WEBVTT - What happened to the Neanderthals? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.440 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.040 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.720 there's Jerry over there, and um, this is stuff you 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:24.640 should know, Stuff you should Nizzo. I'm excited about this one. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.880 This just feels like classic Josh and Chuck. I think 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.240 so too. Took Took's gonna make an appearance. Took Took 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:40.680 Mike make Sweet Love, which is always fun. And watching Took, yeah, 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.040 we like to watch. He's surprisingly tender, he is. I'm 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.519 sorry all the third graders are actually, more to the point, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.760 the third grade teachers who are standing there right now 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.080 at the head of class, they're like, oh, what happened 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.960 to the Neanderthal's perfect for the classroom? Right? So yeah, 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.880 this is very uh. I thought this is very cool. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.720 I love this. But we've talked a little bit about 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:05.000 Neanderthal's in the past and Homo sapiens and uh, Dennis 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:10.040 Snovin's and that's right, right, there's an extra end in there. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.639 I think Dennis Stovan's. Dennis Snoven sounds like a dude, 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:21.559 like he manages the ice cream factory, right, Snovin, Dennis Snovin, Uh, 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.280 this is good stuff, though, So let's let's treat everyone 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.160 so all right, we'll do our best. Put the pressure on. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:33.840 So Neander neander tals it really so? Then correct pronunciation 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.520 is tall by the way. Yeah, I had a teacher 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.120 point that out, remember, very specifically in the in the 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:45.880 ninth grade. But when you're being correct, you're actually speaking 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.559 in Old German, not even modern German. So it's really 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.160 just a question of how you want to say it. 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.280 Either one's acceptable, no, I mean the pronunciation would still 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.760 be that in modern German. Neander tal Yeah, okay, because 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.280 I saw it spelled t a L two. Oh really yeah, 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.800 let's get rid of that age. Okay. I kind of 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:06.920 like it. I like how it looks, but I think 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.960 it's up to the individuals. Say taller thal okay, but 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:14.160 the correct way is neander tal right, okay, and Neander talls. 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:16.840 I'm probably gonna just switch back and forth. That's okay 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.000 with everybody, not to make a big deal out of 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.600 it or anything, but um, neander talls uh or thals, 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:31.000 depending on who you are. They were a species of 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.720 human beings of humans like if you think about it, Chuck, you, 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:44.200 Jerry me, everybody out there. Sometimes yeah, same species, one 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.320 species of human, that's it. Like you just don't really 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.679 kind of think about that. But if you dial back 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.079 a little bit, if we got on the way back 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.800 machine and went back just like forty thousand years, there'll 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.440 be at least one other species of human running around 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.840 on Earth, and they would be the Neanderthals. Yes, so 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.840 we didn't even know that there was another such thing 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.120 as another human species until the eighteen fifties because there 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.520 was a forty thousand year gap separating us. And then 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.480 that's right, So the very first fossils of a Neanderthal 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.240 was found in eighteen twenty nine in Belgium and then 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.240 again in Gibraltar in eight But they kind of were 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.720 just like, oh cool, look at these old bones. Wasn't 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.280 a big deal. What's how easy they snap on my knee? Right? 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:28.959 They didn't know what they were, no, And then in 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.480 nineteen fifty six in Germany, something pretty significant happened. Uh, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.200 they found some pretty substantial fossils. I think a whole 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.560 skeleton actually, yeah, well they definitely found a whole skull um. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:42.520 This was in four or five ft of clay at 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.760 in a limestone quarry cave and a site called felt 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.080 so Glad. And this is in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.280 And this is where it all comes around. If you 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:00.720 hear the word Neanderthal or a tall um t h 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.560 a l and old German means valley. And so the 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:09.080 scientific name Homo neander tollensus means humans from the Neander Valley. Yes, 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.320 because it means that's where the first one that we realized, Um, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.839 wait a minute, this is This isn't a cave bear. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.720 This isn't like some some dead person. This is a 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.840 different species of human. Yeah. They saw that the what 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:29.040 we now know is classic Neanderthal oval shape. That that 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:34.239 big thick, low receding forehead and brow, very thick bones. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.720 This uh, that was brought to the query foreman and 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.479 he said it's a cave bear. I guess you came 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.240 over from Alabama. But he said, but I do know 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.400 a teacher and a guy who's really into fossils. His 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.760 name is Johann Karl full Rot. And here you can 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:57.760 have these bones. He got them, did some impressions, what uh, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.280 did some castings of these and sent though those to 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:05.560 Hermann uh Schaffhausen, a professor. I don't know German is 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.359 so funny. I don't either, but coming out of your mouth, 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.599 it's like it's just hilarious. After all these years. He's 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.880 a professor, was a professor of anatomy at the University 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.240 of Bonn. And they both were like, hey, this is 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.200 significant because this ain't no human. Uh no homo sapien. 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.360 But it's a human, right, we think, right, it's some 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.720 other kind of human, some other kind of hominid that 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.160 we just didn't understand before. So they presented their fightings 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:34.719 in the world. He said, look at this. Everybody, get 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.279 a load of this. And there was an immediate problem 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:43.880 with Neanderthals there there's so this is eighteen fifty eighteen 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.440 fifty seven when they prevented presented their fightings. And that 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.640 was before on the origin of the species. So before Darwin, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.919 it was like God created all this, God created you, 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.880 God created the panther, God created the monkeys separately, like 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.040 all this stuff was all separate. And then Darwin came 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.080 along and said, no, all this stuff is actually related. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.159 And if you trace everything far enough back, you're gonna 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.440 find the last common ancestor between two things that don't 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:16.080 look anything alike um, including humans and apes. And so 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:18.760 this was before that, so it didn't fit into the 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.719 Christian creation story. But then even after Darwin came along, 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.520 it just so happened that Neanderthals were discovered and analyzed 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.960 and and it was realized that they were in different 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:33.479 species of human at a time when biological anthropology was around, yeah, 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:35.920 phrenology and the you know, we've talked about it on 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.040 the show a little bit, the very sort of racist 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:46.200 practice of um categorizing humans in their inferiority of races 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.719 by the shapes of their skull. Right, look at this skull, um, 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:54.280 well there it's not not basically Western and European shaped. 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.520 We think it has some weird ridge. Um, so they're 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:02.919 an inferior race. They extended all that onto Neanderthals because 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.080 if you think, you know, if you're if you're comparing 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.480 like human Homo sapiens skulls to one another and somehow 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.480 finding inferiority or superiority, and that in the shapes of 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.520 those when you compare a Neanderthal skull to a human skull, 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.080 clearly that human skull is much more refined and developed. 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:25.480 Neanderthals must have been these dim witted brutes the caveman. Like, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.040 the whole reason we think of the caveman and Neanderthals 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.680 is big dummies and and oaths. It is because they 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.280 were discovered during a time of racist science. Yeah, and 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.480 that was the view that was held, and it's still 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.960 held by some people who don't know better. This is 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:43.640 why we're doing that, you know, one reason why we're 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.000 doing this episode. But it was held for a couple 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.960 of hundred years. But in the recent decades things have changed. 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:55.440 Our picture of the Neanderthal has changed because of science 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:00.160 and research, and we now know that, uh, well a 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.760 lot of cool things. I don't want to spoil it yet, Okay, Yeah, 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:04.720 I was wondering if that was too much of the 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.800 beans getting out. I think, so let's tease that out. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.080 That's fine with me. So, uh, we'll just sit here 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.280 quietly for a second as we go past this. Okay, 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.600 all right, we ready, yeah, alright, So the current story, 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.400 like the simple version of the current story is the 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.800 Neanderthal and the I mean, should we just say the 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.400 modern human or Homo sap That's how I was like, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.080 how could because they're both humans, yeah, but they're just 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.320 two different species of human sapience tal and sapiens. All right. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.840 So they separated between a half a million and about 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.800 six hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and they both 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:47.000 diverge from a common branch um H. Heidel their genesis rgensis. 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:52.920 I think the g is hard. I'm pretty sure that's right. H. Heidelbergensis. Yeah, 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.880 all right, that sounds right. Yeah. And this was in Africa, right, 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:01.280 that's where the divergence happened. That's right. Um. Then, so 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:05.560 either the division, the divergence happened in Africa or some 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:11.000 Heidelbergensis state in Africa, and some spread out of Africa 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:16.280 to yeah, into the Old World in Asia. And over time, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:22.400 because of the separation, these groups of humans started branching 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:27.679 out and developing into distinct species. One of the species, 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.280 the first one to develop into a distinct species from 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:35.400 this branch, was Neanderthals, and by at least four hundred 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.679 thousand years ago, there were Neanderthals running around like distinct 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.920 species of humans called Neanderthals. Yeah, and they were developing 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.439 independently because they were very far from each other, and 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.719 they didn't for a very long time, did not have 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.160 very much, if any, contact with one another. Yeah. Remember 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.280 we did an episode on speciation where like brown bears 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.280 and polar bears used to be the same bear, but 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.439 the polar bear started drifting further and further north, and 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.600 they actually adapted to a different climate, different habitat, so 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.080 much so that they became a different species. That's the 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.280 exact same thing that we're talking at. Heidelberg ansis drifted 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.680 into two different parts of Africa and Europe, and the 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.320 climate in the habitat was different enough that it split 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.679 into two different species. Yeah. So what you've got in 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.920 Eurasia is a range from like Portugal and whales in 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.720 the west over to like Siberia. This is for Neanderthals, right, Yeah, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.240 in the east. So that was their range in general, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.079 and all the way down to the Middle East. Yeah, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:43.319 it was a huge range, very big range. Um the biggest. Uh. 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.280 They were shorter than sapiens that we're still in Africa. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.840 They were kind of stockier, they had bigger brains, they 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.160 were by most accounts, stronger, more muscular, had wider hips 0:10:55.160 --> 0:11:00.400 and shoulders, sturdier bones, very sturdy, just stocky, robust things 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.959 you would not want to mess with the Neanderthal No, 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.679 and they were very adaptable. They they lived in very 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.800 cold environments. Uh, they lived in very sort of warm, 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.280 temperate environments. So it depends on the time. This is 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.000 what they think. They think that that range that was 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:20.360 so huge for the Neanderthals, there wasn't necessarily Neanderthals living 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.160 in all parts of that range at the same time 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.319 for four hundred thousand years or three fifty thousand years. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.679 They think that over time, some Neanderthal populations died and 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.000 others came along and replaced them, and then some of 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.560 them moved down here and some of them were over here. 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.560 That they may have lived in different parts of the 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.160 world at the same time, but not necessarily their entire 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:46.760 range all at once. For the whole three fifty thousand years. 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.199 They moved a lot, and nor did they move all 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.920 together as whole populations. It was a lot of local 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:56.800 extinctions and recolonizations going on, right think exactly. So it's 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.160 almost like if you could look at the map of 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.800 eur Asia on a time lapse over three fifty thousand 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.840 years that Neanderthals were around in the area, you would 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.480 just kind of see these little populations kind of growing 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.319 and popping and dissolving and then picking up again. And 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:17.040 these are actually new groups going into areas becoming like 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.440 dying out for one reason or another. And then a 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.720 thousand or ten thousand years later, there's another group that says, oh, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:24.880 this is a great spot and showing up kind of 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.840 like our real Atlantis episode. Remember there's like like twelve 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:34.400 feet of like fifty different settlements over thousands and thousands 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.240 of years because they're just like, this is a great 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.640 place to settle, but each one had no idea that 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.000 the last one was there. Same thing with the Neanderthal range. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:46.120 So the Neanderthals are doing their thing all over your Asia. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.599 Meanwhile back in Africa and East Africa, you've got the 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.120 Sapien doing their thing. And then they start to radiate 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.240 out a little bits, the Sapiens and then get obviously 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.280 the Middle East would be a pretty logical next place 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.880 to go from Africa, and they happened upon the Neanderthal 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:09.640 and they're like wow, we wow, who are you? And 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.680 then they were all of a sudden sharing space together, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.000 right starting about a hundred thousand years ago in the 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.480 Middle East, in the Middle East, and then in Europe. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.760 They shared space for two hundred to five hundred generations. Yeah, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:25.080 they just like the Neanderthals spread out. The sapiens basically 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.760 followed the same path. But there were already people there. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.120 It was Neanderthals and um. Yeah, two hundred generations, generations 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.920 between four thousand and ten thousand years. Very long time 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.319 to share space. It really is like that many generations 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.400 that that of just living in the same place. The 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:48.480 thing is is over the lifespan of the Neanderthals, three 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.280 fifty thousand years, four thousand years is nothing. It's the 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.439 blink of an eye. And around the time about so 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.800 say humans or sapiens showed up in Europe about forty 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.280 two two thousand years ago, about forty thou years ago 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.800 something give or take a few thousand years, Neanderthals just vanished. 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.079 Did they melt? We don't remember that old theory. That's 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.720 all right, they've melted. It was like nine years ago. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.200 That was so uh. I think it's a good place 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.560 for a break. Yeah, we'll talk about what happened right 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.520 after this. Well, now we're on the road, driving in 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.480 your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:49.520 Josh Damn chuck stuff you should know, all right, m alright, So, uh, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.960 appearance of of sapiens in Europe before this um disappearance 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.160 of Neanderthals. For a very long time, everyone basically just 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.040 had one of two you're easy, either that sapiens killed 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:06.400 them off or that they were just so smart that 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:10.240 they out competed them for resources and they went away. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.200 And that was It's known as the replacement model or 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.320 the recent African origin model, right, and people were all 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.720 on that train. Some people still very much are. Oh yeah, 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.800 in academia, not just not just you know, the general public. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.160 I say, boo to that. I agree, And it seems 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.200 like there are people who are kind of chipping away 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.480 at that. But I believe the replacement model is the 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:35.080 dominant model for what happened to the Neanderthals. It basically says, humans, 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.120 Homo sapiens came along and our brains are so much smarter. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.680 We were capable of things that Neanderthals couldn't even dream of, um, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.560 things like culture and art and all sorts of men right, 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.280 um language probably um that the Neanderthals just didn't stand 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.320 a chance. Once the sapience showed up. It was like 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.760 progresses here, go ahead and die and either directly by 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.520 killing them via warfare or like you said, just out 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.640 competing them. That was it for the Neanderthals. And the 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:07.200 timing is definitely well sure suspect, you know, like and 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.000 I think that's what a lot of people have clamped 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.640 onto is humans show up a couple of thousand years, 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.520 Neanderthals are gone. Yeah, it makes sense, um on the surface. 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.760 But in two thousand and ten there was some pretty 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:25.920 startling discovery. Um, they fully sequenced Neanderthal genome, which is amazing, 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:31.400 super amazing, and we found out wait a minute, us sapiens, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.520 some of us have Neanderthal DNA in our bodies. Are 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.240 Neanderthals ourselves? Yeah about depending on where you're from in 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.760 your ethnic background, but if you're European or Asian, you 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.320 have pretty good likelihood of being one to four percent 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.480 in Neanderthal as far as your DNA goes. UM. In 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.840 Sub Saharan Africa, there's not any obviously, because that's where 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.640 the sapiens were all, uh, you know, hanging out and 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.760 doing their thing right. They hadn't migrated out and intermixed 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.160 with the with the Neanderthals. So you know what that means. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.560 That means that time period where they were all sharing space, 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.919 they're also sharing space. There was like a lot of 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.920 you know what I'm saying, they were making love. Oh 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:15.080 that ye took took would make love and create little 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:19.360 baby tooktoks. We have to say for just to keep 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:23.840 your crownded, we're not exactly sure what kind of uh 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.120 circumstances that making love took. No, you're right, it could 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:32.320 have been mistaken identity. Um. And obviously the brutal scenario, 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.560 which is probably the most likely, is that they came 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.360 in by force and that was like raping and pillaging 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:38.959 going up. But the thing is, we don't know that 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.800 that's necessarily likely. You know, I don't know. We honestly 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.240 have such a little understandings to Neanderthal We have no 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.480 idea they might have been hippies, But we got to 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.440 throw that out there, uh as one of the obvious possibilities. Yeah, 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.359 as much as you want to just be like, oh, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.480 that's so awesome that Neanderthals were there, the humans showed 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.520 up and rather than humans killing off Neanderthals, get out 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.760 of here, you old archaic humans, they said, let's get 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.560 it on well, not only let's get on, let's let's 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.280 let's share resources, let's teach each other things, let's explore 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:16.119 life together, and let's didn't go away. They just got 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.720 absorbed and because there were far more sapiens, uh, their 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.280 traits just you know, sort of got weeded out over 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.280 the years for the most part. So this is the 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.560 rival to that replacement model that's the dominant model. This 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.520 is called the multi regional evolution model, and it says 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.200 basically what you just said, that Neanderthals and humans did 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.119 it so much that the hybrid human Neanderthals that were 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:47.760 um that were born as offspring um, they they mated 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.120 with other Neanderthals or other humans. But because there were 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.560 more sapiens I'm sorry, more sapiens than there were Neanderthals, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.600 the likelihood was that a hybrid would be much more 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.000 likely to mate with a sapient and then that high 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.840 bread would be even more watered down neandertal And then 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:10.600 over time, because of and Neanderthals didn't die off, they 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.240 didn't get chased out, they just became part of that 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.240 larger human genome. So there's another theory too that's interesting, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.840 or another interpretation I guess it's not a theory. And 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.959 this has to do with climate change. Um. They did 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.280 a study into and well this year actually two thousand 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:32.399 nineteen in France, and they discovered that all you need 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.040 over the course of about ten thousand years is about 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.159 a two point seven decrease in fertility rates UM to 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.600 go bye bye. Ten tho years for a decrease in 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:50.560 UM first time young Neanderthal mothers that population, and they 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:52.719 said cut that in half basically are close to it. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.360 Within four thousand years, you would need only an eight 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:59.920 percent decrease in fertility and that same group. So it's 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.520 very uh, it makes a lot of sense that with 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:04.840 a little bit of climate change and a little bit 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.879 of scarcity and just uh, it didn't have to be 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.879 anything drastic. But over that amount of time, if you 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:14.680 don't have any as many calories going into your body 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.320 in your first time under twenty year old uh Neanderthal mother, 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.560 you're not going to be successful and you're not gonna 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.520 be as fertile. And then over time that just means 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.440 you you kind of very quietly and slowly go away. Yeah, 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.440 I got this. I think I found this article from 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.400 Live Science and in it they they say, by the way, um, 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.640 if the human replacement rate dropped to one point three 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.760 babies per mother, we'd be gone in three years. So 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.119 so just a very slight drop among neandertals could have 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:48.520 accounted for that four thousand to ten thousand year process 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.880 of just suddenly disappearing. And again in this this interpretation, 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.520 humans didn't do anything. We didn't war with them, we 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.159 didn't outcompete them, we we didn't do anything. It was 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.359 just something happened to the environment and it was just 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:05.879 harder to be fertile. And it wasn't all at once. 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:07.920 Maybe it might have been staggered in different parts of 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.600 the world exactly over over four thousand to ten thousand years. 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.800 And the reason it wasn't that Neanderthals couldn't compete, that 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.600 they couldn't survive um, whereas humans could. Because Neanderthals, again, 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.120 their lifespan was three hundred fifty thousand years. Modern humans 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.680 have only been around for fifty to a hundred thousand years, 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.320 maybe two at the outside. So Neanderhal's had been around 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.600 for a very long time, had been very good at 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:36.119 adapting to a changing climate basically the whole time that 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.800 they were around, so It's not like they couldn't compete 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.840 or couldn't adapt and humans could. What they think is 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.200 that they were just way more humans, and so our 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:48.800 numbers probably dropped at the same rate that Neanderthal numbers did. 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.399 There was just more of us to survive and carry 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.640 on after things got better. Yeah, and in more varied 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:58.000 ranges in parts of the world too. That all kind 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.920 of makes sense to me. Yeah, I suppose it could be. Uh, 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:07.000 both of those, climate change and lovemaking right very easily. Yeah, 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.800 they definitely go hand in hand. Like should we take 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.840 another break? All right, We'll take another break and talk 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.960 about what we now the sort of current understanding of 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.840 the picture of what the Neanderthal was. Right after this, Well, 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.840 now we're on the road driving in your truck. Want 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.160 to learn a thing or two from Josh can Chuck. 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:45.560 It's stuff you should know. All right. By the way, 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:52.080 have you seen or heard of that movie William? Uh, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:54.359 it was out in April, did not do well, was 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.800 not reviewed well. But it is basically a sort of 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.320 mad scientist. Not a mad scientist, but a scientist with 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:09.679 a mad idea. Uh, there's a human neandertal born. They 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.080 get the d n A impregnate a modern sapient woman 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:17.520 and she has a a Neandertal boy, William, and he 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.280 goes to high school. I did not see that. I 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:23.400 had no idea about that movie. Yeah, just check out 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.080 the trailer. Oh, I don't haven't seen it. It's not 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:28.040 supposed to be very good, and it did not look 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:30.959 very good. But it was very much like, you know, 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:32.840 I just want to fit in, and he's you know, 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.600 he's in Neandertal. He's got the regular haircut, in the 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:39.720 vans and the jeans and the T shirt. He's got 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:43.840 the big forehead and the thick It sounds a lot, 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:47.720 it does, and it looks like it could be a joke, 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.280 but it's real. Was there that I feel good in 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.520 the middle of the trailer or that scene where like 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:57.600 like a teen woolf or something where he's really good 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:04.320 at sports or something. Yeah, yeah, man, William, Yeah, there's 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:08.479 a weekend for you. I'm not gonna watch it, but 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:10.680 I just thought it'd be it'd be worth mentioning before 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:15.240 the emails come in. So, uh, the image. We were 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:17.760 on a quest. I think um and sciences on a 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:21.920 quest to sort of rehabilitate That's why you mentioned that, 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:25.199 but to rehabilitate the image of the Neanderthal is this 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:31.200 hunched over brute. Part of the problem is, uh they 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:35.640 sort of based in an entire species on this one 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:41.920 hunched over uh dude skeleton skeleton, and they're like, look 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:45.200 at them that they're all hunched over oaths. And now 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:47.680 they're like, oh, actually that individual may have had a 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:51.080 digener to bone disease. And what we now think is 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:53.320 they just walked around like we do and probably looked 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:55.840