Triangulating Neanderthal cognition: A tale of not seeing the forest for the trees

Abstract

The inference of Neanderthal cognition, including their cultural and linguistic capabilities, has persisted as a fiercely debated research topic for decades. This lack of consensus is substantially based on inherent uncertainties in reconstructing prehistory out of indirect evidence as well as other methodological limitations. Further factors include systemic difficulties within interdisciplinary discourse, data artifacts, historic research biases, and the sheer scope of the relevant research. Given the degrees of freedom in interpretation ensuing from these complications, any attempt to find approximate answers to the yet unsettled pertinent discourse may not rest on single studies, but instead a careful and comprehensive interdisciplinary synthesis of findings. Triangulating Neanderthals' cognition by considering the plethora of data, diverse perspectives and aforementioned complexities present within the literature constitutes the currently most reliable pathway to tentative conclusions. While some uncertainties remain, such an approach paints the picture of an extensive shared humanity between anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Linguistics > Evolution of Language

An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals

“…The disagreement over the supposed cognitive, technological, social, economic advantages of modern humans over Neanderthals that characterizes the aforementioned exchange between Villa and Roebroeks 38 , Zilhão 39 , and Wynn et al 40 , does not seem to be just a disagreement among a couple of individuals,rather, these issues appear to divide the entire research community. This finding is at odds with Breyl’s literature review 59 . According to Breyl, the received wisdom among palaeo-anthropologists is that Neanderthals were cognitively and technologically comparable to modern humans.…”

“…More specifically, according to received wisdom, the disappearance of Neanderthals was primarily driven by demographic factors. This is surprising, given that, according to a recent review of the literature 59 , virtually all archaeological studies of the Neanderthal- H. sapiens transition that have explicitly evoked a causative role for such factors were published in the last decade (for a similar point, see 25 ) most of these studies even came out just during the past 5 years. In fact, demography has only very recently been shown to be sufficient to account for the demise of Neanderthals 26 , 28 .…”

What Do Palaeo-Anthropologists Believe About the Disappearance of Neanderthals?

“…More specifically, according to received wisdom, the disappearance of Neanderthals was primarily driven by demographic factors. This is surprising, given that, according to a recent review of the literature (Breyl 2020), virtually all archaeological studies of the Neanderthal-H. sapiens transition that have explicitly evoked a causative role for such factors were published in the last decade (for a similar point, see French 2015); most of these studies even came out just during the past five years. In fact, demography has only very recently been shown to be sufficient to account for the demise of Neanderthals Feldman 2017, Vaesen et al 2019).…”

“…These possible limitations are impossible to fully avoid. But despite them, our survey seems the best way of getting at the received wisdom of the research community: it is fully anonymous, and it is much broader in scope than the review of Breyl (2020). Whereas Breyl restricted himself to published statements (and did so in a non-systematic way, see above), our method allowed us to gauge the opinions of a much larger, and hence more representative pool of experts.…”

“…The disagreement over the supposed cognitive, technological, social, economic advantages of modern humans over Neanderthals that characterizes the aforementioned exchange betweenVilla and Roebroeks (2014),Zilhão (2014), and Wynn et al(2016), does not seem to be just a disagreement among a couple of individuals; rather, these issues appear to divide the entire research community. This finding is at odds with Breyl's literature review(Breyl 2020). According to Breyl, the received wisdom among palaeo-anthropologists is that Neanderthals were cognitively and technologically indistinguishable from modern humans.…”