Tools Test Debunks 'Dumb Neanderthals' Theory

Aug. 28 -- TUESDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Homo sapiens' long-extinct cousins, the Neanderthals, weren't the slow-witted losers in the evolutionary race they've been made out to be, new research suggests.

The finding comes after scientists used Stone Age methods to recreate and use the respective flint tools favored by each species.

"In contradiction to a 60-year assumption in archaeology, we've managed to show that Neanderthal stone tool technologies are no less efficient [in a number of respects] than Homo sapiens' stone tool technologies. This suggests that Neanderthals did not go extinct because of inferior intellect or technology," said study author Metin I. Eren, a graduate student in archaeology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, and in anthropology at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas.

His team published its findings in the Aug. 26 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

"I think this [study] is very important, in that it is helping move Neanderthals out of that dark box that they have traditionally been confined to," said Jeffrey Laitman, an anthropologist and director of anatomy at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City. "They are not just dumb, limited versions of ourselves, but highly advanced, very intelligent cousins. Different does not mean inferior."

The Neanderthals evolved in Ice Age Europe and are believed to have been a distinct species from Homo sapiens, who evolved in Africa and only later spread northward about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

To survive in the cold European climate, Neanderthals evolved to be stockier and more robust than modern humans; they also had slightly larger brains, bony ridges over their eyes, flattened, elongated skulls and larger noses. The last Neanderthals died out about 28,000 years ago, and experts believe there was a 10,000-year period where both species co-existed in Europe.

But why did the Neanderthals disappear? For most of the history of modern anthropology, experts have assumed that Neanderthals were simply outsmarted by the newcomers arriving out of Africa.