Why is the brain size of a modern human less than that of a Neanderthal.
The volume of the brain of a modern person - a European is an average of 1360 cubic meters. cm., while in Neanderthals in the final stage of their evolution and Kostenkov-Cro-Magnon exceeded 1800 cc. What is the reason for this phenomenon? Are we dumber? Or is it something else?
The evolution curve of the human brain has a maximum related to the time of life of the Kostenkov-Cro-Magnons. At the same time, starting from about 40,000 years ago, art- rock art and sculpture made of stone and bone. The rock art of this period is still very primitive and sketchy. This painting belongs to style I.
As N.V. Klyagin writes:
"In the ancient style I, animal figures are extremely schematic and difficult to identify ... Often, but by no means always, only heads were transmitted. This pictorial canon is close to modern primitivism: a rounded, elliptical or more angular oblong figure, symbolizing the head, was occasionally supplemented by a geometrically inscribed body, disproportionately large compared to the head and equipped with linear limbs.Style I is predominantly geometric, that is, symbolically representing its denotations (depicted models).A few details (eye, mouth, ears, horns) were also depicted geometrically and did not reflect the exact the appearance of the corresponding details of real animals.The art of style I was more conceptual, symbolic than pictorial, but its subsequent fate shows that such symbolism was the result of low artistic skill characteristic of the most ancient stage of art."
http://www.gumer.info/bibliotek_Buks/Science/klyagin/04.php
Thus, we can state the fact that the Kostenkovites-Cro-Magnons have mastered abstract thinking. Indeed, in order to depict an image on a rock or carve an animal figurine from a bone, it was necessary to first form this schematic abstract image in the head.
The development of abstract thinking by our ancestors made it possible to optimize the storage of information. How does this happen? Let me explain with the following example.
Some northern peoples have in their language many words related to the concept - "snow". For snow lying on the ground - one word, for snow on a tree - another, for fresh snow - a third, for old - a fourth, for dry - a fifth, for wet - a sixth, etc. and so on. There are about 150 different words in total. It seems that this way of storing information, characterized by a low degree of abstraction, refers to the thinking of Neanderthals and Kostenkov-Cro-Magnons. This way of storing information should take up significantly more space in the brain than the way with a high degree of abstraction. After all, the concepts of dry, wet, fresh, old, etc. and so on. we can apply not only to snow, but also to any other subject. This will require establishing additional connections between concepts, complicating the structure of the brain, but at the same time, the amount of memory occupied by storage can be significantly reduced.
We are seeing similar phenomena in information technology. The development of computer technology first follows the path of increasing the number of computing modules and memory modules. Then computer engineers and designers run into problems with dimensions and power consumption, after which, as a rule, a revolutionary solution follows, which allows reducing both. The size and power consumption of computers are steadily decreasing, while computing capabilities are growing. Computers are getting smarter. The world chess champion is now losing to the computer.
Another analogy is the storage of information in the form of a database. Abstract concepts (words) - the essence of the elements of the database human brain stored in separate areas of memory. To gain access to combinations of these concepts (words), the brain forms various requests (questions, suggestions), which are processed according to certain rules. For each specific request (question), a certain answer is formed, and a huge number of such answers can be received, depending on which areas of memory this request is addressed to. The brain does not need to store all the results of these queries, as it did at a time when it could not form abstract concepts. It is enough to store information about abstract concepts and rules for processing requests. Thus, with the help of the development of a language that operates with a multitude of abstract concepts-words, a huge saving of memory resources is achieved. In other words, the development of a language makes it possible to reduce the amount of memory by establishing dynamic connections (physical neural connections) between different areas of memory (in the limit of single neurons) in which these words are stored. Changing the question changes the spatial structure of these dynamic connections.
The evolution of the human brain for a long time, over 3 million years, followed the path of increasing the volume of the brain, until it ran into the same overall and energy problems as modern computers. Content big brain became an unbearable burden for the body. It was necessary to find a new way to increase the mind. And such a way was found by the human genome. This method consisted in establishing additional neural connections that provide a connection between concepts. And the concepts themselves with this method of storage became less specific, more abstract, which made it possible to reduce the amount of memory occupied by the storage of these concepts and, accordingly, made it possible to reduce the volume of the brain. At the same time, in the structure of the skull of modern man, Neanderthaloid signs have disappeared, the appearance of which, perhaps, was caused by the need to place a huge brain in the volume of the skull.
Thus, I want to say that, precisely, mastering modern man abstract thinking and the development of language was the reason that led to a decrease, in comparison with the classical Neanderthal, in the volume of the brain with the complication of its internal organization. At the same time, the larger the volume of the brain, the average person, smarter now. Europeans and Chinese, with a brain volume of 1300-1400 cc, are smarter than the Andamanese and Bushmen, with a brain volume of 1000-1200 cc.
P.S. Perhaps the following analogy is appropriate. Neanderthals stored information in the form of files, while modern humans store it in the form of a database.
P.P.S. Causal relationships are presented as follows:
1. The gradual increase in the brain in the human evolutionary series led to a large increase in energy costs for its maintenance. The transition to the next stage with an even larger brain has become impossible or less profitable in comparison with another development option for energy reasons.
2. With another reorganization of the genome, caused by an increase in the level of cosmic irradiation of the Earth's surface, a variant of the genome arose with an increased number of neural connections in the brain, which made it possible to move on to more advanced abstract thinking.
3. This version of the development of the genome was fixed in the population due to selection, since it gave huge advantages to its carriers.
P.P.P.S. The development of the tongue was also associated with such changes compared to the Neanderthal structure as the appearance of a chin protrusion and a decrease in the massiveness of the lower jaw. The decrease in the massiveness of the lower jaw, in turn, led to the need to reduce the occipital region of the skull in order to maintain the overall balance of the head. The head began to acquire modern features - higher than those of our predecessors - Neanderthals, arch and forehead, and a shorter length. In Neanderthals, the skull had relatively large longitudinal dimensions (length), i.e. they were dolichocephalic.
P.P.P.P.S. Perhaps there is another reason why the frontal lobes of the brain are better developed in modern humans than in Neanderthals, while the occipital lobes, on the contrary, are less developed in modern humans. The fact is that the occipital regions of the brain directly process the incoming visual information, while the frontal lobes are responsible for predicting, modeling the situation in the future, i.e. are responsible for situation analysis, prognosis and imagination. The frontal lobes are constantly playing microclips of our future.
Due to the fact that the occipital regions of the Neanderthal were better developed than ours, it can be assumed that the visual memory of the Neanderthal was better developed. However, planning and forecasting were given to him worse than to us, due to the underdevelopment of the frontal lobes of the brain. Is the development of our frontal lobes connected with abstract thinking? Does abstract thinking help to better model the situation? It seems that yes.
Man has always been interested in his origin. Who he is, where he came from and how he appeared - for a long time these were one of the main questions. IN Ancient Greece in the period of the birth of the first sciences, the problem was fundamental in the emerging philosophy. And now this topic has not lost its relevance. Although over the past centuries, scientists have managed to move far ahead in the problem of the appearance of man, there are more and more questions.
None of the researchers can be completely sure that the accepted hypotheses of the origin of life, including the appearance of man, are correct. Moreover, both centuries ago and today, anthropologists are waging real wars of scientists, defending their ideas and refuting the theories of opponents.
One of the most well-studied ancient humans is the Neanderthal. This is an extinct representative of the human race, who lived 130 - 20 thousand years ago.
History of the origin of the name
In the west of Germany, near Düsseldorf, is the Neandertal Gorge. It got its name from the German pastor and composer Neander. In the middle of the 19th century, a skull was found here ancient man. Two years later, the anthropologist Schaaffhausen, who was involved in his research, introduced scientific turnover the term "Neanderthal". Thanks to him, the found bones were not sold, and they are now in the Rhineland Museum.
The term "Neanderthal" (photos obtained as a result of the reconstruction of his appearance can be seen below) does not have clear boundaries due to the vastness and heterogeneity of this group of hominids. The status of this ancient man is also not precisely defined. Some of the scientists classify it as a subspecies of Homo sapiens, some distinguish it as a separate species and even genus. Now the ancient Neanderthal man is the most studied species of fossil hominids. Moreover, bones belonging to this species are still being found.
How it was discovered
The remains of these representatives were found the first of the hominids. Ancient people (Neanderthals) were discovered in 1829 in Belgium. Then this find was not given any importance, and its importance was proved much later. Then their remains were found in England. And only the third discovery in 1856 near Düsseldorf gave the name to the Neanderthal and proved the importance of all previous fossils found.
The quarry workers opened a grotto filled with silt. After clearing it, they found a part of a human skull and several massive bones near the entrance. The ancient remains were acquired by the German paleontologist Johann Fulroth, who later described them.
Neanderthal - structural features and classification
The found bones of fossil people were carefully studied, and on the basis of research, scientists were able to recreate an approximate appearance. The Neanderthal is undoubtedly one of the first people, since his resemblance to is obvious. However, there are also a huge number of differences.
The average height of an ancient person was 165 centimeters. He had a dense physique and, moreover, in terms of the volume of the cranium, the ancient people, the Neanderthals, surpassed the modern man. The arms were short, more like paws. Broad shoulders and a barrel-shaped chest indicate great strength.
Powerful very small chin, short neck - another feature of the Neanderthals. Most likely, these features were formed under the influence of the difficult conditions of the Ice Age, in which ancient people lived 100 - 50 thousand years ago.
The structure of the Neanderthals suggests that they had a large muscle mass, a heavy skeleton, ate mainly meat and were better adapted to the subarctic climate than the Cro-Magnons.
They had a primitive speech, most likely consisting of a large number of consonants.
Since these ancient people lived on a vast territory, there were several types of them. Some had features closer to the animal-like appearance, others looked like a modern person.
Habitat of Homo neanderthalensis
From the remains found today, it is known that the Neanderthal (an ancient man who lived millennia ago) lived in Europe, Central Asia and the East. They were not found in Africa. Later, this fact became one of the proofs that Homo neanderthalensis is not the ancestor of modern man, but his closest relative.
How did you manage to reconstruct the appearance of an ancient person
Beginning with Schaafhausen, the "godfather" of the Neanderthal, many attempts have been made to recreate the appearance of this ancient hominid from fragments of its skull and skeleton. The Soviet anthropologist and sculptor Mikhail Gerasimov achieved great success in this. He created his own method of restoring the appearance of a person using skeletal remains. He made more than two hundred sculptural portraits historical figures. Gerasimov also reconstructed the appearance of the late Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon. The laboratory of anthropological reconstruction created by him continues to successfully restore the appearance of ancient people even now.
Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons - is there anything in common between them?
These two representatives of the human race lived for some time in the same era and existed side by side for twenty thousand years. Scientists attribute the Cro-Magnons to the early representatives of modern man. They appeared in Europe 40 - 50 thousand years ago and were very different from the Neanderthals physically and mentally. They were tall (180 cm), had a straight forehead without protruding brow ridges, a narrow nose and a more clearly defined chin. In appearance, these people were very close to modern man.
The cultural achievements of the Cro-Magnons surpass all the successes of their predecessors. Inherited from ancestors developed brain and primitive technologies, they made a giant leap forward in their development in a short time. Their discoveries are amazing. For example, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons lived in small groups in caves and tents made of skins. But it was the latter who created the first settlements and finally formed. They tamed the dog, performed funeral rites, painted hunting scenes on the walls of caves, knew how to make tools not only from stone, but also from horn and bones. Cro-Magnons had articulate speech.
Thus, the differences between these two types of ancient man were significant.
Homo neanderthalensis and modern man
For a long time in scientific circles there were disputes about which of the representatives of ancient people should be considered the ancestor of man. Now it is known for sure that the Neanderthal (photos taken on the basis of the reconstruction of the remains of their bones clearly confirm this) is physically and externally very different from Homo sapiens and is not an ancestor of modern man.
Previously, there was a different point of view on this. But recent studies have given reason to believe that the reasonable lived in Africa, which lay outside the habitat of Homo neanderthalensis. In the entire long history of studying the remains of their bones, they have never been found on the African continent. But this issue was finally resolved in 1997, when Neanderthal DNA was deciphered at the University of Munich. The differences in genes found by scientists were too great.
The study of the Homo neanderthalensis genome continued in 2006. It has been scientifically proven that the divergence in the genes of this type of ancient person from the modern one began about 500 thousand years ago. To decipher the DNA, bones found in Croatia, Russia, Germany and Spain were used.
Therefore, we can say with confidence that the Neanderthal is an extinct species close to us, which is not a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens. This is another branch of the vast family of hominids, which includes, in addition to humans and their extinct ancestors, progressive primates.
In 2010, in the course of ongoing research, Neanderthal genes were found in many modern peoples. This suggests that there was mixing between Homo neanderthalensis and Cro-Magnons.
Life and life of ancient people
The Neanderthal man (an ancient man who lived in the Middle Paleolithic) first used the most primitive tools that he inherited from his predecessors. Gradually, new, more advanced forms of guns began to appear. They were still made of stone, but became more diverse and complex in processing techniques. In total, about sixty types of products were found, which are actually variations of three main types: axes, side-scrapers and pointed points.
During the excavations of Neanderthal sites, chisels, piercers, scrapers and serrated tools were also found.
Scrapers helped in the dressing and dressing of animals and their skins, the pointed ones had an even wider scope. They were used as daggers, knives for butchering carcasses, as spearheads and arrowheads. Ancient Neanderthals used bone to make tools. These were mainly awls and points, but larger items were also found - daggers and clubs made of horn.
As for the weapons, they were still extremely primitive. Its main type, apparently, was a spear. This conclusion was made on the basis of studies of animal bones found at the Neanderthal site.
These ancient people were not lucky with the climate. If their predecessors lived in a warm period, then by the time Homo neanderthalensis appeared, a severe cooling began, glaciers began to form. The landscape was like a tundra. Therefore, the life of the Neanderthals was extremely harsh and full of dangers.
As before, caves served as their dwelling, but buildings gradually began to appear in the open - tents made of animal skins and structures made of mammoth bones.
Classes
Most of the time of the ancient man was occupied by the search for food. According to various studies, they were not scavengers, but hunters, and this activity suggests consistency in actions. According to scientists, the main commercial species for Neanderthals were large mammals. Since the ancient man lived on a vast territory, the victims were different: mammoths, wild bulls and horses, woolly rhinos, deer. An important game animal was the cave bear.
Despite the fact that hunting for large animals became their main occupation, Neanderthals continued to be engaged in gathering. According to studies, they were not completely carnivorous, and their diet included roots, nuts and berries.
culture
The Neanderthal is not a primitive creature, as was thought in the 19th century. The ancient man, who lived in the Middle Paleolithic era, formed a cultural direction, which was called the Mousterian culture. At this time, the birth new form public life- tribal community. Neanderthals took care of the members of their kind. The hunters did not eat the prey on the spot, but carried it home, to the cave to the rest of the tribesmen.
Homo neanderthalensis did not yet know how to draw or create animal figures from stone or clay. But at the site of his camps, stones with skillfully made recesses were found. Ancient people also knew how to apply parallel scratches to bone tools and make jewelry from drilled animal teeth and shells.
The high cultural development of the Neanderthals is also evidenced by their funeral rite. More than twenty graves have been found. The bodies were located in shallow pits in the pose of a sleeping person with bent arms and legs.
Ancient people also possessed the rudiments of medical knowledge. They knew how to heal fractures and dislocations. Some finds indicate that primitive people took care of the wounded.
Homo neanderthalensis - the mystery of the extinction of ancient man
When and why did the last Neanderthal disappear? This mystery has occupied the minds of scientists for many years. There is no definitively proven answer to this question. Modern man does not know why the dinosaurs disappeared, and cannot say what led to the extinction of his closest fossil relative.
For a long time there was an opinion that the Neanderthals were supplanted by their more adapted and developed rival, the Cro-Magnon. And there is a lot of evidence for this theory. It is known that it appeared in Europe in the range of Homo neanderthalensis about 50 thousand years ago, and after 30 thousand years the last Neanderthal disappeared. It is believed that these twenty centuries of existence side by side in a small area became a time of fierce competition between the two species for resources. Cro-Magnon won thanks to the numerical superiority and better adaptability.
Not all scientists agree with this theory. Some put forward their own, no less interesting hypotheses. Many hold the view that the Neanderthals were killed by climate change. The fact is that 30 thousand years ago Europe began a long period of cold and dry weather. Perhaps this led to the disappearance of the ancient man, who could not adapt to the changed conditions of life.
A rather unusual theory was put forward by Simon Underdown, a specialist at Oxford University. He believes that the Neanderthals were struck down by a disease that is characteristic of cannibals. As you know, eating a person was not uncommon at that time.
Another version of the disappearance of this ancient man is assimilation with the Cro-Magnons.
The extinction of Homo neanderthalensis occurred unevenly in time. On the Iberian Peninsula, representatives of this species of fossil people lived a millennium after the disappearance of the rest in Europe.
Neanderthals in modern culture
The appearance of an ancient man, his dramatic struggle for existence and the mystery of disappearance have repeatedly become topics for literary works and movies. Joseph Henri Roni Sr. wrote the novel Fight for the Fire, which was highly acclaimed by critics and was filmed in 1981. The film of the same name received a prestigious award - the Oscar. In 1985, the painting “The Tribe of the Cave Bear” was created, which tells how a girl from the Cro-Magnon family, after the death of her tribe, began to be brought up by Neanderthals.
New Feature Film, dedicated to ancient people, was created in 2010. This is "The Last Neanderthal" - the story of Eo, the only survivor of his kind. In this picture, the cause of the death of Homo neanderthalensis was not only the Cro-Magnons, who attacked their camps and killed, but also an unknown disease. It also considers the possibility of assimilation of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. The film was shot in a supposedly documentary style and on a good scientific basis.
In addition, a large number of films are devoted to Neanderthals, telling about their life, occupations, culture, and considering theories of extinction.
Did Charles Darwin at the end of his life renounce his theory of human evolution? Did ancient people find dinosaurs? Is it true that Russia is the cradle of mankind, and who is the Yeti - is it not one of our ancestors who got lost in the centuries? Although paleoanthropology - the science of human evolution - is experiencing a rapid flowering, the origin of man is still surrounded by many myths. These are anti-evolutionary theories, and legends generated by mass culture, and pseudo-scientific ideas that exist among educated and well-read people. Do you want to know how it was "really"? Alexander Sokolov, editor-in-chief of the portal ANTROPOGENESIS.RU, has collected a whole collection of such myths and checked how well they are.
Another way: the endocran (cast of the internal cavity of the skull) is measured using a sliding compass. Find distances between certain points and substitute them into formulas. Of course, this method gives a greater error, since the result strongly depends on where the compasses were placed (the desired point cannot always be found exactly), and on the formulas.
It is even less reliable when measurements are taken not from the endocrane, but from the skull itself. For obvious reasons, it is difficult to measure the inside of the skull, therefore, the external dimensions of the skull are determined and special formulas are used. Here the error can be very large. To reduce it, you need to take into account the thickness of the walls of the skull and its other features.
(It's great when we have a perfectly preserved whole skull in our hands. In practice, we have to extract the maximum information from the incomplete set that is available. There are formulas for estimating brain volume even by the size of the femur ...)
A positive correlation between brain size and intelligence undeniably exists. It is not absolutely strict (the correlation coefficient is less than one), but it does not follow at all that "size does not matter." Correlations of this kind are never absolutely strict. The correlation coefficient is always less than one, no matter what dependence we take: between muscle mass and its strength, between leg length and walking speed, etc.
Indeed, there are very smart people with small brains and stupid people with large ones. Often in this context, Anatole France is commemorated, whose brain volume was only 1017 cm? - normal volume for Homo erectus and much lower than average for Homo sapiens. This, however, does not at all contradict the fact that intensive selection for intelligence contributes to an increase in the brain. For such an effect, it is enough that an increase in the brain slightly increases the likelihood that an individual will be smarter. And the likelihood is definitely increasing. By carefully examining the tables of brain volume of great people, often cited as a refutation of the dependence of intelligence on brain size, it is easy to see that the vast majority of geniuses have a larger than average brain.
Apparently, there is a relationship between size and intelligence, but in addition to this, many other factors influence the development of the mind. The brain is an extremely complex organ. We cannot know the details of the structure of the Neanderthal brain, but from casts of the cranial cavity (endocranes) we can estimate at least the general shape.
In Neanderthals, the width of the brain is extremely large, - writes S. V. Drobyshevsky, - the maximum for all groups of hominids. The relatively small sizes of the frontal and parietal lobes are very characteristic, while the occipital lobes are very large. In the orbital region (in place of Broca's zone), relief hillocks were developed. The parietal lobe was strongly flattened. The temporal lobe had almost modern dimensions and proportions, but one can note a tendency to increase the expansion of the lobe in the back and elongation along the lower edge, in contrast to what is more common in representatives modern look person. The fossa of the cerebellar vermis in European Neanderthals was flat and wide, which can be regarded as a primitive feature.
The brain of H. neanderthalensis differed from the brain of modern humans, probably in a greater development of subcortical centers of subconscious control over emotions and memory, but at the same time less conscious control over these same functions.
It is unlikely that there will be a person who will take the liberty of making an unambiguous conclusion about whether the Neanderthals died out or were assimilated into subsequent species and generations of representatives of the human race. The name of this subspecies was determined by the Neandertal Gorge in West Germany, where an ancient skull was found. At first, the people working in this place suspected the criminal overtones of the find, and therefore got scared and called the police. But the event turned out to be more significant for history.
Period the rise of Neanderthal man(Fig. 1), who lived in Europe and Western Asia (starting from the Middle East - and ending with South Siberia), is considered a period of time, 130-28 thousand years, going back centuries. Despite the many signs of body and head construction, as well as the behavioral features that make Homo neanderthalensis similar to modern man, the most difficult living conditions left a peculiar imprint in the form of a massive skeleton and skull. But this fellow countryman from the past, specialized in a predatory way of life, could already be proud of the volume of the brain, which in its value exceeds the average indicators characteristic of even many of our contemporaries.
Rice. 1 - Neanderthal
The find at first did not make a proper sensation. The significance of this discovery was realized much later. It so happened that it was this type of fossil people that was given the largest number works and time of scientists. As it turned out, even among the representatives of the human race of non-African origin living in our time, 2.5% of the genes are Neanderthal.
External features of the Neanderthal
Upright, but stooped and stocky representatives of this subspecies of Homo sapiens, who knew all the hardships of existence during the period of total glaciation, had a height of: 1.6-1.7 meters - for men; 1.5-1.6 - in women. The severity of the skeleton and solid muscle mass were combined with a volume of the cranium of 1400-1740 cm³ and a brain of 1200-1600 cm³. There was a feeling that a short neck was leaning forward under the weight of a large head, and a low forehead seemed to be running back. Despite the size of the skull and brain, which is almost the same as that of all of us, the inhabitants of the 21st century, the Neanderthal is distinguished by some flatness, a large width and flatness of the frontal lobes. The largest part of the brain is the occipital lobe, sharply leaning back.
Rice. 2 - Neanderthal skull
Forced to eat rough food, these people could boast of very strong teeth. Their cheekbones would surprise us with their width, and their jaw muscles with their power. But for all the size of the jaws, they do not protrude forward. But there is no point in talking about the beauty of the face by our standards, since the unpleasant impression of heavy brow ridges and a small chin is enhanced by the appearance of a huge nose. But such an organ is simply necessary to warm the cold air during inhalation and protect the upper and lower respiratory tract.
There is an assumption that Neanderthals had pale skin and red hair, while men did not grow beards and mustaches. The structure of their vocal apparatus is such that there is every reason to draw a conclusion regarding conversational capabilities. But their speech was partly like singing.
The resistance of people of this type to cold can be explained not only by the characteristics of their body, but also by hypertrophied proportions of the body. The impressive width in the shoulders, the width of the pelvis, the power of the muscles and the barrel-shaped chest, turned the body into some kind of ball, which worked on the intensity of warming and reducing heat loss. They had not only short arms, more like paws, but also a shortened tibia, which, given the density of the physique, inevitably led to a decrease in step and, accordingly, to an increase in energy consumption for walking (compared to people of our time - up to 32%).
Diet
The increased need to replenish the energy reserve is easily explained by the hardships of life at that time. Based on this, it becomes clear why they could not do without regular meat eating. For millennia, Neanderthals hunted together mammoths, woolly rhinos, bison, cave bears, and other large animals. Another item on the menu was roots mined with digging knives. But they did not eat milk, since German anthropologists managed to discover a gene belonging to the Neanderthal, because of which this product was not absorbed by the body of a mature person.
Dwellings
Of course, the most reliable and safe housing was the caves, where it was possible to single out a kitchen area with the remains of eaten animals, a sleeping place next to a large hearth, and also a workshop. But often they had to build mobile dwellings (Fig. 3) in the form of huts from large mammoth bones and animal skins. Usually Neanderthals settled in groups of 30-40 people, and marriages between close relatives were not uncommon.
Rice. 3 - Neanderthal mobile dwelling
Attitude towards death
During the time of the Neanderthals, the whole family participated in the burial of the dead. The bodies of the dead were sprinkled with ocher, and in order to block access to them for wild animals, large stones and skulls of deer, rhinos, hyenas or bears were piled on the grave, which served as part of some kind of ritual. In addition, food, toys and weapons (spears, darts, clubs) were placed next to the dead relatives. It was the Neanderthals who were the first in the history of mankind to put flowers on the graves. These facts confirm their belief in afterlife and the beginning of the formation of religious ideas.
Tools for labor and cultural purposes
To collect roots, the Neanderthal skillfully wielded digging knives, and spears and clubs were used to protect themselves and their relatives, as well as for hunting, since they did not have throwing weapons and bows with arrows. And the decoration of various products was carried out with the help of drills. The fact that people, surrounded by a hostile world, lurking in many hardships and dangers, appreciated beauty, is evidenced by a flute of that time with 4 holes. Made of bone, it could give rise to a melody of three notes: “do”, “re”, “mi”. About the ideas of this subspecies of people about art, eloquently speaks of a find made near the town of La Roche-Cotard in 2003, which is a 10-centimeter stone sculpture in the form of a human face. The age of this product dates back to 35 thousand years.
It is not entirely clear how to perceive parallel scratches on the bones found near Arcy-sur-Cure, Bachokiro, in Molodov, as well as pits on a stone slab. And there are no questions about the use of jewelry from drilled animal teeth and painted shells. The fact that Neanderthals adorned themselves with compositions of feathers of different lengths and colors is evidenced by the remains different types birds (22 species) whose feathers were cut off. Scientists were able to identify the bones of the bearded vulture, red-footed falcon, black Eurasian vulture, golden eagle, wood pigeon and alpine jackdaw. At the Pronyatyn site in Ukraine, an image of a leopard 30-40 thousand years old, scratched on a bone, was found.
Neanderthals, who are considered to be carriers of the Mousterian culture, used disc-shaped and single-area cores in stone processing. Their techniques for making side-scrapers, pointers, drills, and knives were characterized by chipping wide flakes and using padding along the edges. But the processing of bone material has not received proper development. The rudiments of art are confirmed by finds with a hint of ornament (pits, crosses, stripes). The presence of traces of staining with ocher and the discovery of a semblance of a pencil in the form of a piece worn off as a result of use should be put on the same scale.
Questions of medicine and care of relatives
If you carefully examine Neanderthal skeletons(Fig. 4), which left traces of fractures and their treatment, it is impossible not to admit that even at this stage in the development of civilization, the services of a chiropractor were provided. Of the total number of injuries studied, the effectiveness medical care amounted to 70%. To help people and their animals, this problem had to be dealt with professionally. The concern of fellow tribesmen for their neighbors is confirmed by excavations in Iraq (Shanidar Cave), where the remains of Neanderthals with broken ribs and a broken skull were found under the rubble. Apparently, the wounded were in a safe place, when the rest of the relatives were engaged in labor and hunting.
Rice. 4 - Neanderthal Skeleton
Questions of genetics
Judging by the decoding of the Neanderthal genome from 2006, there is every reason to believe that the divergence between our ancestors and this subspecies dates back 500 thousand years ago, even before the races known to us spread. True, the similarity of the DNA of the Neanderthal and modern humans is 99.5%. Cro-Magnons are considered to be the ancestors of the Caucasoid race, between whom hostile relations developed between them and Neanderthals, which is confirmed by the remains of each other's gnawed bones at the sites. Necklaces made of human teeth, as well as tibias with a cut-off joint, used as caskets, also serve as evidence of the confrontation.
The struggle for territory is evidenced by the periodic transition of caves from Neanderthals to Cro-Magnons - and vice versa. Judging by the equivalence of technologies of both types, driving force their development could be climatic changes: with the onset of cold weather, the hardy and strong Neanderthal man prevailed, and with warming, heat-loving homo sapiens. But there is an assumption about the crossing between them. Moreover, by 2010 Neanderthal genes were found in the genomes of many modern peoples.
As a result of the comparison Neanderthal genome with analogues of our contemporaries from China, France, and Papua New Guinea, the possibility of interbreeding was recognized. How did it happen: did men bring Neanderthals into their tribe, or did women choose Neanderthals, known as good hunters? It suggests itself that the Neanderthals are some kind of alternative branch of human development, which has dissolved over the centuries. Who but them can be considered super native Europeans? It was the Neanderthal who first settled Europe - and for hundreds of millennia he reigned supreme here. In terms of the level of predatory nature, only the Eskimos can be compared with them, whose diet, almost 100% consists of meat dishes.
The fate of the Neanderthals: versions and assumptions
As an answer to the question regarding the extinction of the Neanderthals, one can take into account any of the modern concepts. One of them is the opinion of Alyosha Khodlichka, an anthropologist and the United States, who considers Neanderthals our ancestors at one of the stages of human development. According to his hypothesis, there is a gradual transition of the Neanderthal to the Cro-Magnon group. Has the right to life and the theory regarding the extermination of one species by another. There is also a version about Bigfoot, as the last representative of the extinct subspecies. Or maybe the Neanderthals continued their race in the form of homo sapiens mestizos.
Neanderthals are a kind of alternative humanity, people who lived in Europe and Western Asia (in the Middle East to Central Asia, Altai inclusive), who developed relatively isolated and independently over hundreds of thousands of years, without any special connections with other humankind, which existed elsewhere at the same time. Our ancestors at that time lived in Africa, in East Asia, and Europe and West Asia were the territories of the Neanderthals.
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Neanderthals evolved from their ancestors Homo heidelbergensis smoothly and gradually. They can be considered the only super-native Europeans. The ancestors of the Neanderthals were the first to populate Europe and for all subsequent centuries, millennia and hundreds of millennia existed there. during this time they created their own unique cultures: this is the Mousterian (Mousterian culture), although some sapiens also used it, and the Mykok culture. They had their own way of life: Neanderthals were almost predatory. And in fact, these are the most predatory of all primates, which there are. Today, the most predatory modern populations are the Eskimos that exist in Alaska, in Greenland - who practically eat only meat. They are approaching the level of the Neanderthals.
Alekseev V.P. Hominids of the second half of the Middle and Early Upper Pleistocene of Europe // Fossil hominids and human origin. Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, new. Ser., vol. 92, M., Nauka, 1966, p. 143-181.
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Neanderthals are unique in that their brain volume was the same as ours, and if you count in a certain way, even more than ours, on average. In other words, there were larger individuals, smaller ones, but on average their size was slightly larger than ours. However, their brain structure was different, it was more flattened, with flattened frontal lobes, very wide, with a huge occipital lobe. The skull was rather peculiar: huge brow ridges, large jaws, but not protruding forward, the back of the head sharply protruding back. Neanderthals are distinguished by their adaptability to very cold living conditions, since they lived during the alternation of glacial and interglacial periods. True, as paleontological reconstructions show, most Neanderthals still lived in a more or less warm climate. But nevertheless, they lived in a rather cold climate, despite the fact that their culture was rather low, which is why their body acquired such hypertrophied proportions: very broad shoulders, a wide pelvis, a large barrel-shaped chest, powerful muscles. Well, the closer the shape of the body to the ball and the more muscular it is, the better it is to keep warm, the less heat loss. Again, modern ones are as close as possible to this option. But the Neanderthals were even more powerful.
That is, Neanderthals were maximally adapted to their habitat. They lived and hunted for thousands of years. Moreover, they hunted mammoth, woolly rhinos, bison, cave bears, that is, large animals.
Alekseev V.P. Paleoanthropology the globe and the formation of human races. Paleolithic. M., Nauka, 1978, 284 p.
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About 40 thousand years ago, Neanderthals became sharply smaller. Although before that there were few of them, since Neanderthals were predators, and there are never many of them. But, nevertheless, they became very few. And the last Neanderthals, as far as is known, died out about 28 thousand years ago. But in the interval from 40 to 28, very small scattered groups remained, mainly in hard-to-reach mountain regions: in the Pyrenees, in the Alps, in the Caucasus, in the Balkans, that is, in the most mountainous hard-to-reach areas. Apparently, where the Cro-Magnons did not reach, that is, people of a modern structure, where sapiens have already come last. And in this time interval from 40 to 28 thousand years, Neanderthals are replaced by Cro-Magnons, our ancestors, sapiens.
There are several concepts of what happened to the Neanderthals, where they went. There are three main points of view. The first point of view, the main author of which is Alesh Hrdlichka, is an American anthropologist (although he did not invent it, but developed it in full). This view says that the Neanderthals were our ancestors, that they were some stage of evolution that gradually changed, evolved and eventually became a group of Cro-Magnons. But, despite the fact that this point of view in the middle of the 20th century was sometimes even dominant among anthropologists, since the 70s of the 20th century it has not been considered relevant and no one adheres to it at present.
Bunak VV Genus Homo, its origin and subsequent evolution. M., Nauka, 1980.
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The problem is that morphologically, Neanderthals were very different from us. And when we examine cave deposits, we see abrupt change both culturally and morphologically. We don't have any smooth transition. So there was clearly a change. A second concept arose that the Neanderthals were literally exterminated by the Cro-Magnons. The question remains how they did it, forcefully or not. And they have nothing to do with the modern population. This point of view at the end of the 20th century and in the early XXI century was dominant, but nevertheless, since the 30s of the XX century and in the subsequent time, finds of people with intermediate signs were found, which in part of the signs seem to be Neanderthals, and in part they seem to be Cro-Magnons. An example of this is Saint Sezer in France, or Skhul in Israel, or Qafzeh in the same place in Israel. In these areas, they are almost sapiens, but with Neanderthal features. Accordingly, a third concept arose, which says that Neanderthals could still have crossed paths with modern humans. That is, they were more or less independent, but they made some kind of genetic contribution to the modern population. Well, the question was when and where they gave this contribution. This point of view has actually existed since the 19th century, but somehow it has always been in third roles.
Vishnyatsky L. B. Neanderthals: the history of a failed humanity. L., Nestor-History, 2010.
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There are several theories as to why they disappeared. It is flattering to think that the Cro-Magnons somehow surpassed the Neanderthals in intelligence (they certainly did not surpass the physical strength), especially since the culture of the Cro-Magnons was noticeably better than that of the Neanderthals. Neanderthals were mowed down by natural disasters. One of these global cataclysms, which not only crippled, but created the Neanderthals, was the eruption of the Toba volcano in Sumatra. A grandiose eruption, one of the most powerful in the entire history of the planet, after which a volcanic winter set in for almost two years. This happened 73.5 thousand years ago. At this time, the Neanderthals acquired their hyperarctic proportions. But their number has drastically decreased. And to a greater extent, perhaps, Neanderthals were crippled by other eruptions, on a much smaller scale, about 40 thousand years ago. Well, a little more, 40-42 thousand years ago occurred. Eruptions of the so-called Phlegrean fields in Italy and the eruption of Kazbek in the Caucasus. Very powerful eruptions that, with an interval of 2 thousand years, poisoned the soil, air, water, and there was also a volcanic winter, but on the scale of Europe and the Caucasus, after which a decrease in the species of ungulates, the extinction of, say, bison, including Neanderthals . It turns out that the Neanderthals were actually not so much inferior to the Cro-Magnons, but they were simply unlucky with the place and time. And when the Cro-Magnons once again looked out of the corner of their eyes into Europe, they found that there was practically no one there and it was possible to settle in empty territories. On the other hand, there is such a version that the heyday of the Upper Paleolithic (that is, the era of the first modern people, Cro-Magnons, about 40-30-20 thousand years ago) is associated with the competition of Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals. That is, when they collided, they began to compete and, accordingly, both of them tried to overtake each other. The Neanderthals were less successful. And the Cro-Magnons, which again is flattering to think to us, since we are the descendants of the Cro-Magnons, got ahead. And the Neanderthals were on the sidelines of the evolutionary and safely disappeared. And the Cro-Magnons replaced them.
Drobyshevsky S. V. Predecessors. Ancestors? Part V "Paleoanthropes". 2nd edition. M., publishing house LKI, 2010, 312 p., ill.
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At the very Lately, in the 2010s, in particular, studies of the skeleton of a Neanderthal child from the Mezmayskaya cave in the Caucasus were made by St. Petersburg archaeologists, anthropologists, who show that in the Mezmayskaya cave, the number of Neanderthals, apparently, was most fundamentally influenced by volcanic eruptions. That is, this is one of the strongest confirmations of the catastrophic hypothesis of the extinction of the Neanderthals. On the other hand, there are sites in the European Arctic, which show that Neanderthals lived quite late, after these catastrophic eruptions. Perhaps some groups of Neanderthals survived very late, when the whole of Europe was practically occupied by the Cro-Magnons. In fact, archaeological data for different regions show a slightly different picture. In the south of Europe, perhaps, there was a mass extinction (it is possible that the first Cro-Magnons also died out there safely), and in the north, in Siberia, for example, in Altai, some groups of Neanderthals could have survived for a very long time. In Spain, such a situation with the “Ebro border” is known: at almost the same time, Cro-Magnons lived on the northern bank of the Ebro River, and Neanderthals lived on the southern bank - the latest, but in very poor conditions (there were edaphic - dry, arid - steppes ). And there the last Neanderthals lived out their lives. Revealing the moment of existence of the last Neanderthals is now the most interesting point in this area.
Roginsky Ya. Ya. Extra-European paleoanthropes // Fossil hominids and human origin. Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, new. Ser., vol. 92, M., Nauka, 1966b, pp. 205-226.
Patte E. Les Neanderthaliens. Anatomy, physiology, comparisons. Paris, Masson et Cie, 1955, 559 p.
