@Uqpaa Handy Not trying to turn this racial, but that is usually used by racists to try to put themselves above other people. Neanderthals were about the same intelligence as homo sapiens, so Neanderthals didn't really make us smarter or dumber.
@Uqpaa Handy But it may explain why east Asia has some of the highest IQ averages. Since east Asians have the most Neanderthal DNA on average. BUt ThAT's JUsT a tHeOry A NeANdeRtHal ThEORY
@Uqpaa Handy And this proves that Neanderthal DNA improves IQ how? You specifically point out native americans and latinos when they both have Neanderthal DNA, so according to you it would make them smarter. Native Americans also have a small amount of Denisovan DNA. While you say white people and Asians have average IQ's that are higher (Which seems to be true when looking at the countries), you also point out other groups that according to you should have higher IQ but you say don't.
@Uqpaa Handy Also, there is no evidence of Neanderthals being smarter. Even if they were, DNA passed down from Neanderthals relates more to the immune system, not anything to do with intelligence.
+Björn Dahlberg This is why, when people say go learn from a book instead of the internet. Well books can be outdated and made completely redundant with new discoveries.
+Mr. Bulbasaur's Channel Believe me, it's not just the water. Try some stroopwaffels and you'll know what I'm talking about. They get stale when you grow up with them but I've yet to see a single person who tried them who doesn't at least like them.
Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers & trinkets, & there is evidence that they cared for their infirmed & elderly, extending their lifespans considerably. Which means, they probably had strong familiar ties & a sense of community.
The site that found the Neanderthal buried with what was thought to be a flower crown has been debunked, since the pollen was dated to after the burial took place. Their larger skulls are not necessarily evidence they they were "smarter" than us, since it corresponds to their larger body mass. Just wanted to clarify! There is mounting evidence that they had culture and communities
Interesting thought: With 3-4% of the modern human genome coming from neanderthals (outside Africa) we've received as much genetic contribution from this species as we did from one of our great great great grandparents. When you think of it in those terms, there had to have been a whole helluva lot of of inter-species sexin', or one major genetic bottleneck, to make such a significant dent.
Not necessarily - if a lot of the DNA was really really useful, it would likely be selected for by evolution. A lot of it's related to more efficient fat storage, which makes sense considering Neanderthals were adapted to a life in the cold and humans originally evolved in the heat of Africa - a person with a more efficient way or storing body fat would have a huge advantage over everyone else
Another interesting thought: They were around before us and had all of these tools and technology, and we interbred with them. Assuming it wasn't just smash and dash, it's possible they stuck around and showed us the techniques they used. I think it very likely that we learned basic tool use, fire making, etc. from them instead of discovering it ourselves. Seems like an easy shortcut instead of having to go through all that trial and error, and probably why our ancestors seem to have innovated things so quickly. I think we were probably about as intelligent as they were but we out competed them because of some other factor like we were more social or more able to communicate and co-ordinate more effectively than they did. The reason so few people even consider this is probably just down to hubris. People want to believe in the story we've invented for ourselves about how great modern humans are, but like the work of all great modern innovators I think our success was built on the achievements of the ones who came before us.
Simon Gerg I think I see what you're saying, but isn't the Neanderthal DNA still Neanderthal DNA by % content? Even if there was maybe only one modern human individual that interbred ± 55,000 years ago, they would have had to distribute their DNA to many offspring for those genes to be absorbed by the population as a whole. Yes, the more helpful genes percolated to the top by forces of natural selection. These wouldn't be the same as having a Neanderthal relative from 3-generations up the line, but still Neanderthal by origin and by overall percentage. Angus Davies It seems probable that there was some culture exchange between these groups, however, evidence shows fire and tool making are much much older. Much older than the estimated time frame when Neanderthals diverged from modern humans. I agree that perhaps as the victors of history we may have too quickly written off the legacy of the Neanderthal species. They had larger brains for sure. Perhaps instead of blaming their demise on lacking an inventive and creative culture or being too niche in their adaptability, we should be looking for other reasons they died off. Perhaps they fell victim to disease. Perhaps modern humans were more violent. Or maybe modern humans had more children. There's any number of scenarios that could explain why they didn't survive the test of time.
Larger brain size may also be attributable to having more sensory input as well - a more developed sense of smell, or larger eyes needed to see things more clearly in the darker northern latitudes. Although, the cross-breeding event apparently occurred in theory somewhere around the Levant.
Sadly Since everyone except for pure Africans have some Neanderthal DNA I have found people using the fact that we have some neanderthal DNA to be racist against white/Asian people.
Well, prior to the development of genetics and evolutionary theory, if Neanderthals were still around we might not have realized that they were even a different species. In which case, we would have likely continued interbreeding with them without knowing they were different and our genes would be even more mixed than they are now. There would be no pure homo sapiens left. We’d all be half-breeds without realizing it.
The language thing is weird for a lot of reasons, because even among modern humans we can a vast amount of ways we have language, from sign language, to whistling language, to other gestures, to text and scripts to other oral traditions, and singing. Things like whales and dolphins also I believe have some form of language in their communication between other. So I feel like Neanderthal definitely could have had language even if it seems less complex than most oral traditions of language
If you want a really good look into what exatly he's talking about, read the historical fiction series, Earth's Children, starting with Clan of the Cave Bear. The writer spent a /lot/ of time doing extensive research, and visiting archaeologists all over the world so that she could paint as accurate of a picture of what life might have been like near the end of the ice age. Much of what is being mentioned here turns up in the series, and many, many other interesting things, like how people might have originally started using soap.
We are (were) the primitive ones to Neanderthals. As said Neanderthals are older species and they INVENTED GLUE before we invented wheels! It's easier to make a wheel than a *chemical compound.* Roll a rock and you'll see it's capabilities plain as day. Flatten it and you have basics for the wheel. But carefully synthesising a glue is not easy. You have to choose *right tree* than you have to *extract gluey part from it* and then *carefully heat it up.* If Neanderthals survived they would be the leading people in tech and innovations.
if they could go through the task of making pitch I imagine it would require some form of complex education beyond simply watch what I do and repeat. I imagine they had complex languages .
Also how they made blades. They didn’t look as pretty as Sapiens blades but they were a lot straighter and since when u break flinty stones along the crystal structure the edge is sharper (but more brittle) than metal so much so that they use obsidian scalpels
Come on, Michael! You’re insulting us, your audience, by assuming we all think the Neanderthals weren’t good enough, weren’t smart enough, and, doggonit, people didn’t like them.
if I get to use a time machine I would use it to destroy those humans who are not vegetarian because we can save earth right now if each and every other person on earth becomes vegetarian. all the co2 will be removed and we can survive atleast a few more years
I was under the impression that "humans" had a complex language system since hedelbergensis, and thus thought neanderthals were easily capable of speech.
Neanderthals made pitch from bark of the Birch tree... we make baseball bats from the Ash or Maple tree. When our two species met they must have invented baseball. Get it? "Pitch"... I'm trying too hard. I'll leave.
BullShitThat Michael Aranda said: “We now know for example, that by the standards of fifty centuries ago, their technology was surprisingly advanced.” He’s talking about stone tools that were made no later than 40,000 years ago. To impress how a piece of technology is more advanced, you compare it to other contemporaneous technology, and not to future technology. So he had to have meant to say ‘fifty millennia ago.’ Furthermore, he couldn’t have been referring to the standards of 3,000 BC, because by that point humans had already invented amongst other things, the bow, the wheel, pottery, glass making, writing, and papyrus. Things that are far more advanced than stone tools.
+sed anon Yeah but this is a civil war. Imagine how much worse it would be against things that AREN'T HUMAN. All morality basically gets thrown off the table.
I have a reasonably related question. How is it possible that we, human, can learn more than one language, to understand, speak and write in more than one language. I mean on a scientific level. I know it's "common sense" we learn those things, but if DNA can make a difference, wouldn't that mean if we alter it perhaps we could make learning easier, or something?
+Mr Ununpentium Well since human brains are just squishy computers made by trial and error, it stands to reason that we could theoretically redesign it or improve it to be better.
Mr Ununpentium Humans have a brief window as young children when language acquisition is very easy. If you weren't exposed to a second language young, that will make learning a second language harder when you are older. I don't know about you, but I don't think we are wise enough to start messing around with our DNA as you suggest. DNA has millions of sequences, having evolved over the history of life on this planet, we have sequenced it but we still don't understand what most of it does. Would you want your child to be an experiment on fiddling with human DNA? People don't trust scientists to fiddle with plant DNA (else why is the "Non GMO" label on food so popular?) and you want to mess with Human DNA? No thanks. Go watch Gattica if you want to see how that is likely to work out.
I live close to the actual Neandertal (where remains of these guys were first discovered). There´s a pretty good museum there. Check it out if you ever come to that part of Germany :-)
As a biological anthropology major, I just want to add archaeologists sometimes disagree over whether some sites and artifacts were made by Neanderthals or anatomically modern humans in the same area. The Mousterian tool industry is also notably less complex than stone tools AMHs created. But great video!! I love Neanderthals, people need to know more about the fascinating discoveries recent research has made about them
We assumed we wiped them out because of mastery of fire but the glue suggests they also understood fire on possibly a greater level. Its a great mystery what really wiped them out.
I've always felt that they never really went extinct, just interbred with us and because of the climate become warmer most of their "trade" genes kind of got replaced with ours. I also did always feel that they were unjustly considered brutish - while they looked different from us because they lived differently, there's no reason to believe they weren't just as sophisticated. I wonder if Inuit/Eskimo genome might be able to tell us more over time - after all, populations that lived in the coldest of climates probably had a better chance of cultivating some off them elusive Neanderthal genes. And them people have some amazing genes, that allow them to survive where most of us would wither away and die.
simple tools... spears with pointed shaped stones, carefully sculpted, fixed with hand made cords and a glue made of sap from a specific tree, cooked in a closed container (which also has to be made) ... no language to explain all this? it seems unlikely.
Fabio Dougherty Possibly. For one thing simple imitation is very effective. Parrots have for a long time been known as 'feathered primates' and some species can copy a multi-step procedure after seeing it once. Then there's the question of what qualifies as a 'language', again some birds like the Japanese Great Tit use syntax. (www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160308/ncomms10986/full/ncomms10986.html ) This would qualify their calls as a language by most definitions that include our own. The power of such a language is hard to gauge but such a simple arrangement could quite conceivably allow for such processes to be passed on.
+Gareth Dean Knapping flint is NOT possible by imitation. It requires a lot of technical knowledge, planning, and practice. Similarly, making pitch from birch sap is no easy process. Just making it with modern metal implements is tricky, as you need to get birch bark hot using coals from a fire, but you can't let oxygen get to the bark or it will burst into flames. Just doing it with metal containers is tricky enough.
Grindstone I've heard far too many 'it's just too hard' arguments to dismiss that possibility unless it can be scientifically proven somehow. I still recall how apparently tiny bird brains couldn't possibly deal with tools, even simple ones. The process may be very tricky it may even take years to learn properly but that's not the same as needing language to pass on.
Gareth Dean It goes beyond "it's just too hard". Seriously, try taking up knapping. You'll see it goes far beyond just clacking rocks together. It is very methodical, very technical, and very complex. In fact, we can point out the distinct differences between early human knapping and Neanderthal knapping. Including how humans would carry chunks of pre-formed flint long distance ready for making more flakes on demand. We have not found evidence of this forethought among Neanderthals. As for birds, Ravens have shown remarkable intelligence, not only in solving multi-step issues, but also passing on knowledge to their young. But that is not the same as what we are discussing.
I'm somewhat grateful that neanderthals aren't still around... just look at how many problems we have due to people's skin having different pigments, do you honestly believe that as a species we are anywhere near mature enough to handle a different species?
Most humans bar those in Africa have a certain percentage of Neanderthal in them I can understand why they are going back to the drawing board on the seperation of the species. Would of loved a Stone Age focus in the historical studies at university alas. Loving Farcry: Primal though :)
***** Okay, you're insanely moronic and this is the last response you will get from me. It's blatantly obvious to anyone who has the slightest bit of intelligence that the word OP misread was "Neanderthals" for "Netherlands" and that the "then" part was a typo.
+Nate Hood Once I had an interview on the radio and I moved my hands a lot so my brain didnt get "stuck" with a word. It's a trick I got from neuroscience classes. Amazingly useful.
I'm honestly curious, why is it a mystery whether they had language if they had tools as complex as they did? I would imagine it would be extremely difficult to teach and learn those sorts of tool making skills (especially making pitch) without being able to talk about it.
Um. If Neanderthals we're using complex processes to make tools and pitch over several generations, then they had to have some form of communication to teach those things to each other and the following generation.
+Yuannan Lin anatomically modern humans came from Africa, and there's evidence that at one point many human species may have coexisted with each other. But to say that neanderthals and other hominids are the same species as us is inaccurate
+Yuannan Lin also race is a social construct. Genetically humans show very little variation between populations, even less than populations of chimpanzees, our closest living ancestors. Even if it seems like phenotypically there are different "races" of human beings, there's no evidence of speciation.
Thanks for mentioning the process to make pitch. I saw a documentary on PBS that showed a German professor making pitch using the methods a Neanderthal would have used. Oh, my goodness, the initial invention of "better living through chemistry"!
Neanderthals also had much larger brains than modern humans, as is clear by the whooshing sound that wind makes as it passes between "Nerdfighters DFTBA's" ears.
+Nicholas Bevins This isn't related to the argument at hand, but I'd like to point out that Asperger's and Autism, though they are both on the Autistic spectrum, are considered separate disorders. If someone has Autism and is at the higher end of the spectrum, that is considered as high functioning Autism, not Asperger's. Though most people who aren't experts in the matter don't see the difference between High functioning and Asperger's, so you could tell people you have Asperger's and they wouldn't know otherwise.
+PootisPigeon No we are not. The whole reason the term "animal" was invented is to distinguish between plants and other non-human animals. In taxonomy, humans are part of the kingdom Animalia, but that has nothing to do with the philosophical meaning of an "animal". That's just for biologists. The mind of a human is clearly unique from every other creature in the world. Don't degrade your own species.
+Xavion251 pretty much one of the only things special about our species is the brain. Maybe the thumb is a bit more well-"built" and so on, but that's the main thing. But other animals have emotions and can solve problems and think for themselves and in a group as well. We are just more advanced at thinking than they are. Prairie dogs have a complex language and crows have been shown to be very good at problem solving. Dogs can get depressed and before ecstatic and a lot of animals have an understanding of basic physics. So, beyond the fact that humans are only as smart as we are because we learn on the shoulders of giants (because if we lived in the wild and didn't document everything, I doubt we'd be that great off), what makes us better than the rest of our *fellow* animals. And philosophy says you can't ever be 100% sure of anything and reality may not be real and then there's the whole "If a chair's purpose is to be sat on and you don't sit on a chair, is it still a chair?" side of philosophy. So, please, on a scientific video especially, don't try to say we humans are not animals. Just because we invented the word to separate ourselves from other animals doesn't mean we can't suddenly reuse it to include ourselves with them.
Heat treatments where an impressive technology too. 164,000 years ago early humans were heat treating stone tools. Heat treatment is something many people today probably have no understanding of and yet it goes into making many of our tools, not the least of which is our everyday kitchen knives.
"So we could hang out, play some video games." I'm fucking DYING. Someone call Jontron, or the president, ANYBODY. Lets get a lets play with Neanerthals.
+Dan K that's how it's pronounced. Neanderthal are named after the place they were discovered and pronounced the same way as the locals would call it. Neanderthals were found in Germany, and the german language does not have the "th" pronunciation.
+Aanthanur DC Kind of ironic that you're against Trump yet you have an anti-Islamic profile pic don't you think? Trump is the only candidate that has a good plan for combating Islamic extremism.
sunny day no he hasn't. he doesn't know the difference between normal moselms and radical moslems. he has not the slightest idea about this problem. and you know what is far more important than fighting Islamic extremism? AGW, and he is in denial about AGW. he is an anti science candidate, i am totally pro science.
Would it be immoral to clone a Neanderthal? It would answer so many questions. Also to bring a dead species of intelligent life back into existence may be one of mankind's grandest achievements. I think if the proper steps were taken to ensure it had a good quality of life, have it adopted and raised in a good home it could be incredible.
I never considered Neanderthals to be dumb, i myself am a flintknapper and i've never watched a single video how to do it or what to use, just started smashing rocks together, took me a long time before i figured it all out, and some historic points are made so good it's pretty hard and sometimes impossible to replicate.
This brings up the importance of cross-disciplinary study. Clicks and whistles can also be part of language. In fact, some of the oldest known human languages contain clicks and whistles
I read an article about evidence that they had strong communal ties too. They found remains of a relatively old individual, that had lost a leg, an eye and had all sorts of trauma, that had happened long before he died. An individual like that could not have survived on his own back then, so this supports the idea that not only did they take care of "dead weight" so to speak, but that they had some ability to treat injury.
Oh, they could speak alright. They were mostly limited to 1 and 2 syllable words - but they did occasionally say 'fantastic' and/or 'tremendous'. They actually invented rhetorical methods but primarily fixated on repetition to drive their point home.
Neanderthals had an enlarged Occipital Bun which gives them room for better spatial reasoning skills. Which so happens to be were the visual cortex is located aswell. So it should come as no surprise why they could be the first to invent anything. And as visual as they were, they probably communicated more in body language (sign language), then speech.
They had the anatomical ability to speak and lived during an era of survival of the fittest and passed on highly refined skills to successive generations... they spoke.
I have difficulty believing they -didn't- speak. They had processes, burials, decoration, art, communities, passed on knowledge so they could function and live for over 200,000 yrs and mixed (often enough) with 'our species'. What do you think they did, wave their arms? If we start from a position that says absence of speech; proving otherwise is incredibly complicated, like presuming guilty until proved innocent. They had speech. It just wasn't like ours (hyoid bone and genes being different)
The Neanderthal also had a bigger brain capacity than we do.....sometimes discounted by modern archeologists, as not being as significant as it may seem, either because the extra brains were in a different part of the brain, or that the grey matter wasn't as convoluted as our own, though again, that's debatable. I'm sure the critics think that Neanderthal needed that extra brain power for sitting around the camp fire and scratching themselves....not. IMHO Neanderthals may have been smarter than us. Just didn't have the opportunity to develop the same technology that we've had. Throughout our history, we've lived in relatively benign climate conditions. We've been lucky. They weren't.
before comparing neanderthals to any politicians, keep in mind that the point of the video is that neanderthals were smart people
gabriel ferraz it doesn't say smart.. only *smarter* than expected. which can also be true of politicians who probably just act dumb.
@Uqpaa Handy Not trying to turn this racial, but that is usually used by racists to try to put themselves above other people. Neanderthals were about the same intelligence as homo sapiens, so Neanderthals didn't really make us smarter or dumber.
@Uqpaa Handy But it may explain why east Asia has some of the highest IQ averages. Since east Asians have the most Neanderthal DNA on average. BUt ThAT's JUsT a tHeOry A NeANdeRtHal ThEORY
@Uqpaa Handy And this proves that Neanderthal DNA improves IQ how? You specifically point out native americans and latinos when they both have Neanderthal DNA, so according to you it would make them smarter. Native Americans also have a small amount of Denisovan DNA. While you say white people and Asians have average IQ's that are higher (Which seems to be true when looking at the countries), you also point out other groups that according to you should have higher IQ but you say don't.
@Uqpaa Handy Also, there is no evidence of Neanderthals being smarter. Even if they were, DNA passed down from Neanderthals relates more to the immune system, not anything to do with intelligence.
I've played video games with Neanderthals. They're great at camping.
XD Good one mate.
+Marv Roberts they'll be good at playing Far Cry Primal!
I’ve played a few, they say slurs and spam emotes on Clash
Neanderthals were smart before it was cool... *puts on stone glasses*
Whoosh
*yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
+Art Of Warring But bifocals weren't even invented yet...And what about the lenses?
+Art Of Warring You guys just don't get it. Stone glasses are for people to cool for looking at things.
+Pie Empire Quartz, obvs.
I guess the history isnt set in stone
Ba dum tsss
HEEEEEY-OOOOO
Well I mean, in this case, it was. So..
Mufufufufu~
+Björn Dahlberg This is why, when people say go learn from a book instead of the internet. Well books can be outdated and made completely redundant with new discoveries.
I thought the title said "Netherlanders: Smarter Than You Think".
+hawaiimaui123 You're godverdomme right.
+ratelslangen Just look at their water tech. Half the place is below seawater, its what they were named for!
+Mr. Bulbasaur's Channel Believe me, it's not just the water. Try some stroopwaffels and you'll know what I'm talking about. They get stale when you grow up with them but I've yet to see a single person who tried them who doesn't at least like them.
You may be missing some FOXP2
Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers & trinkets, & there is evidence that they cared for their infirmed & elderly, extending their lifespans considerably. Which means, they probably had strong familiar ties & a sense of community.
The site that found the Neanderthal buried with what was thought to be a flower crown has been debunked, since the pollen was dated to after the burial took place. Their larger skulls are not necessarily evidence they they were "smarter" than us, since it corresponds to their larger body mass. Just wanted to clarify! There is mounting evidence that they had culture and communities
@@BettyTame are people that go to the gym to build more mass, more stupid than when they started? The mass brain size argument is based
@@BettyTame no!
They where shorter than humans.
Brain size has nothing to do with body size
Interesting thought: With 3-4% of the modern human genome coming from neanderthals (outside Africa) we've received as much genetic contribution from this species as we did from one of our great great great grandparents. When you think of it in those terms, there had to have been a whole helluva lot of of inter-species sexin', or one major genetic bottleneck, to make such a significant dent.
Not necessarily - if a lot of the DNA was really really useful, it would likely be selected for by evolution. A lot of it's related to more efficient fat storage, which makes sense considering Neanderthals were adapted to a life in the cold and humans originally evolved in the heat of Africa - a person with a more efficient way or storing body fat would have a huge advantage over everyone else
Another interesting thought: They were around before us and had all of these tools and technology, and we interbred with them. Assuming it wasn't just smash and dash, it's possible they stuck around and showed us the techniques they used. I think it very likely that we learned basic tool use, fire making, etc. from them instead of discovering it ourselves. Seems like an easy shortcut instead of having to go through all that trial and error, and probably why our ancestors seem to have innovated things so quickly. I think we were probably about as intelligent as they were but we out competed them because of some other factor like we were more social or more able to communicate and co-ordinate more effectively than they did.
The reason so few people even consider this is probably just down to hubris. People want to believe in the story we've invented for ourselves about how great modern humans are, but like the work of all great modern innovators I think our success was built on the achievements of the ones who came before us.
Simon Gerg
I think I see what you're saying, but isn't the Neanderthal DNA still Neanderthal DNA by % content? Even if there was maybe only one modern human individual that interbred ± 55,000 years ago, they would have had to distribute their DNA to many offspring for those genes to be absorbed by the population as a whole. Yes, the more helpful genes percolated to the top by forces of natural selection. These wouldn't be the same as having a Neanderthal relative from 3-generations up the line, but still Neanderthal by origin and by overall percentage.
Angus Davies
It seems probable that there was some culture exchange between these groups, however, evidence shows fire and tool making are much much older. Much older than the estimated time frame when Neanderthals diverged from modern humans.
I agree that perhaps as the victors of history we may have too quickly written off the legacy of the Neanderthal species. They had larger brains for sure. Perhaps instead of blaming their demise on lacking an inventive and creative culture or being too niche in their adaptability, we should be looking for other reasons they died off. Perhaps they fell victim to disease. Perhaps modern humans were more violent. Or maybe modern humans had more children. There's any number of scenarios that could explain why they didn't survive the test of time.
Larger brain size may also be attributable to having more sensory input as well - a more developed sense of smell, or larger eyes needed to see things more clearly in the darker northern latitudes. Although, the cross-breeding event apparently occurred in theory somewhere around the Levant.
Angus Davies
That makes sense.
Damm, if we have racism between ourselves, imagine how it would be if neanderthals were still around...
Sadly Since everyone except for pure Africans have some Neanderthal DNA I have found people using the fact that we have some neanderthal DNA to be racist against white/Asian people.
We'd probably just think they are really ugly or just got something wrong
Auyer Rafael yeah man.. all the race slurs and stereotypes would be pretty bad
Well, prior to the development of genetics and evolutionary theory, if Neanderthals were still around we might not have realized that they were even a different species. In which case, we would have likely continued interbreeding with them without knowing they were different and our genes would be even more mixed than they are now. There would be no pure homo sapiens left. We’d all be half-breeds without realizing it.
@@dord9 Yes, I believe they would just be seen as another race. Then we'd be shocked when we found out they're a different species with DNA testing.
The language thing is weird for a lot of reasons, because even among modern humans we can a vast amount of ways we have language, from sign language, to whistling language, to other gestures, to text and scripts to other oral traditions, and singing. Things like whales and dolphins also I believe have some form of language in their communication between other. So I feel like Neanderthal definitely could have had language even if it seems less complex than most oral traditions of language
If you want a really good look into what exatly he's talking about, read the historical fiction series, Earth's Children, starting with Clan of the Cave Bear. The writer spent a /lot/ of time doing extensive research, and visiting archaeologists all over the world so that she could paint as accurate of a picture of what life might have been like near the end of the ice age.
Much of what is being mentioned here turns up in the series, and many, many other interesting things, like how people might have originally started using soap.
We are (were) the primitive ones to Neanderthals. As said Neanderthals are older species and they INVENTED GLUE before we invented wheels! It's easier to make a wheel than a *chemical compound.* Roll a rock and you'll see it's capabilities plain as day. Flatten it and you have basics for the wheel. But carefully synthesising a glue is not easy. You have to choose *right tree* than you have to *extract gluey part from it* and then *carefully heat it up.* If Neanderthals survived they would be the leading people in tech and innovations.
if they could go through the task of making pitch I imagine it would require some form of complex education beyond simply watch what I do and repeat. I imagine they had complex languages .
I was going to say, it seems impossible to have such complex tools for the time without any vocal communication.
Also how they made blades. They didn’t look as pretty as Sapiens blades but they were a lot straighter and since when u break flinty stones along the crystal structure the edge is sharper (but more brittle) than metal so much so that they use obsidian scalpels
Am I the only one who read Netherlands at first?
nope.
yes I thought thats what it said
yes
+Thoryne I did too!!
+Thoryne I am from the Netherlands.. and it still happens to me all the time. :'D
The difference: They invented the spear, we threw it.
I know I'm not the only one who kind of misses the classic butt hair comments on every video now, right?
yes, they ruined the joke by answering it, I hope that that guy asks another one
+Lucas van Osenbruggen WHY IS THERE HAIR ON URANUS
+Lucas van Osenbruggen WHY DO NIPPLES GET HARD?
+Matthew Monroe cold or arousal normally.
bensemus x i didn't ask how, but why do they because of that? whats the evolutionary advantage of your nipples getting hard?
Excellent video. Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video. Many thanks for the links to the papers.
Neanderthals came to earth from the battlestar galactica. This is common knowledge.
MagicAccent you are on meth
Come on, Michael! You’re insulting us, your audience, by assuming we all think the Neanderthals weren’t good enough, weren’t smart enough, and, doggonit, people didn’t like them.
Whoosh
+Nerdfighers DFTBA Someone is an xkcd fan...
+Nerdfighers DFTBA Bang!
+IceMetalPunk And so it begins.
+Mike O'. I read that in Ambassador Kosh's voice
Once we make time machines we'll know
Whoosh
+Nerdfighers DFTBA is this a thing now?
+Nerdfighers DFTBA Ker-blam
+ForeverOfTheStars If we go back in time we would kill everyone with the diseases we carry.
if I get to use a time machine I would use it to destroy those humans who are not vegetarian because we can save earth right now if each and every other person on earth becomes vegetarian. all the co2 will be removed and we can survive atleast a few more years
I was under the impression that "humans" had a complex language system since hedelbergensis, and thus thought neanderthals were easily capable of speech.
Neanderthals made pitch from bark of the Birch tree... we make baseball bats from the Ash or Maple tree. When our two species met they must have invented baseball.
Get it? "Pitch"... I'm trying too hard. I'll leave.
Haha that was funny
Just go quietly please.
:) faf
This was a very informative and interesting video !
DID THEY WIPE THEIR ASSES THOUGH?!?!
you're asking the real questions
But why do we have hair around our anus tho?
+விஷ்ணு கார்த்திக் the video fr tht is made tho.
No they're from Europe. They used Bidet'sLOL
I am a Neanderthal. I find this racist.
*Speciesist.
+Colm Ryan Specist? Dunno, just sounds better on the tongue.
+Aryan Kulshreshtha Neanderthal are people too!
FKF DETTOL!Dettol
Dettol
I wash my after shit hands from you.
fkf
I shall commence knapping.
Then store all my progress in my knapsack. :3
+Daniel Renard ^.^
0:41 Fifty centuries ago? That is only 5,000 years, which puts it around 3,000 BC. I think you mean 50 millenia ago.
BullShitThat Michael Aranda said: “We now know for example, that by the standards of fifty centuries ago, their technology was surprisingly advanced.”
He’s talking about stone tools that were made no later than 40,000 years ago. To impress how a piece of technology is more advanced, you compare it to other contemporaneous technology, and not to future technology. So he had to have meant to say ‘fifty millennia ago.’
Furthermore, he couldn’t have been referring to the standards of 3,000 BC, because by that point humans had already invented amongst other things, the bow, the wheel, pottery, glass making, writing, and papyrus. Things that are far more advanced than stone tools.
@@Ngamotu83 Bows were used early. They are simple.
Who'd have ever thought that "Encino Man" would get something right that scientists had wrong?
Two different species of intelligent life would be great but... Think of the wars.
+Nexius Reign The presence of only one hasn't really done much for keeping the whole war thing from being popular :/
+sed anon Yeah but this is a civil war. Imagine how much worse it would be against things that AREN'T HUMAN. All morality basically gets thrown off the table.
They were human just a bit different, they were homo neanderthalensis and we are homo sapiens both classified as human.
Neanderthals existed for 430,000 years and still couldn’t advance in time.
3:05 that link goes waaaaaaay far back to 2012
good times
I have a reasonably related question. How is it possible that we, human, can learn more than one language, to understand, speak and write in more than one language. I mean on a scientific level.
I know it's "common sense" we learn those things, but if DNA can make a difference, wouldn't that mean if we alter it perhaps we could make learning easier, or something?
+Mr Ununpentium This is an excellent question. I really hope they answer it.
+Mr Ununpentium Well since human brains are just squishy computers made by trial and error, it stands to reason that we could theoretically redesign it or improve it to be better.
+Mr Ununpentium yeah but then youd have a bunch of enviromantalist crying about the human brain and how where not allowed to touch it
Mr Ununpentium
Humans have a brief window as young children when language acquisition is very easy. If you weren't exposed to a second language young, that will make learning a second language harder when you are older.
I don't know about you, but I don't think we are wise enough to start messing around with our DNA as you suggest. DNA has millions of sequences, having evolved over the history of life on this planet, we have sequenced it but we still don't understand what most of it does. Would you want your child to be an experiment on fiddling with human DNA? People don't trust scientists to fiddle with plant DNA (else why is the "Non GMO" label on food so popular?) and you want to mess with Human DNA? No thanks. Go watch Gattica if you want to see how that is likely to work out.
I live close to the actual Neandertal (where remains of these guys were first discovered). There´s a pretty good museum there. Check it out if you ever come to that part of Germany :-)
As a biological anthropology major, I just want to add archaeologists sometimes disagree over whether some sites and artifacts were made by Neanderthals or anatomically modern humans in the same area. The Mousterian tool industry is also notably less complex than stone tools AMHs created. But great video!! I love Neanderthals, people need to know more about the fascinating discoveries recent research has made about them
I have long respected the intelligence of the Dutch.
We assumed we wiped them out because of mastery of fire but the glue suggests they also understood fire on possibly a greater level. Its a great mystery what really wiped them out.
Francis Del Torto It was probably white people looking for oil
Diseases probably.
@@criticalsage they had Bitter immune system than homo sapiens
I just love that titles. No matter how smart I would think Neanderthals were, they will always be smarter.
That ending about hanging out and playing video games made my day! :D Great vid.
I'm really good a knapping.. I knap all the time...
+Royal - RIFLES Can you do it with your eyes closed?
+EclecticFruit i bet he doesn't even need to think while doing it.
+iota-09 Whoa. The man's a legend!
Er I think you mean napping.
I self-identify as neanderthal.
23andMe says I have 3% Neanderthal DNA.
Same i think we should get reparations from the humans for slaughtering our people and stealing our land.
@@Jebu911
"Muh people!"
#NeanderthalLivesMatter
@@Jebu911
*Grunts in agreement* lol
I've always felt that they never really went extinct, just interbred with us and because of the climate become warmer most of their "trade" genes kind of got replaced with ours. I also did always feel that they were unjustly considered brutish - while they looked different from us because they lived differently, there's no reason to believe they weren't just as sophisticated. I wonder if Inuit/Eskimo genome might be able to tell us more over time - after all, populations that lived in the coldest of climates probably had a better chance of cultivating some off them elusive Neanderthal genes. And them people have some amazing genes, that allow them to survive where most of us would wither away and die.
Thank you for pronouncing neanderthal correctly.
Why does my jaw hurt when I drink red wine?
+tommy Drink from the tip of the bottle, dont swallow the entire bottle.
xD
+crojonphoenix lmao
If they had some sort of technical skill, then it is certain that they had language, to be able to pass it on and develop it.
simple tools...
spears with pointed shaped stones, carefully sculpted, fixed with hand made cords and a glue made of sap from a specific tree, cooked in a closed container (which also has to be made) ... no language to explain all this? it seems unlikely.
Fabio Dougherty
Possibly. For one thing simple imitation is very effective. Parrots have for a long time been known as 'feathered primates' and some species can copy a multi-step procedure after seeing it once. Then there's the question of what qualifies as a 'language', again some birds like the Japanese Great Tit use syntax. (www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160308/ncomms10986/full/ncomms10986.html ) This would qualify their calls as a language by most definitions that include our own. The power of such a language is hard to gauge but such a simple arrangement could quite conceivably allow for such processes to be passed on.
+Gareth Dean Knapping flint is NOT possible by imitation. It requires a lot of technical knowledge, planning, and practice. Similarly, making pitch from birch sap is no easy process. Just making it with modern metal implements is tricky, as you need to get birch bark hot using coals from a fire, but you can't let oxygen get to the bark or it will burst into flames. Just doing it with metal containers is tricky enough.
Grindstone
I've heard far too many 'it's just too hard' arguments to dismiss that possibility unless it can be scientifically proven somehow. I still recall how apparently tiny bird brains couldn't possibly deal with tools, even simple ones. The process may be very tricky it may even take years to learn properly but that's not the same as needing language to pass on.
Gareth Dean It goes beyond "it's just too hard". Seriously, try taking up knapping. You'll see it goes far beyond just clacking rocks together. It is very methodical, very technical, and very complex. In fact, we can point out the distinct differences between early human knapping and Neanderthal knapping. Including how humans would carry chunks of pre-formed flint long distance ready for making more flakes on demand. We have not found evidence of this forethought among Neanderthals.
As for birds, Ravens have shown remarkable intelligence, not only in solving multi-step issues, but also passing on knowledge to their young. But that is not the same as what we are discussing.
"So we could hang out, play some video games..."
JESUS
they had larger brains and were physically superior.. our easy lives have made us weak physically and shrunk our brains
I'm somewhat grateful that neanderthals aren't still around... just look at how many problems we have due to people's skin having different pigments, do you honestly believe that as a species we are anywhere near mature enough to handle a different species?
+smileyeagle1021 If our skin colors matched we'd team up and kill all the other sods.
I think Jean Auel probably got more right than wrong with Neanderthals. This video seems to reinforce that.
Using the process of "knapping"...dang those guys were lucky
You're telling me they invented napping? Genius.
Most humans bar those in Africa have a certain percentage of Neanderthal in them I can understand why they are going back to the drawing board on the seperation of the species. Would of loved a Stone Age focus in the historical studies at university alas. Loving Farcry: Primal though :)
What's wrong with those in Africa?
+Ipeleng Thobejane They aren't descended from Neanderthals.
Peter Connell what proof you got..did you publish a paper on that..you would have laughed out of a lot of places on that one
tgillies101 Cept Berber descended from caspians k thanx bye
tgillies101 th-cam.com/video/S99s2a4Iip8/w-d-xo.html
I thought that the title was "Netherlands, smarter then you think" 😂
+TheGreenRocket // TGR than*
omg SAME😂😂😂
***** Because their thought process clearly shows they don't know the difference between those two words.
***** Okay, you're insanely moronic and this is the last response you will get from me. It's blatantly obvious to anyone who has the slightest bit of intelligence that the word OP misread was "Neanderthals" for "Netherlands" and that the "then" part was a typo.
the picture of the gene made me giggle. confettiiiii!
"Confetti, it's a parade!"
Thank you, thank you for using the correct pronunciation of neanderthal! Great video!
Woah... I must be a master of making stone tools, because I can spent all day napping!
+CybeargPlays
ikr... don't you hate it, wehn you are napping all day and after that you feel totally stoned
+Anticonny Usually that happens in reverse order.
Do why our hands move why we talk
It helps me explain things better😂
The Italians are now offended xD
+Nate Hood Once I had an interview on the radio and I moved my hands a lot so my brain didnt get "stuck" with a word. It's a trick I got from neuroscience classes. Amazingly useful.
I'm honestly curious, why is it a mystery whether they had language if they had tools as complex as they did? I would imagine it would be extremely difficult to teach and learn those sorts of tool making skills (especially making pitch) without being able to talk about it.
you can get pitch from a many more plants other than birch, for example pine trees.
Um.
If Neanderthals we're using complex processes to make tools and pitch over several generations, then they had to have some form of communication to teach those things to each other and the following generation.
what if Neanderthals were us? like early us?
You probably have some portion of Neanderthal DNA, so yup
+Yuannan Lin there are fossils of homo sapiens and neanthertals from around the same time. different skulls.
+Yuannan Lin anatomically modern humans came from Africa, and there's evidence that at one point many human species may have coexisted with each other. But to say that neanderthals and other hominids are the same species as us is inaccurate
+Yuannan Lin also race is a social construct. Genetically humans show very little variation between populations, even less than populations of chimpanzees, our closest living ancestors. Even if it seems like phenotypically there are different "races" of human beings, there's no evidence of speciation.
Thanks for mentioning the process to make pitch. I saw a documentary on PBS that showed a German professor making pitch using the methods a Neanderthal would have used. Oh, my goodness, the initial invention of "better living through chemistry"!
I'll play video games with you, Micheal.
It's why our people are so smart, since 1-4% of our DNA is Neanderthal
+Unbearable Pain There are humans that have no Neanderthal DNA & are equally as smart.
I AINT NO DESCENDED FROM NO DIRTY STINKIN NEATHRADAL .. MY MOTHER AINT NO NTEHADJTLA:OL
Whoosh
+Nerdfighers DFTBA Nerdfighers?
Neanderthals also had much larger brains than modern humans, as is clear by the whooshing sound that wind makes as it passes between "Nerdfighters DFTBA's" ears.
+Nicholas Bevins fake and gay
+Nicholas Bevins This isn't related to the argument at hand, but I'd like to point out that Asperger's and Autism, though they are both on the Autistic spectrum, are considered separate disorders. If someone has Autism and is at the higher end of the spectrum, that is considered as high functioning Autism, not Asperger's.
Though most people who aren't experts in the matter don't see the difference between High functioning and Asperger's, so you could tell people you have Asperger's and they wouldn't know otherwise.
Your voice is so relaxing!
This was a particularly interesting episode, guys.
When people talk about neanderthals in relation to modern humans it gives me an intense feeling of "we're just animals".
Aaaaand that's a problem becaaaause...?
But we are just animals. So what?
Because we are
+PootisPigeon No we are not. The whole reason the term "animal" was invented is to distinguish between plants and other non-human animals. In taxonomy, humans are part of the kingdom Animalia, but that has nothing to do with the philosophical meaning of an "animal". That's just for biologists. The mind of a human is clearly unique from every other creature in the world. Don't degrade your own species.
+Xavion251 pretty much one of the only things special about our species is the brain. Maybe the thumb is a bit more well-"built" and so on, but that's the main thing.
But other animals have emotions and can solve problems and think for themselves and in a group as well. We are just more advanced at thinking than they are. Prairie dogs have a complex language and crows have been shown to be very good at problem solving. Dogs can get depressed and before ecstatic and a lot of animals have an understanding of basic physics.
So, beyond the fact that humans are only as smart as we are because we learn on the shoulders of giants (because if we lived in the wild and didn't document everything, I doubt we'd be that great off), what makes us better than the rest of our *fellow* animals.
And philosophy says you can't ever be 100% sure of anything and reality may not be real and then there's the whole "If a chair's purpose is to be sat on and you don't sit on a chair, is it still a chair?" side of philosophy. So, please, on a scientific video especially, don't try to say we humans are not animals. Just because we invented the word to separate ourselves from other animals doesn't mean we can't suddenly reuse it to include ourselves with them.
I read the title too fast and read "Netherlands: Smarter Than You Think"
Heat treatments where an impressive technology too. 164,000 years ago early humans were heat treating stone tools. Heat treatment is something many people today probably have no understanding of and yet it goes into making many of our tools, not the least of which is our everyday kitchen knives.
"So we could hang out, play some video games." I'm fucking DYING. Someone call Jontron, or the president, ANYBODY. Lets get a lets play with Neanerthals.
why does he say neanderTals?
+Dan K because that's how the place in Germany is pronounced. Actually also with a prolonged "a"-sound at the end, like: Neander-taal.
+Dan K that's how it's pronounced. Neanderthal are named after the place they were discovered and pronounced the same way as the locals would call it. Neanderthals were found in Germany, and the german language does not have the "th" pronunciation.
i see. thanks guys
0:08 Trump came to mind....
BAHAHAHAHA
+Aanthanur DC Kind of ironic that you're against Trump yet you have an anti-Islamic profile pic don't you think? Trump is the only candidate that has a good plan for combating Islamic extremism.
ahah amazing !
sunny day
no he hasn't. he doesn't know the difference between normal moselms and radical moslems. he has not the slightest idea about this problem.
and you know what is far more important than fighting Islamic extremism?
AGW, and he is in denial about AGW. he is an anti science candidate, i am totally pro science.
+Aanthanur DC
Moslems?
I think you mean Muslims.
Would it be immoral to clone a Neanderthal? It would answer so many questions. Also to bring a dead species of intelligent life back into existence may be one of mankind's grandest achievements. I think if the proper steps were taken to ensure it had a good quality of life, have it adopted and raised in a good home it could be incredible.
How would it be immoral? We just clone a bunch of them and they can save Europe from the invaders.
Thank you , your stuffing my head full of information! ;)
I never considered Neanderthals to be dumb, i myself am a flintknapper and i've never watched a single video how to do it or what to use, just started smashing rocks together, took me a long time before i figured it all out, and some historic points are made so good it's pretty hard and sometimes impossible to replicate.
Why do I tear up when I yawn?
I hope to meet Neanderthals and H. heidelbergensis in heaven. I have so many questions which would otherwise be impossible to answer.
I'm learning about Neanderthals and Homo Erectus right now :)
This brings up the importance of cross-disciplinary study.
Clicks and whistles can also be part of language. In fact, some of the oldest known human languages contain clicks and whistles
They also carry over greater distances. Given the Neanderthal style of hunting, I think they probably used clicks and whistles.
I read an article about evidence that they had strong communal ties too. They found remains of a relatively old individual, that had lost a leg, an eye and had all sorts of trauma, that had happened long before he died. An individual like that could not have survived on his own back then, so this supports the idea that not only did they take care of "dead weight" so to speak, but that they had some ability to treat injury.
I don’t understand why people think Neanderthals weren’t smart
I read this as "Netherlands: Smarter Than You Think"
The wheels on the bus be goin round n round
Oh, they could speak alright. They were mostly limited to 1 and 2 syllable words - but they did occasionally say 'fantastic' and/or 'tremendous'. They actually invented rhetorical methods but primarily fixated on repetition to drive their point home.
+MarliesMega I'm pretty sure he's a fine example of one of them - but I was trying to be general.
pitch.. they burn the wood, saw the goop run out when it got super hot, noticed it went hard when it cooled... thought.. hey this could be useful :)
Neanderthals had an enlarged Occipital Bun which gives them room for better spatial reasoning skills. Which so happens to be were the visual cortex is located aswell. So it should come as no surprise why they could be the first to invent anything. And as visual as they were, they probably communicated more in body language (sign language), then speech.
I read that as "Netherlands: Smarter Than You Think"
so many people with sub-par reading abilities/dyslexia that thought it said netherlands...
Thanks for not mentioning Butt hair Mike! Gee, the crazy things Hank obsesses over huh? BUTT, I wonder if Neanderthals had it ?:D
They had the anatomical ability to speak and lived during an era of survival of the fittest and passed on highly refined skills to successive generations... they spoke.
luv this channel
Complexity, life, and the human genus are such that if Neanderthals _could_ speak, we know they _did_ speak.
I like looking at the timelines in natural history museums, and seeing that each other hominid disappears from each continent as humans show up.
Those are Quaking Aspen trees not Birch.
2:35 i know for a fact they were singing while creating those tools if they had the creativity to make things
singing or complex humming
they are very intelligent look at Matt O'Dowd on PBS Space Time!
More early hominid videos + playlist please.
Just backbreed some neanderthals. It would take quite some time (and must be done in secret to avoid any ethical issues) but it's for science.
I have difficulty believing they -didn't- speak. They had processes, burials, decoration, art, communities, passed on knowledge so they could function and live for over 200,000 yrs and mixed (often enough) with 'our species'. What do you think they did, wave their arms? If we start from a position that says absence of speech; proving otherwise is incredibly complicated, like presuming guilty until proved innocent. They had speech. It just wasn't like ours (hyoid bone and genes being different)
The Neanderthal also had a bigger brain capacity than we do.....sometimes discounted by modern archeologists, as not being as significant as it may seem, either because the extra brains were in a different part of the brain, or that the grey matter wasn't as convoluted as our own, though again, that's debatable. I'm sure the critics think that Neanderthal needed that extra brain power for sitting around the camp fire and scratching themselves....not.
IMHO Neanderthals may have been smarter than us. Just didn't have the opportunity to develop the same technology that we've had. Throughout our history, we've lived in relatively benign climate conditions. We've been lucky. They weren't.
Modern humans lived alongside neanderthals though.
Hey SciShow, can you tell me why reheated food tastes worse than the first time it was cooked??
Lithic tools is sharper than it looks guys