Neanderthals were not much inferior to Homo sapiens - the archaeologists came to this conclusion, comparing tools of both types. Until now, it was believed that stone devices used by humans were more effective.
Take, for example, the two most common microlithic tools, the wider flake and the narrower blade.
The first was used by both the Sapiens and the Neanderthals (but mostly the latter). And the second was already an exclusively human invention and was used for a very impressive period - from the late Paleolithic to the Bronze Age.
Scrapers in general are very often used by archaeologists as a visual demonstration of human ingenuity - supposedly they were more "advanced" than the Homo neanderthalensis chopper.
Metin Eren of the University of Exeter decided to challenge the established view. For three years he, together with colleagues from a number of American universities and the Think Computer company, studied ancient methods of stone processing - to recreate, down to the smallest detail, ancient tools.
A report on this experiment is to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
Upon completion of the training part, both types of stone tools were prepared in decent quantities, and the scientists conducted a comparative analysis of their effectiveness in terms of several significant indicators: the total number of tools produced (manufacturing speed), the average number of chips required for processing, the material consumed and the service life.
It is believed that modern humans and Neanderthals have coexisted in Europe for at least 10 thousand years. Why did our ancestors invented and widely used scrapers (left), which were in no way superior to the tools of competitors (right)? According to the authors of the study, this is due to the cultural meaning that was invested in the manufacture of objects of labor (photo from ele.net, he-artefakte.de).
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It is believed that modern humans and Neanderthals have coexisted in Europe for at least 10 thousand years. Why did our ancestors invented and widely used scrapers (left), which were in no way superior to the tools of competitors (right)? According to the authors of the study, this is due to the cultural meaning that was invested in the manufacture of objects of labor (photo from ele.net, he-artefakte.de).
The results were quite unexpected: no statistically significant advantages were found for the scraper over the chopper. Moreover, in some ways, Neanderthal devices were even more effective than sapiens scrapers.
According to the study authors, this suggests that humans did not have any significant advantages in hunting or other vital aspects of primitive life. That is, they were not smarter.
Whether it is possible to recognize the qualitative characteristics of individual tools of labor as a reliable criterion for assessing intelligence is a big question.
Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum of London generally agrees with the study's findings: "Currently, a very small percentage of paleoanthropologists consider Neanderthals stupid."
However, he adds: “Human stone tools in general (apart from scrapers and choppers) were more varied and allowed more operations, which was not observed in Homo neanderthalensis. Also, people more actively used alternative materials - bone or antler, for example."
In general, according to most scientists, it is worth abandoning the search for the smart and stupid in favor of studying specific differences - each species had its own disadvantages and advantages.
