WEBVTT - Selects: What Happened to the Neanderthals? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.040 Hi friends, this is Josh and for this week's Select 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:08.879 I chose our episode on Neanderthals mayhaps the most misunderstood 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:11.960 hominin of all time. We long tended to think of 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:16.640 Neanderthals as loping dummies, but recent research questions that view, 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:18.680 and Chuck and I swoop in to defend them with 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:28.480 all our might leave the Neanderthals alone. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:37.280 You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.760 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:44.040 Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, and um, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.680 this is stuff you should know, Stuff you should Nizzo. 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:53.000 I'm excited about this one. This just feels like classic 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.480 Josh and Chuck. I think so too. Took Took's gonna 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:01.040 make an appearance. Took Took, Mike make sweet of Hm, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:08.280 which is always fun. And yeah, we like to watch 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.000 He's surprisingly tender, he is. I'm sorry. All the third 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.199 graders are actually, more to the point, the third grade 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.600 teachers who are standing there right now at the head 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.120 of class, They're like, oh, what happened to the Neanderthals? 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.960 Perfect for the classroom, right, So yeah, this is very Uh, 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.679 I thought this is very cool. I love this. But 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.600 we talked a little bit about Neanderthals in the past 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:34.759 and Homo sapiens and uh, Dennis Snovin's and that's right, right, 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.720 there's an extra in in there. I think Dennis Stovan's 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.000 Dennis Snoven sounds like a dude, like he manages ice 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:48.120 cream factory, right, Snovin, Dennis Snovin. Uh, this is good 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.960 stuff though, So let's let's treat everyone so all right, 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.560 we'll do our best. Put the pressure on. So neander 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:01.000 Neanderthals it really so? Then correct pronunciation is tall by 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.200 the way, Yeah, I had a teacher point that out, 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.360 remember very specifically in the in the ninth grade. Right, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:13.000 but when you're being correct, you're actually speaking in Old German, 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.280 not even modern German. So it's really just a question 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.760 of how you want to say it. Either one's acceptable, no, 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.520 I mean the pronunciation would still be that in modern 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.680 German neander Tal Yeah, okay, because I saw it spelled 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.840 t a L two. Oh really yeah, let's get it 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.480 to that, h okay. I kind of like it. I 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.440 like how it looks, but I think it's up to 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.799 the individuals say taller thal. Okay, but the correct way 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.200 is neander tal, right, okay, and neander talls. I'm probably 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.640 gonna just switch back and forth. That's okay with everybody. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.760 That is our way. Not to make a big deal 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.960 out of it or anything, but um, neander talls, uh 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.799 or thals, depending on who you are. They were a 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.160 species of human, beings of humans. Like, if you think 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:06.080 about it, chuck you, jerry me, everybody out there sometimes 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:12.519 nol Yeah, same species, one species of human. That's it. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.440 Like you just don't really kind of think about that. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.440 But if you dialed back a little bit, if we 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.720 got on the way back machine and went back just 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.960 like forty thousand years, there'll be at least one other 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.800 species of human running around on Earth. They would be 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:29.880 the Neanderthals. So we didn't even know that there was 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.919 another such thing as another human species until the eighteen 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.360 fifties because there was a forty year gap separating us 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.560 and then that's right, So the very first fossils of 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.120 a Neanderthal was found in eighteen twenty nine in Belgium 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.040 and then again in Gibraltar in eight But that kind 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.200 of were just like, oh cool, look at these old bones. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.600 Wasn't a big deal. Wat's how easy they snapped on 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.400 my knee, right, they didn't know what they were. No. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.800 And then in nineteen fifty six in Germany something pretty 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:02.720 significant happened. Uh. They found some pretty substantial fossils. I 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.400 think a whole skeleton. Actually, yeah, well they definitely found 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.720 a whole skull. Um. This was in four or five 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.520 ft of clay at in a limestone quarry cave in 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.480 a site called felt so Glad. And this is in 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:21.080 the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf. And this is where it 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.760 all comes around. If you hear the word Neanderthal or 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.839 at all um t h a l and Old German 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.400 means valley. And so the scientific name Homo neander tollensus 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.640 means humans from the Neander Valley. Yes, because that's where 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.159 the first one that we realized, Um, wait a minute, 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.680 this is This isn't a cave bear, this isn't like 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:48.520 some some dead person. This is a different species of human. Yeah. 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.599 They saw that the what we now know is classic 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:57.719 Neanderthal oval shape, that that big thick, low receding forehead 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:02.360 and brow very thick owns this. Uh, that was brought 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.600 to the query foreman, and he said it's a cave bear. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.840 I guess he came over from Alabama. But he said, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:12.520 but I do know a teacher and a guy who's 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.880 really into fossils. His name is Johann Karl full Wrought, 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.760 and here you can have these bones. He got them, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:25.000 did some impressions. He went, what uh, did some castings 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:30.400 of these and sent those two Hermann uh Schaffhausen, a professor. 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:32.240 I don't know why German is so funny to you. 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:34.680 I don't either, but coming out of your mouth, it's 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:39.240 like it's just hilarious. After all these years. He's a professor, 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:41.440 was a professor of anatomy at the University of Bonn. 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.320 And they both were like, hey, this is significant because 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.080 this ain't no human uh, no Homo sapien. But it's 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.080 a human, right, we think, right, it's some other kind 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.280 of human, some other kind of hominid that we just 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.560 didn't understand before. So they presented their findings in the world. 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.360 He said like this, everybody get a load of this. 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:07.440 And there was an immediate problem with Neanderthals there there's 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.960 so this is eighteen fifties, eighteen fifty seven when they 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.599 prevented presented their fightings. And that was before on the 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.800 origin of the species. So before Darwin, it was like 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:23.159 God created all this, God created you, God created the panther, 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.920 God created the monkeys separately, like all this stuff was 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.680 all separate. And then Darwin came along and said, no, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.840 all this stuff is actually related, and if you trace 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.760 everything far enough back, you're gonna find a last common 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.840 ancestor between two things that don't look anything alike, um, 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:43.880 including humans and apes. And so this was before that, 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.919 so it didn't fit into the Christian creation story. But 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.000 then even after Darwin came along, it just so happened 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.640 that Neanderthals were discovered and analyzed and and it was 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.280 realized that they were in different species of human at 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.600 a time when biological anthropology was around. Yeah, for oology 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:02.120 and the you know, we've talked about it on the 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.640 show a little bit, the very sort of racist practice 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:12.520 of um categorizing humans and their inferiority of races by 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.840 the shapes of their skull. Right, look at this skull. Um, 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.400 well there it's not not basically Western and European shaped. 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.600 We think it has some weird ridge. Um, so they're 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:29.040 an inferior race. They extended all that onto Neanderthals because 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.200 if you think, you know, if you're if you're comparing 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.600 like human Homo sapiens skulls to one another and somehow 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.560 finding inferiority or superiority in that in the shapes of 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.600 those When you compare a Neanderthal skull to a human skull, 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.160 clearly that human skull is much more refined and developed. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:51.560 Neanderthals must have been these dim witted brutes the caveman. Like. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.160 The whole reason we think of the caveman and Neanderthals 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.760 is big dummies and and oaths. It is because they 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.360 were discovered during a time of racist science. Yeah, and 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.560 that was the view that was held, and it's still 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.080 held by some people who don't know better. This is 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:09.760 why we're doing that, you know, one reason why we're 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.080 doing this episode. But it was held for a couple 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.080 of hundred years. But in the recent decades things have changed. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:21.560 Our picture of the Neanderthal has changed because of science 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.200 and research, and we now know that, uh, well, a 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.880 lot of cool things. I don't want to spoil it yet, Okay, Yeah, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:30.800 I was wondering if that was too much of the 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.880 beans getting out. I think so let's tease that out. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.640 That's fine with Uh, we'll just sit here quietly for 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.840 a second as we go past this. Okay, all right, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.000 we ready, yeah, alright. So the current story, like the 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.040 simple version of the current story, is the Neanderthal and 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.600 the I mean, should we just say the modern human 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.760 or that's how I was like, wow, because they're both humans. Yeah, 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.480 but they're just two different species of human sapience neandertal 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.240 and sapience. All right, So they separated between a half 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.680 a million and about six dred and fifty thousand years ago, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.440 and they both diverge from a common branch um H. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:15.959 Heidel bir Genesis virgensis. I think the g is hard. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.400 I'm pretty sure that's right. H. Heidelbergensis. Yeah, all right, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.040 that sounds right. Yeah, And this was in Africa, right, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:27.360 that's where the divergence happened. That's right. Um. Then, so 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.680 either the division the divergence happened in Africa or some 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:38.680 Heidelbergensis state in Africa, and some spread out of Africa, yeah, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.440 into the Old World in Asia, and over time, because 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.800 of the separation, these groups of humans started branching out 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.920 and developing into distinct species. One of the species. The 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.520 first one to develop into a distinct species from this 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:01.800 branch was Neanderthals, and by at least four hundred thousand 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:07.040 years ago, there were Neanderthals running around like distinct species 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.680 of humans called Neanderthals. Yeah, and they were developing independently 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:12.720 because they were very far from each other and they 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.840 didn't for a very long time, did not have very much, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.600 if any, contact with one another. Yeah. Remember we did 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:23.280 an episode on speciation where like brown bears and polar 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.880 bears used to be the same bear, but the polar 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.440 bears started drifting further and further north, and they're actually 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.080 adapted to a different climate, different habitat, so much so 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.000 that they became a different species. That's the exact same 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.960 thing that we're talking about. Heidelberg ansis drifted into two 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.319 different parts of Africa and Europe, and the climate and 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.160 the habitat was different enough that it split into two 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:50.320 different species. Yeah. So what you've got in Eurasia is 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.439 a range from like Portugal and Wales in the west 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.800 over to like Siberia. This is for Neanderthals, right, yeah, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.319 in the east. So that was their range in general, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.160 and all the way down to the Middle East. Yeah, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:09.439 it was a huge range, very big range. Um, the biggest. Uh. 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.360 They were shorter than sapiens that we're still in Africa. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.800 They were kind of stockier, They had bigger brains. They 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:21.240 were by most accounts, stronger, more muscular, had wider hips 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:26.320 and shoulders, sturdier bones, very sturdy, just stocky, robust thing. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.080 You would not want to mess with the Neanderthal. No, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.800 and they were very adaptable. They they lived in very 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.880 cold environments. Uh, they lived in very sort of warm, 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.360 temperate environments. So it depends on the time. This is 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.120 what they think. They think that that range that was 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:46.439 so huge for the Neanderthals, there wasn't necessarily Neanderthals living 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.280 in all parts of that range at the same time 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.400 for four hundred thousand years or three fifty thousand years. 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.760 They think that over time, some Neanderthal populations died and 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.120 others came along and replaced them, and then some of 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.880 them moved down here and some of them were over here. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.680 That they may have lived in different parts of the 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.240 world at the same time, but not necessarily their entire 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.920 range all at once for the whole three fifty thousand years. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.360 They moved a lot, and nor did they move all 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.760 together as whole populations. There's a lot of local extinctions 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.439 and recolonizations going on right exactly. So it's almost like 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:25.880 if you could look at the map of eur Asia 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.199 on a time lapse over three fifty thousand years that 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.320 Neanderthals were around in the area, you would just kind 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.240 of see these little populations kind of growing and popping 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.840 and dissolving and then picking up again. And these are 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.800 actually new groups going into areas, becoming like dying out 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.200 for one reason or another. And then a thousand or 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.800 ten thousand years later, there's another group that says, oh, 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.960 this is a great spot and showing up kind of 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:55.960 like our real Atlantis episode. Remember there's like like twelve 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:00.079 feet of like fifty different settlements over a thousands and 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.080 thousands of years, because they're just like, this is a 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.600 great place to settle, but each one had no idea 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.040 that the last one was there. Same thing with the 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.480 Neanderthal range. So the Neanderthals are doing their thing all 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.960 over eur Asia. Meanwhile back in Africa and East Africa, 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.400 you've got the Sapien doing their thing, and then they 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.760 start to radiate out a little bit the sapiens and 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.520 then get obviously the Middle East would be a pretty 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.360 logical next place to go from Africa, and they happened 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:33.800 upon the Neanderthal and they're like wow, we wow, who 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.880 are you? And then they were all of a sudden 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.839 sharing space together, right, starting about a hundred thousand years 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.880 ago in the Middle East. In the Middle East and 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.240 then in Europe, they shared space for two hundred to 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.560 five hundred generations. Yeah, they just like the Neanderthals spread out. 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.280 The sapiens basically followed the same path. But they were 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:57.520 already people there. It was Neanderthals and um, yeah, two 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.520 hundred generations, five hundred generations between fourth isn't in ten 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.920 thousand years a very long time to share space. It 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.880 really is like that many generations that that of just 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.600 living in the same place. The thing is is over 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:16.880 the lifespan of the Neanderthals, fifty thousand years, four thousand 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.360 years is nothing. It's the blink of an eye. And 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.760 around the time about so say, humans or sapiens showed 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.080 up in Europe about forty two thousand years ago, about 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.400 forty thousand years ago something give or take a few 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:37.160 thousand years Neanderthals just vanished. Did they melt? We don't 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:42.360 remember that old theory. That's right, they've melted like nine 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.880 years ago. That was great. Good, So I think that's 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:47.960 a good place for a break. Yeah, we'll talk about 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.440 what happened right after this. Well, now we're on the road, 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.760 driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or 0:14:54.800 --> 0:15:01.600 two from Josh Chuck stuff you should know? All right? 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:18.640 All right? So, uh appearance of of sapiens in Europe 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.480 before this um disappearance of Neanderthals. For a very long time, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.880 everyone basically just had one of two theories, either that 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.520 sapiens killed them off, or that they were just so 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.800 smart that they out competed them for resources and they 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.560 went away. And that was It's known as the replacement 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:42.200 model or the recent African origin model, and people were 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.120 all on that train. If some people still very much 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.480 are really oh yeah, in academia, not just not just 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.680 you know, general public, I say boo to that. I agree, 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.560 And it seems like there are people who are kind 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.960 of chipping away at that. But I believe the replacement 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.080 model is the dominant model for what happened to the Neanderthals. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:03.040 It basically as humans, Homo sapiens came along and our 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.800 brains are so much smarter. We were capable of things 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.840 that Neanderthals couldn't even dream of. Um, things like culture 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.960 and art and all sorts of nication, right, um language 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.800 probably um that the Neanderthals just didn't stand a chance. 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.400 Once the sapience showed up, it was like progresses here, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.600 go ahead and die and either directly by killing them 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.520 via warfare or like you said, just out competing them. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.880 That was it for the Neanderthals. And the timing is 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.760 definitely well suspect, you know, like, and I think that's 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.400 what a lot of people have clamped onto is humans 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.640 show up a couple of thousand years, Neanderthals are gone. Yeah, 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:44.360 it makes sense, um on the surface. But in two 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.440 thousand ten there was some pretty startling discovery. Um, they 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:53.680 fully sequenced Neanderthal genome, which is amazing, super amazing, and 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.960 we found out wait a minute, us sapiens, some of 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:03.200 us have Neanderthal DNA in our bodies. Are Neanderthals ourselves? 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.320 Yeah about depending on where you're from in your ethnic background, 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.680 but if you're European or Asian, you have pretty good 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.600 likelihood of being wondered four percent in Neanderthal as far 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.880 as your DNA goes um. In Sub Saharan Africa, there's 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.760 not any obviously, because that's where the Sapiens were all, uh, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.080 you know, hanging out and doing their thing right. They 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.200 hadn't migrated out and intermixed with the with the Neanderthals, 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.960 So you know what that means. That means that time 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:33.000 period where they were all sharing space, they're also sharing space. 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:34.800 There was like a lot of you know what I'm saying, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.720 they were making love. Oh that yeah, took Took would 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:43.000 make love and create little baby Tooktooks. We have to 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.720 say for just to keep it crownded. We're not exactly 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:52.399 sure what kind of uh circumstances that making love took. No, 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:56.119 you're right, it could have been mistaken identity um. And 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.800 obviously the brutal scenario, which is probably the most likely, 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:02.439 is that they came in by force and that was 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.359 like raping and pillaging going up. But the thing is, 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.879 we don't know that that's necessarily likely. You know, I 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.520 don't know. We honestly have such a little understandings for Neanderthal. 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.199 We have no idea they might have been hippies, but 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.239 we got to throw that out there, uh as one 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.400 of the obvious possibilities. Yeah, as much as you want 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.240 to just be like, oh, that's so awesome, the Neanderthals 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.560 were there, the humans showed up, and rather than humans 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.280 killing off Neanderthals saying get out of here, you old 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.919 archaic humans, they said, let's get it on. Well, not 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.120 only let's get on, let's let's let's share resources, let's 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.200 teach each other things. Yeah, let's explore life together and 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:43.480 let's try. Didn't go away. They just got absorbed. And 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.479 because there were far more sapiens, uh, their traits just 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:49.720 you know, sort of got weeded out over the years 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.080 for the most part. So this is the rival to 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.160 that replacement model that's the dominant model. This is called 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.080 the multi regional evolution model. And it says basic me 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.439 what you just said, that Neanderthals and humans did it 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.679 so much that the hybrid human Neanderthals that were um 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:14.200 that were born as offspring um, they they mated with 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.560 other Neanderthals or other humans. But because there were more 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.000 sapiens I'm sorry, more sapiens than there were Neanderthals, the 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.000 likelihood was that a hybrid would be much more likely 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.080 to mate with a sapient and then that hybrid would 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.800 be even more watered down neanderthal And then over time 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:37.000 because of exactly and Neanderthals didn't die off, they didn't 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.840 get chased out, they just became part of that larger 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.440 human genome. So there's another theory too that's interesting, or 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:48.720 another interpretation. I guess it's not a theory. And this 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.199 has to do with climate change. Um. They did a 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:53.760 study into and well this year actually two thousand nineteen 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.800 in France, and they discovered that all you need over 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.240 the course of about ten thousand years is about a 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.480 two point seven decrease in fertility rates UM to go 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.600 bye by ten tho years for a decrease in UM 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:16.920 first time young neandertal mothers that population, and they said 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.040 cut that in half basically are close to it. Within 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.800 four thousand years, you would need only an eight percent 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:26.879 decrease in fertility and that same group. So it's very Uh, 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.040 it makes a lot of sense that with a little 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.719 bit of climate change and a little bit of scarcity 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.840 and just uh, it didn't have to be anything drastic, 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.080 but over that amount of time, if you don't have 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.120 any as many calories going into your body in your 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.080 first time under twenty year old, uh Neanderthal mother, you're 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:46.760 not going to be successful and you're not gonna be 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.720 as fertile. And then over time that just means you 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.679 kind of very quietly and slowly go away. Yeah, I 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.199 got this. I think I found this article from Live Science, 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.720 and in it they say, by the way, um, if 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.720 the human replace meant rate dropped to one point three 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.960 babies per mother, we'd be gone in three hundred years. 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.920 So so just a very slight drop among the neandertals 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.919 could have accounted for that four thousand to ten thousand 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:18.040 year process of just suddenly disappearing. And again in this 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.480 this interpretation, humans didn't do anything. We didn't war with them, 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.280 we didn't outcompete them, we didn't do anything. It was 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.479 just something happened to the environment and it was just 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:31.960 harder to be fertile. And it wasn't all at once. 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.040 Maybe it might have been staggered in different parts of 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.720 the world exactly over over four thousand to ten thousand years. 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.919 And the reason it wasn't that Neanderthals couldn't compete, that 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:46.720 they couldn't survive um whereas humans could. Because Neanderthals, again, 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.280 their lifespan was three hundred fifty thousand years. Modern humans 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.800 have only been around for fifty to a hundred thousand years, 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.119 maybe two hundred at the outside. So Neanderthals had been 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:58.600 around for a very long time, had been very good 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.119 at adapting to a changing climate basically the whole time 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:04.439 that they were around. So it's not like they couldn't 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.600 compete or couldn't adapt and humans could. What they think 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.000 is that they were just way more humans, and so 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.280 our numbers probably dropped at the same rate that Neanderthal 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:16.920 numbers did. There was just more of us to survive 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.879 and carry on after things got better. Yeah, and in 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.639 more varied ranges in parts of the world too. That 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.560 all kind of makes sense to me. I suppose it 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:31.040 could be uh, both of those, climate change and lovemaking 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.440 right right, very easily. Yeah, they definitely go hand in hand. 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.800 Like er, should we take another break? All right, We'll 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.240 take another break and talk about what we now the 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:44.879 sort of current understanding of the picture of what the 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.320 Neanderthal was. Right after this, Well, now we're on the 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.840 road driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:56.040 or two from Josh can chuck stuff. You should know, 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:12.919 all right. Mh. By the way, have you seen or 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:19.360 heard of that movie William? Uh? It was out in April, 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.720 did not do well, was not reviewed well. But it 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:27.000 is basically a sort of mad scientist. Not a mad scientist, 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:33.480 but a scientist with a mad idea. Uh. There's a 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:37.840 human Neanderthal born. They get the d n A impregnate 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:43.280 a modern sapient woman and she has a a Neanderthal boy, William, 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.239 and he goes to high school. I did not see that. 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:49.360 I had no idea about that movie. Yeah, just check 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.040 out the trailer. Oh, I don't haven't seen it. It's 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:53.879 not supposed to be very good, and it did not 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.040 look very good. But it was very much like, you know, 0:23:57.160 --> 0:23:58.959 I just want to fit in, and he's you know, 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:02.520 he's he's in the andertal. He's got the regular haircut, 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:04.639 in the vans and the jeans and the T shirt. 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:09.320 He's got the big forehead and the thick man. It 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:13.359 does it does, and it looks like it could be 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:16.879 a joke, but it's real. Was there that I feel 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:20.760 good in the middle of the trailer suddenly or that 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:23.120 scene where like like a teen wolf or something where 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:30.160 he's really good at sports or something. Yeah, Man William, Yeah, 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:33.840 there's a weekend for you right there. Much. I'm not 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:35.520 gonna watch it, but I just thought it would be 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:39.320 it'd be worth mentioning before the emails come in. So, uh, 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:43.199 the image we're on a quest. I think UM and 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:47.400 sciences on a quest to sort of rehabilitate that's when 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:50.199