Were Neanderthals the slow, stooped “brutish cavemen” of the old stereotype? No. That picture owed a lot to science from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and later researchers took it apart. Neanderthals had brains about the size of ours. They shaped stone with carefully prepared techniques, used fire, and left behind objects that many archaeologists read as symbols. Bits of their DNA still ride along inside living people. But here’s the honest twist. None of that lets us read a Neanderthal’s mind. We can study what their hands made and what their bodies went through. What they thought and felt is, for now, Unknown.
Who were the Neanderthals?
Neanderthals were ancient humans who lived across Europe and southwestern to central Asia from roughly 400,000 to 40,000 years ago (Smithsonian Human Origins Program). Their world reached from Gibraltar to the Altai Mountains of Siberia, where one of the best-studied Neanderthal genomes came from (Prüfer et al., 2014; Rodríguez-Vidal et al., 2014).
How did “Neanderthal” become an insult?
In August 1856, workers quarrying limestone in the Neander Valley, about 13 kilometers east of Düsseldorf, Germany, cleared out a small cave called the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte. Out came a skullcap and 15 other bones, first taken for a cave bear’s. The skullcap was only spotted after it had been tossed out of the cave and fell 20 meters to the valley floor. Local teacher and natural historian Johann Carl Fuhlrott recognized the bones as human, and he and Hermann Schaaffhausen reported them to scientists in 1857 (Schmitz et al., 2002). In 1864 the geologist William King proposed the name Homo neanderthalensis, the first fossil human species ever named (Smithsonian).
The stooped “brute” grew out of posture reconstructions from the late 1800s and early 1900s, above all one by Marcellin Boule. Between 1911 and 1913, Boule published a long study of an older man’s skeleton from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in France. He reconstructed Neanderthals with bent hips and knees and a spine missing our normal curves. A 2019 study says this work “created persistent images” of Neanderthals as “primitive and incompletely erect,” and helped “distance ourselves” from them (Haeusler et al., 2019). By the mid-1900s, reassessments were exposing the errors; one in 1957, by Straus and Cave, pointed to the man’s osteoarthritis. The 2019 reanalysis of the same skeleton found spinal curves like ours (Haeusler et al., 2019).
The insult outlived the science. One major dictionary still lists “an unenlightened or ignorant person” as a meaning of neanderthal (Dictionary.com). Worth noticing on a site about minds: a label about someone’s intelligence can outlive the evidence behind it.
Were their brains like ours?
In size, yes. Neanderthal and modern human braincases hold similar volumes, and the ranges overlap (Gunz et al., 2019). Neanderthal brains were “just as large as ours and often larger,” in proportion to their heavier bodies (Smithsonian).
In shape, no. Neanderthal braincases are long and low. Ours are rounder, or “globular.” In a large comparison, not a single modern human overlapped with Neanderthals in overall braincase shape (Gunz et al., 2019).
Here’s the catch. Fossil brains are studied through endocasts, casts of the inside of the skull. Analogy: an endocast is like a jelly mold. It shows the shape of the container, not the wiring that sat inside. The same study says endocasts “cannot provide direct information” about how the brain itself was organized (Gunz et al., 2019). So whether Neanderthal brain regions for language or vision were arranged differently from ours is Unknown from skulls alone.
What did Neanderthals make?
Stone tools that start with a plan. Neanderthals were among the users of the Levallois method: shaping a stone core so the flake struck from it has a size and shape set in advance. At least three human species used it, from at least 300,000 years ago. Many scholars read it as a sign of foresight and “planning depth,” but how much it reveals about thinking is debated (Eren and Lycett, 2012). Planning ability from Levallois tools: Plausible.
Fire. Fire use “appears to have been relatively common” among Neanderthals. Whether they could start fires or only collect natural ones “is still a matter of debate.” A 2018 study found wear on hand axes from French sites, about 50,000 years old, that matches striking the tools with pyrite to make sparks (Sorensen et al., 2018). Neanderthal fire-making: Plausible.
Burials. Researchers still debate whether Neanderthals intentionally buried their dead (Pomeroy et al., 2020). Neanderthal burial as a regular practice: Disputed.
Possible symbols. Several finds point toward objects used for meaning, not just survival:
- pierced, pigment-stained seashells from Cueva de los Aviones, Spain, dated 115,000 to 120,000 years old (Hoffmann, Angelucci et al., 2018);
- eight white-tailed eagle talons from Krapina, Croatia, about 130,000 years old, all with polish or wear and four with cut marks, which the researchers interpret as jewelry (Radovčić et al., 2015); and
- a cross-hatched pattern carved into the rock of Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar, older than about 39,000 years (Rodríguez-Vidal et al., 2014).
Each team argues for symbolic behavior, but “considerable debate” surrounds Neanderthal thinking (Rodríguez-Vidal et al., 2014). Symbolic use: Plausible.
Cave paintings? Not the famous ones. The debate is about a red ladder-shaped sign at La Pasiega, a hand stencil at Maltravieso, and red paint on curtain-like rock formations at Ardales, all in Spain. In 2018, researchers dated mineral crusts that had formed on top of the paint. They interpreted the results as minimum paint ages of at least 64,800 years. On their chronology, that preceded modern humans in Europe by at least 20,000 years, leading them to attribute the paintings to Neanderthals (Hoffmann, Standish et al., 2018). Critics answered that the dating method can overestimate ages (White et al., 2020). Neanderthal cave art: Disputed.
Could they talk?
In 1989 researchers described a Neanderthal hyoid from Kebara Cave, Israel, about 60,000 years old. The hyoid is the small throat bone that supports the larynx and anchors the tongue. Its overall shape is close to ours. A 2013 study of its internal structure found results “consistent with a capacity for speech.” The same paper notes that whether Neanderthals used speech or complex language “remains controversial” (D’Anastasio et al., 2013). Neanderthal language: Disputed.
Are Neanderthals part of us?
Partly, yes. In 2010, Svante Pääbo’s team published a first rough Neanderthal genome. They found that Neanderthals share more genetic variants with people from Eurasia than with people from sub-Saharan Africa, which is evidence that the two groups interbred (Green et al., 2010). A 2014 high-quality genome put the Neanderthal share in people outside Africa at 1.5 to 2.1 percent (Prüfer et al., 2014). A 2020 study also found a Neanderthal signal in African individuals, traced to later migrations back into Africa and to much older gene flow from modern humans into Neanderthals (Chen et al., 2020).
Analogy: it’s like finding a few pages from another family’s recipe book bound into yours. The pages are real, but they’re a small part of the book.
Why did they disappear?
Neanderthals vanish from the record around 40,000 years ago, roughly as modern humans spread into the Near East and Europe. Proposed causes, including climate change, disease, and competition, are “intensely debated.” One 2019 modeling study argues that very small populations alone might have been enough to push Neanderthals over the edge (Vaesen et al., 2019). Some Neanderthal ancestry was absorbed into ours, but the 2010 genome team suggests the actual interbreeding “may have been very limited” (Green et al., 2010). Cause of extinction: Unknown.
How we know
What evidence exists: bones and braincases, dated cave layers, tools and wear marks, pigments, shells, talons and ancient DNA. Each shows something physical. None records a thought.
Whose voices are missing: every Neanderthal’s. No testimony survives, so their beliefs, feelings and words stay Unknown. The account of the 1856 discovery we checked (a 2002 study drawing on Fuhlrott’s report) names Fuhlrott, but not the workers who actually dug out the bones (Schmitz et al., 2002).
How power shaped the record: a construction-stone company quarried away the caves where the first Neanderthal was found, and its workers collected only the larger, easily recognized bones (Schmitz et al., 2002). Later, Boule’s reconstruction, which a 2019 study says helped scientists “distance ourselves” from Neanderthals, shaped the public picture for decades (Haeusler et al., 2019).
Then vs. now
| What was claimed or done then | How it compares with current evidence |
|---|---|
| 1911–1913: Boule’s stooped, “primitive” Neanderthal | Mid-1900s reassessments found errors and pointed to the man’s arthritis. The 2019 reanalysis finds spinal curves like ours (Haeusler et al., 2019) |
| Before 2010, one model: modern humans replaced archaic groups “without admixture” | The 2010 genome “may not be compatible with this view” (Green et al., 2010). 1.5–2.1 percent of the genome of people outside Africa is Neanderthal-derived (Prüfer et al., 2014) |
| Neanderthals shaped prepared-core tools, used fire, pierced and stained shells, and marked eagle talons (the finds discussed here date from about 130,000 to 39,000 years ago) | The objects and marks are documented. What they meant to their makers is Plausible at best. Their beliefs and feelings are Unknown |