At the beginning of 1857, scientists stated that there was another person in history - a Neanderthal. Then it was decided that this was a failed experiment of nature, a dead-end branch. But new research has raised new questions.
Human ancestor?
Until recently, it was believed in science that the Neanderthals, contemporaries of the Cro-Magnons, had nothing to do with the civilization of Homo sapiens. It was believed that these races lived too far apart from each other and could not interact. But recent studies by German professor Svante Paabo and Dr. David Reich have shown that Neanderthal genes are present in most people, with the exception of Africans. True, in a small amount - about 4%. Scientists believe that in the conditions of migration to the Middle East, Cro-Magnons came across Neanderthals and unwittingly mixed with them. But the most paradoxical thing is that human and Neanderthal DNA are 99.5% similar. Who were our ancestors?
The inventors of the ritual?
Neanderthals, contrary to the general idea, were very different from animals, they had a consciousness, a spiritual world. In fact, they came up with the first rituals and began to bury their fellows using rituals. Before them, such a thing had never even occurred to anyone, ideas about some kind of spiritual, cultural world simply did not exist. Burial in the grotto of La Chapelle-aux-Seine in France tells us that it was the Neanderthals who were the first to put flowers, food, toys to the deceased. But in the harsh conditions of the Ice Age, this practice was not common. Many less respected deceased members of primitive society were simply eaten.
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Musical talents?
Neanderthals were a highly cultured race. They played the first melody in the history of mankind on a bone flute with four holes, which could reproduce three notes: "do", "re", "mi". The tool was found in a Slovenian cave in 1995 and made a splash. Among their other achievements are the earliest cave paintings, which, however, resemble patterns rather than images. These ancient pictures from the Chauvet cave in France are about 37 thousand years old. They also tried themselves as sculptors, as evidenced by a human face carved into a stone that was found at one of the sites. True, the small number of such finds does not allow us to recognize the presence of a craving for art in a disappeared person, according to European paleontologists.
Bigger brain than Einstein?
Oddly enough, the Neanderthals really surpassed the genius of the 20th century in terms of brain volume. This does not mean that they were smarter than Einstein or any of the representatives of modern Homo sapiens. Everything is explained by the thick cortex and large parts of the brain, which are responsible for vision and the simplest thought processes. But is it? For example, scientists at Harvard University, based on all sorts of inventions of the Neanderthals, believe that this race was more capable than humans, although they thought differently.
Was there a language?
The level of development of the ancient Neanderthal, which appears to us based on the latest archaeological data, could not exist without developed speech. Hence another mystery of the disappeared race - whether they had their own language. This "great man" first invented his own world of symbols, but could they speak? At the end of the 20th century, the American anthropologist Lieberman put forward the theory that Neanderthals only bellowed incoherently. But, ten years later, this assumption was refuted by a new reconstruction of the skull of the paleanthropus. Proponents of the Neanderthal rationality cite the diversity of their weapons and early religious practices. Of course, it is far from writing, but it is quite possible that the Neanderthals had their own language, gave names to objects. But will modern Homo sapiens ever reveal the secret of their simple speech?
What happened to them?
The most important question that now torments scientists is how, when and why such a promising race disappeared, which in development, one might say, surpassed our ancestors? It is believed that the last Neanderthals became extinct in the Iberian Peninsula about 20 thousand years ago. The adherents of the Darwinian theory believe that “other people” could not, unlike humans, survive the harsh conditions of the ice age or died from illness, but Polish archaeologists, for example, believe that Neanderthals existed in the historical era on a par with Homo sapiens and died out from the fact that their development simply stopped.
Cannibalism or the first genocide?
History is not written without sacrifice. Perhaps the Neanderthals, being pioneers in many things, disappeared as a result of the first genocide in history. Two different kinds of humanity began to destroy each other. Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, finding themselves in neighboring territories, literally devoured each other. Our ancestors succeeded - the Neanderthals were completely absorbed by them, both literally and figuratively.