Evolution is a fascinating, and extremely complex, topic that scientists have been studying for generations.
Just about every aspect of our history (and the history of all the plants and animals) are directly impacted by how things evolved.
Within the subject of human evolution, few things are as interesting as Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).
Contrary to popular belief, humans (homo sapiens) did not evolve from Neanderthals, but instead we each shared a common ancestor. Around 600,000 years ago, our common ancestor split into (at least) two lines, which developed into homo Neanderthals and homo sapiens.
The more we can learn about Neanderthals, the more we know about the impacts of evolution in general, and how we developed.
One of the biggest challenges associated with studying Neanderthals is that scientists have to study fossils and other information from at least 40,000 (when they went extinct).
Recent analysis of archeological findings has some scientists looking closely at a 3D digital reconstruction of the Neanderthal brain have given some key insights into the linguistic and cognitive capabilities that they may have had.
One analysis indicated that there were significant differences between the brain of Neanderthals and that of homo sapiens.
These differences are in areas that would have a big impact on the language capabilities that they may have had.
The occipital lobe, for example, was larger in Neanderthals, which suggests that their brain was more focused on visual processing.
In addition, their cerebellum was smaller than modern man’s, which indicates that their abilities for speaking, fluency, and language processing would be lower.
While there is no way to draw firm conclusions from this data, the scientists say that this indicates that the Neanderthals likely did not use linguistic tools like metaphors.
Their brains worked differently when it comes to storing ideas and communicating them.
Having the ability to engage in more abstract thought and communication is believed to have provided homo sapiens with a major competitive advantage, evolutionarily speaking.
Our ability to communicate complex ideas was essential to our success as a species.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a quantum computer simulation that has “reversed time” and physics may never be the same.