.”
In lieu of the primary source, I have extracted some information from the news I’ve read. The lead author of the paper is Metin Eren. He and the archaeologists on his team did some experimental archaeology. In other words, they recreated the Neandertal tool set as well as the more modern human tool set. The summary that Brandon Keim, of Wired, provided is rather misleading. Keim says that they analyzed tools used by Neandertals — not really. From what I can tell, Eren and crew made some wide flakes (from discoidal cores) that resembled Neandertal and human tools from the Middle Paleolithic tools and compared them to more specialized narrow blades made by modern humans, from the Upper Paleolithic, who came from a more recent expansion out of Africa.
Flakes were made by archaic Homo somewhere around 250,000 years ago. It involved taking rock like flint and subjecting it to percussion flaking. This created fragments where one side resembles a bi-convex, shell-like shape. Another heavy percussion blow to the bottom of the piece resulted in a convex lens-like shape. This methodology, often called the Levallois technique, was perfected by Neandertals into what is now known as the Mousterian culture.
Aside from being narrow, blades are more or less parallel flakes of brittle rock, like flint, chert and obsidian. They are most often twice as long as wide and the cross section of a blade is triangular or trapezoidal. Blades functioned in many different tools from knives to scrapers, spear tips, drills, awls, bruins, etc.
The authors next measured circumference of these stone tools using a method developed by Adobe and Think Computer corporations. With this, they were able to calculate how much cutting-edge was created and estimate the production efficiency as well as the life time of the tool. Their results indicate that there was no technical advantage to blades from the Upper Paleolithic. And, they conclude that Homo sapiens were not more advanced than Neandertals. Eren comments, saying,
“It’s not a better technology, it’s just a different technology.”
This is not a very surprising result. And I agree with Eren that we need to stop thinking Neandertals as clumbering cavemen. Razib has already outlined some of the basic facts, i.e. Neandertals had big brains and other conquest during human history were not won by ‘great technological imbalances.’ In 1997, people recovered mammalian DNA from the surfaces of Neandertal stone tools, which showed they were able to take down large game like rhinos and mammoths. Clearly, a sign of an intelligent being.
All this ‘let’s rethink Neandertals as intelligent beings’ reminds me of February’s isotopic study on a Neandertal tooth. There was so much press buzzing around, stating that, “Ohhh new fancy research shows Neandertals were mobile.” When in fact, any logical person would have never questioned Neandertal mobility.
One last point. This study challenges the notion that modern Homo sapiens technology gave them an evolutionary upper hand — a better tool set of narrow blades helped modern humans outcompete Neandertals in hunting of big game, and thus survived more effectively. Though Neandertals had different tools, this analysis showed that their tools didn’t have much of a difference in cutting effectiveness and were just as costly as Upper Paleolithic blades. While I haven’t had a chance to read the original paper — it isn’t online yet — I wonder if the authors discuss the differences in the applications of blades versus flakes? Both may have been just as effective in cutting surface but blades functioned as more diverse compound tools, i.e. they could be interchanged between harpoons and spears, knives and scrapers. A compound tool’s advantage over less versatile Mousterian tools, is that they can be repaired — costing the toolmaker and culture less resources spent in fashioning new tools.
And if you want to see the data that Eren and team produced, you know to do your own number crunching, they’ve made it available on Think Computer corp’s website.
15 Comments
August 28, 2008 at 11:00 pm
[...] me fait grand plaisir. Publiée dans The Journal of Human Evolution ((ici, en français, ou ici et ici en anglais) ), elle taille en pièces une ancienne théorie selon laquelle Neandertal était plus [...]
August 31, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] Kambiz has an excellent post on the recent news about the recent research comparing Middle and Upper Paleolithic tool sets. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… [...]
September 1, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I’m not sure that precise measurements of cutting edge length/circumference is a good measure of cutting efficiency. Non-convex corners on the edge are likely to stay away from the ‘cut’ and not contribute. Taking the perimeter of the smallest convex enclosing polygon might be a better idea.
Then again, this does not account for the effects of serrating an edge, which makes it far more effecient at cutting, at the cost of durability. But my point about perimeter being a poor measure of cutting efficiency stands. Perhaps an experimental approach consisting of making a whole bunch of cuts on meat/hide, might be a better approach.
September 9, 2008 at 9:57 am
Neanderthals Did Not Make Tools
Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons were both top level predators—> Hunters.
The Neanderthals hunted first by Smell/then by Sight
The Cro-Magnon hunted by Sound/Sight
The Neanderthal’s nose/muzzle is enlarged. The Neanderthal brain case is of the shape and size indicative of development necessary to analyzing and acting on olfactory information. The Neanderthal had a well developed cerebrum and other structures adapted to processing smell.
The Cro-Magnon brain is of the size and shape indicative of a Sound Hunter. Man has a well developed Cerebral Cortex necessary for analyzing and acting upon Sound sensory input.
1) Neanderthals did not have language or music. The Neanderthals were not responsive to sound. The organization of the Neanderthal brain did not have the structures necessary to process Sound nor did Neanderthal take such delight in the meanings and patterns of Sound that Man does.
2) The Neanderthal did not mate with Humans. Neanderthal would have identified potential mates by Smell. A human female would not have aroused a Neanderthal Male and a Neanderthal female had the strength to fend off any unwanted amorous advances by human males. It is unlikely that the Neanderthal recognized Humans either visually or by smell as bearing a resemblance to Neanderthals.
3) Neanderthals did not bury the dead. Humans, and possibly Neanderthals, cache food, especially in caves and other areas that may be visited by other animals. Man is particularly fond of burying and covering his dinner with rocks or in shallow cairns. Burial takes many forms and the least representative of funerary practices is “caching.”
4) Neanderthals did not make tools. The Neanderthal, being a specialized smell hunter, would have had less capacity than a Chimpanzee to carry out the complex task of tool making. Neanderthal may have used sticks or stones on a “spur of the moment” basis to strike but the “significant differences” between Man and Neanderthal would preclude the appreciation and ability to recognize and create complex patterns.
5) Neanderthals did not make or control fire. Neanderthals were cold adapted, having a very thick and heavy fur coat. Man is not cold adapted and must of necessity make and control fire when he is out of his native, tropical range. Where there is fire, there is Man. Neanderthals did not tan hides or wear clothes. Neanderthal was a cold climate animal, not a migrant from the tropics who could only survive by the use of artificial and complex technologies such as shelters, clothes, and fire.
March 17, 2009 at 7:04 pm
very precise and specific for someone who was not there and never saw an actual neanderthal in action.
September 10, 2008 at 8:31 am
Correction:
Write in Haste, Regret at Leisure
The above post should read
“Neanderthals had a well developed Cerebellum” (the original post reads Cerebrum)
Neanderthals were King of Cerebellum
Cro-Magnons were King of the Cerebrum
Thank you
October 2, 2008 at 2:36 am
X, mind if I ask, but are you by any chance a so called retard?
October 8, 2008 at 6:49 pm
[...] All of which suggests that these last Neandertals were trying very different cultural items. Why? They had perfectly find tools… or did they? Marco Peresani (2008). A New Cultural Frontier for the Last Neanderthals: The [...]
December 11, 2008 at 8:25 am
ok, so let me tell you what I know about Neanderthal man, or Homo neanderthalensis…and yes, that is the taxonomy, not H. sapiens neanderthalensis. We were not descended from them, but a common ancestor, most likey Homo heidelbergensis or Homo ergaster.
1. Neanderthals did indeed have speech, but may not have had music. If you were to look at the larynx and archaeological evidence, you would see that they were quite capable of singing.
2. There is some evidence that neanderthal’s may have interbred, but nothing solid. there is a find from Gibraltar of a young neanderthal with many sapient traits. There is also the fact that we may have a few genes in common with them associated with red hair.
3. Neanderthals did indeed bury their dead, but they did so hastily (most of the time). There are finds in Spain that put Neanderthal finds in grave sites with a red ochre, possibly to dye the body in some ritual. This phenomenon is only seen in a very select few sites, like the ones in Amud, Tabun and Spy.
4. Neanderthals did indeed make tools, they are associated with Mousterian industry of the early and middle Paleolithic.
5. Neanderthals did indeed make and control fire. You probably got this idea from the film “Quest for Fire,” which is about as accurate of the Pleistocene as the film 10,000 B.C. is. They also indeed wore clothing, usually made out of hides. There are numerous sites which include Levallois, Zafarra, Krapina, etc.
X, I am sorry to have to correct you like this, but your errors were so grievous that I was compelled to do so.
April 29, 2009 at 6:22 am
I believe that most of this information is correct…. although some of it is false. There speech was music and not labeled as “speech”. I felt as though to tell you.
Alli
May 11, 2009 at 11:28 pm
What are you talking about Alli? Their speech was music? You mean that they didn’t speak but communicated in notes and songs? U
June 24, 2009 at 2:42 pm
And according to new information from site of Divje Babe in Slovenia… It is quite possible that they had know about music. On the site archaeological team found a bone with two hole on upper side and a hole on back site which suggests that it could be used as a flute. Afterward the team has done every possible test to rule out any other way of creating those two upper holes as anything else then by human intervention. The bone “flute” is dated to Mousterien period…
March 12, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I am writing , as some of you know a novel about a neanderthal hero , and for my story , I read all your comments , and study all finds …old and new , and for the music part , I greatly encourage X , and others to read mr Steven Mithen : “The singing Neanderthals ” … Yes , they had music… and they found a bone with holes like a flute that is 40,ooo years old , and if they had music , so singing along & humming was only but natural , and communication in form of sung words seem only natural too ! ? …No ? … JP
July 4, 2009 at 4:12 pm
There is no air-tight proof that would suggest that Neanderthals actually made tools, had music or buried their dead. Neanderthals were nothing but APES. They did NOT mate with humans, therefore did not evolve INTO humans.
The fact that DNA tests have conclusively proven this is yet another blow to the stupid theory of human “evolution”.
Also, to say that the Neanderthals are cousins to humans is nothing more than wishful thinking and speculation on the part of die-hard evolutionists.
July 4, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Just because a Neanderthal could instinctively smash a rock to get sharp-edged “flakes” does not mean that they DESIGNED tools. Smashing a rock to get sharp “flakes” is not the same as taking a sharp “flake” and DESIGNING an arrowhead spear out of it. Only Mankind did and could do such things.
Neanderthals could instinctively use things available in their environment just like modern animals such as the beaver can.
A beaver can instinctively take available debris and make a dam out of it. A bird can use branches to make a nest for its young. This is not the same as having the artistic ability to design an arrowhead out of a rock. One is based on natural “instinct”, while the other is based on “creative reasoning”. Only humans possessed or possess such characteristics as “reason” or “symbolic thought”.
To suggest that Neanderthals sang songs or could create, understand, or appreciate anything artistic is purely speculative.