We have had Neanderthals wrong for a long time. Ever since the first bones were identified in 1856, they were described by scientists 鈥揳nd imagined by the public 鈥� as shambling, dull-witted ape-people, who died out because they were too stupid to compete with sharp-minded modern humans.
Yet over several decades it has become increasingly clear that we were wrong. Neanderthals were big-brained, intelligent creatures who were perfectly adapted to their environment. They could hunt and catch difficult prey, had control of fire, probably buried their dead 鈥� and made art. Anthropologists and magazines like 快猫短视频 have long argued the point, but the word 鈥淣eanderthal鈥� remains an insult. A new BBC documentary may finally change this: Neanderthals: Meet your ancestors is based on work by anthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi of University College London, UK, who searches war-torn Yemen for hominin remains.
Al-Shamahi evidently thinks seeing is believing so she sets out to show rather than tell that Neanderthals were a lot like us. She enlists experts to create a computer-generated image of a Neanderthal, which motion-capture actor Andy Serkis (Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot) brings to life. Along the way, the film drives that message home. In one sequence, motion-capture actors break-dance and perform martial arts while on a screen their Neanderthal avatars do the same with equal fluency. In another, Al-Shamahi watches the reconstruction of the face of a Neanderthal. She is struck by how easy it would be to walk past such a person without a second glance. 鈥淪ome of my mates would date him,鈥� she says.
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Human evolution dates back at least 7 million years, the time our ancestors split from those of chimps. Neanderthals lived within the last million years. No doubt, if you go back far enough along the human family tree, you would find a species barely smarter than a chimp which did not speak or make art. But they would not be Neanderthals, who had remarkable minds.
Status symbols
In another sequence, Al-Shamahi visits Gorham鈥檚 cave in Gibraltar, where archaeologists have found a symbol resembling a hashtag scratched into the stone floor over 39,000 years ago by a Neanderthal. It鈥檚 not clear if this is art, but it was deliberate, and intended to symbolise or represent something. This may not sound impressive, but our species was not doing anything more sophisticated at the time.
It鈥檚 a testament to how fast anthropology is moving that, when it comes to Neanderthal art, the documentary is already slightly out of date. In February this year, archaeologists described paintings in three Spanish caves, all of which must have been by Neanderthals. One, a hand stencil in Maltravieso cave, is the world鈥檚 oldest known cave art, created more than 64,000 years ago. While the hashtag is open to interpretation, these paintings are clearly art. Again, our species was doing no better at the time.
This game-changer followed other evidence that, like us, Neanderthals could express themselves symbolically. One French cave contains 175,000- year-old stone circles. Not only did Neanderthals create them, but they must have carried torches because the cave is pitch-black. There is also evidence they painted their bodies and wore feathers as ornaments. In the Crimea, archaeologists found a 40,000-year-old raven bone carved with seven spaced notches 鈥� the handiwork of a Neanderthal with an eye for precise aesthetics.
Since it has become difficult to pin down something humans can do that Neanderthals could not, it is also far from clear that they were doomed to go extinct, as we often supposed. Were history to be re-run, might they have built cities and rockets, or fashioned commemorative royal wedding mugs while we were the subjects of iconoclastic documentaries?
[tvshow_info title=鈥漀eanderthals: Meet your ancestors鈥� title_link=鈥漢ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3gdg2鈥� channel=鈥滲BC2鈥� country=鈥漊K鈥澨齮ime=鈥�20:00鈥� date=鈥�13/20 May 鈥淽
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