WEBVTT - Ep. 896: Who Were the Neanderthals? 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:13.320 If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.640 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to ust, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.119 you can't predict anything brought to you by first Light. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.560 When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.080 light builds, no compromise, gear that keeps me in the 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.400 field longer, no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.080 out at first light dot com. That's f I R 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:43.640 S T L I T E dot com. All Right, everybody, 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:45.960 it's finally half and a half years of talking about it. 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.320 We have our name. We have Neanderthal experts in the room. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.680 This is the white. This is the white, my white whale. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.320 This is this is my you know, my Moby Dick story. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:55.960 I've said for years I want to talk to some 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.400 people that actually know something about Neanderthals. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.880 And here you are these Okay, they have a book. 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:09.920 It's well first names, Dimitra, Papa Gianni is how it's spelled, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:16.640 Papa Yanni, Dimitra, Papayanni and Mike Morse. And they have 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.720 a book that's in its third edition. So the Neanderthals 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.520 Rediscovered how modern science is rewriting their story. It's in 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.479 its third edition it was originally published in twenty twenty three. 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.400 They were just explaining to me that, oh, sorry, I 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:32.760 got that written right, or sorry my fault originally publishing 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.440 two thousand and thirteen originally. But and this is part 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.760 of partly why you're here, our understanding of Neanderthal culture 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.120 has changed so much that in that time you've had 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:52.520 to really overhaul the book and make major changes. Right, So, 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.000 something that happened a long time ago, our understanding of 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:56.880 it has changed so much that it's caused you to 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.480 constantly need to go in and update your work. 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.559 At some point, Demitra said, we really need to update 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.640 this every three years if we want to stay current. 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.320 It's hard to do that, but you know we're doing 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:09.279 the best weekend. 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.679 Yeah, because it's it's so rapidly evolving. And part of 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.839 the reason I want to talk to you about Neanderthal 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.320 is not just in my lifetime, but in the last 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.560 few years, I've started to feel like I had this 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.079 image of Neanderthal culture and in a minute, I want 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.760 you to explain what Neanderthal is, but I've had this 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.600 image of Neanderthal culture and the way it's portrayed in 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.919 like cartoons and things. You just picture people with big 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.880 clubs and they're hitting each other with clubs and dragging. 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:36.799 Their knuckles along the ground. 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.440 And then I would read just as a just an 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:45.079 interested party reading common news sites, I would read like, oh, 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:51.120 they seem that they had art. Oh perhaps they had jewelry. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:57.800 Perhaps they made it with humans. You know, they were divers, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.520 they were they were collecting shellfish, they suffered from swimmers 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.280 year whatever. And I don't know how much of all 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.080 that is true, but it's just been that I started 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:11.240 to visualize them less like some kind of glorified ape 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.839 and more like a you know, they just became more 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.760 human to the part where I could almost picture that 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:19.440 that's something I had never thought of before, that they 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:24.200 were there was personalities and right, and so as my 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.639 understanding has changed, I just wanted to have someone in 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.040 who could speak to like, who really were they? 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:32.480 What happened to them? 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.920 What did they do? You know if I saw one 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.880 across the room, would I instantly know that I was 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.640 buy something different? This is what I want to talk about, 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.120 this is why you're here. But first off, and I 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:47.920 don't care any of these questions. I don't care who 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:53.080 answers it but will we say Neanderthal What is that? 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:54.160 What does that mean? 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.360 They were our answers, stores But they were part of 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:04.160 our answers, part of what came before us as humans. 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:11.680 They were essentially an offshoot of our direct evolutionary line, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.960 a side branch of which a little bit remains in us. 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.159 For most of their part, they lived at the same 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.200 time as our ancestors, but in different parts of the world. 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:33.320 Later on they met and they were mostly in Europe, 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:39.640 but again later in their span of existence in the 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:46.640 Old World, expanded towards Asia, towards the Middle East and Siberia, 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:54.719 and they chronologically what we call pre Neanderthals, or the 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.160 earliest forms of Neanderthals, could be going back as far 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.560 as half a million years. But when we start seeing 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.040 kind of Neanderthals with the features of that we identify 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.359 as Neanderthals, is closer to about three hundred and fifty 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.600 thousand years, give or take. 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:12.640 And they. 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:19.839 Disappeared from Europe let's say around forty thousand years in 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:21.640 the case there is give or take in new dates 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.240 and so on. So this is the times fun that 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:30.000 we are talking about. In terms of their morphology, they 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.960 were shorter, than us, a little bit shorter than ours, 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.560 and bulky built. They were some They had some distinct 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:44.040 features like the short, shorter than us limbs proportionally also 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:49.680 smaller than us. And they had big barrel shaped chests. 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:56.799 And their faces were if you take one of our faces, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.760 you kind of pull it forward, so you will have 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:08.080 this part sticking out farther. Ah, they their noses were 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.400 sticking out farther. Their brow ridges were bigger. They didn't 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.000 have chins, so can you kind of imagine a. 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.080 More bird like profile. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.760 They didn't have chins. No, we don't even know why 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:24.120 we have chins. 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.040 It's not clear why. 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:25.680 We don't know. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.560 There are many theories of why we have chins and 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.320 what they do. But they did not have chins. 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.880 That yeah, uh, anotho could kick a normal person like 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.520 a nanothal could beat up. 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.040 Yeah, probably an animal woman could beat up a modern 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:40.839 human man. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.560 Just across the board like big strong. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.640 No not probably not across the board, depending on their lifestyle. 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.120 But they were very muscular, very strong bones. 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.080 I noticed you say, Neander tal Yes, we're going to 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.320 give you the long answer to this. Please, what do 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.039 you do? What do you go with? So? 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.719 I grew up saying Neanderthal because I grew up in 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.039 the United States where that's normal. Then we lived in 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.880 the UK for fifteen years where everyone says neander Tal. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.480 My view is they're both right. It doesn't know Neanderthal 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.960 is going to come back and correct us, so we're good. 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.280 But I think it's worth going to the etymology. 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.280 Please, because there's a valley in Germany and exactly they 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.520 call that the Neanderthal Valley or something. 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.600 So the German word for valley is tall. Oh, and 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.520 originally it was spelled with the thh, but the h 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:40.320 was silent, so in German it's tall. And this is 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.680 something that we all should know because virtually everyone watching 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:47.240 this says says the German word for valley every day. 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.040 And now I'm going to go into the etymology. So 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.600 Neanderthals came from the neander Valley. That's where they were, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.840 That's where the major discovery was made. And that valley 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:04.320 was named after a guy named Joachim Neander. He wrote hymns, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.640 and so they named the valley after him, the neander Valley, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.120 the Neanderthal. There was another tall there's another valley called 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.280 the Joachim's Tall where they had a mint, and so 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.520 the money that was made from the Joachims tall was 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:25.880 called the Joachims Tallers, and that got shortened to taller. 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.280 Oh and so that's where the that's where the word 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:30.400 dollar comes from. 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.160 Oh really, okay, so we say. 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:38.120 Dollar, we don't say thaler. You can say Neanderthal if 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.679 you want. It's spelled with an H in English. I 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:44.239 think it's easier to say Neanderthal. 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:44.440 One. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:46.160 The parint is once you start saying it one way, 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:47.200 it's very hard to change. 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.400 Once we were talking change two times. 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:50.640 Yeah, there you go. 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.480 Once we were talking with a geneticist and we were 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.760 saying Neanderthal and Denise Evin and he was saying Neanderthal 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.840 and Dennis Savin and we understood each other. No one 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.720 was correcting. It was fine. It doesn't matter how you 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:06.520 pronounce these things. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:06.880 Got it. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.080 Good to get that cleared up. 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:10.280 Yeah, we're fine. 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:15.120 So over the whatever. Since the days of twenty three 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.880 and twenty three and me came out and any person 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.680 could send in you know, saliva and get a genetic 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:27.600 profile of themselves, people would even call it, uh, you know, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.120 I did I twenty three and me myself, I did 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.800 twenty three and mes whatever, and all of a sudden 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:39.920 everyone is talking about what percent nand or fall they 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.120 are or it would give it to you like less 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.440 than average, more than average. I was disappointed to see that. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.280 I'm I think less than average. I was disappointed to 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.760 see what do you guys buy that? And what are 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.600 people really saying when they say that? Right when people 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.760 look and they get their profile, they see that they're 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.560 blank percent of Neanderthal descent. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:07.640 What are we saying? 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:17.240 So it's it's probably it's accurate. So the percentage you 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.960 were given, the personage I was given as I'm sure 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.559 it's accurate. There are other things in the twenty three 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.320 and meters and this kind of sequencing that I'm not 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:28.680 so comfortable with with the conclusions. 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.480 You know, I'm like thirty percent Italian. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.520 It doesn't really work this way, but the Neanderthal bit 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:41.080 is one of the most reliable things they What it 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:46.320 means though, is basically that we all, all of us 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:54.080 who have our answers stores outside Sub Saharan Africa have 0:10:54.240 --> 0:11:01.440 a component of neanderital DNA. But my, let's say three percent, 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.560 My three percent of nanatal DNA is not necessarily the 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:09.160 same as yours or his and if you pull them 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:17.720 all together you can actually you can actually reconstruct about 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.160 At this point it's about I think seventy percent of 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:25.360 nanatal DNA. So we have different bits of nanatal DNA 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.920 in US I see, and for most of it we 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.800 don't know what it does or if it does anything. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.560 And essentially, I mean, it doesn't mean all that much. 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.480 It simply means that some a little bit of our 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:47.960 ancestors lives in US because they interpret with us. And 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.920 actually even even modern humans who come from some Saharan 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:59.320 Africa they also have a tiny bit of nanatal DNA. 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.000 That's one of the very recent findings. We thought that 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.160 they had none. They had a tiny bit because at 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:10.400 some point there was migration back to Africa and intermixing. 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:11.880 But it's different. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.520 So the big genetic difference in US in modern humans 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:20.679 generally is that everyone who is from sub Saharan Africa 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:28.040 has much bigger genetic diversity than the rest of us 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.400 and a tiny bit of nanital DNA. But the big 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.719 story about them genetically is that they are much more 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:39.920 diverse than us because we as a species developed in 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.040 sub Saharan Africa. And it's a whole different story how 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:48.080 we're where and when. But at some or at different points, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.000 it wasn't only one point. There were several probably waves 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:57.240 of leaving Africa, some less successful than others. But basically 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.760 you have what you call a bottleneck event. Imagine that 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.960 you have the big bottle in Africa and then just 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.400 a segment of that population leaves. And this is what 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:13.280 the modern humans, as Homo sapiens, who come from outside 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:18.240 sub Saharan Africa, we are much genetically diverse than the 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:24.000 sub Saharan Africa much, yes, much less diverse genetically and 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.680 because of us, the stores mixed with Neanderthals and Denisovans. 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.760 We have that little bit of Neanderthal DNA. For most 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.280 of it, we don't know what it does. And for 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:39.040 most of DNA, we don't know what they like. If 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.120 you take a specific gene, we still don't know. For 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:43.680 some of them, we don't know they make cause this 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.240 disease or that. But generally we're not yet at the 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.760 point we'll say, oh, this gene does this, We don't 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.800 know yet. It's like a language that we cannot quite 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:54.600 read yet. 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.880 I think there's a there's a bigger question about like 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:02.320 are you above average or below average Neanderthal. And to me, 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.720 the the big answer is most of the world outside 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.040 of Africa is about the same. It's like two percent 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.680 plus or minus a little bit. I mean originally when 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.080 when they started, when you when you first could send 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.800 your DNA off to get its sequence, it would be 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.240 between one and four percent, and you could get excited 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.160 by that. When they've refined it, it's downs it's mostly 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:25.320 towards two percent. 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.440 And everywhere around the world outside of Africa, yeah, which 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.640 which to me tells an amazing story, which is that 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.920 it's you know, when that bottleneck of Homo sapiens left Africa, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.840 they must have intermixed very quickly with. 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.800 Neanderthals, because you know, yeah, Europe is not that different 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.360 from East Asia for example, or you know, for or 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.440 even the people that made it to the Americans. It's 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.240 all about the same percentage of Neanderthal DNA. 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.120 That that a little bit surprised me because I would 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.960 picture as humans are spreading around the world, I would 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:04.040 picture that some bands of people, some clans, social or 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.120 whatever social organization structures there were. I would picture that 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:12.640 some would go in whatever direction and have a different 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:17.760 level of running, a different level of integration with Neanderthals 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.040 and then carry that off in whatever direction they went, 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.360 especially people that went out and colonized islands that I 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.880 would just guess that if you went around the world, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:37.920 you'd find much greater concentrations of you know whatever in 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:43.520 some area because those people that became those people had 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:44.960 just a different experience. 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:47.560 I think that does that Does that make any sense 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:47.840 at all? 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.600 Well, the numbers were so small back then, so this 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.600 so we went to see this geneticist, Josh Aky okay, 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.120 and I don't quite know what these numbers mean, but 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.680 he said the Homo sapien breeding population was about ten thousand. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.240 Don't but so that doesn't mean there were ten thousand 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.680 human beings, but in terms of like who is of 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:13.920 an age and ability to reproduce, and the Neanderthal breeding 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.720 population they think was about one thousand at the time 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.000 that they met, so it was about ten to one. 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:24.440 And in fact, from the from very early on, if 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.320 they you know, the kind of hybrids that they find 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.640 have are modern humans with about ten percent Neanderthal DNA. 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.160 So if as they're coming out of Africa they're part 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:40.000 of the same breeding population, then that ten percent kind 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.040 of spreads around to everyone, and then it's been slowly 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:44.000 getting whittled down. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:45.840 It's like it's being selected outood. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.280 So I mean another geneticists used the term toxic, that 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.000 Neanderthal DNA is toxic. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.960 It it that's a brand. That's a branding problem. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:04.159 You know, as life goes on, we have less and 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:04.720 less of it? 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:05.959 Got it? Got it? 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:11.560 Do you? How do you imagine? How do you imagine? 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.080 What is the interaction? I mean, I know we don't know. 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:15.360 I know, I know we don't. 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:16.840 Know, But how do how do we imagine it was? 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:17.639 The interaction? 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:27.760 Was it around that Neanderthals are kidnapping Homo sapient females, 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:32.280 Is that they're living in bliss, they're living in mixed communities. 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.680 There's sort of a there's sort of a warfare element 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:41.159 to it of taking captives and breeding with those captives. 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:44.520 What are some of the like what are some of 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.439 the guesses? What are some of the guesses of or 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.080 they go like, Wow, these people are amazing looking. I'd 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:52.480 love to breathe one of them. 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:58.399 I think we can, I think we can safely say 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:04.159 that there wasn't only one scenario. Okay, and you know, 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.119 people met and it could be a whole range of 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:16.800 things from a chance encounter or a chance mating episode two. 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.399 I wouldn't say living together because culturally we don't see 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:26.880 that level. But maybe, actually, now that I think of it, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.280 there has. You probably referred to a kind of a 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:35.479 recent story just a few months ago about a sex bias. 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.240 Now the sex bias in that case, they mean it 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.399 basically how sexes are represented in the DNA, not. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:47.800 Necessarily primarily male neanderthals breeding with female No. 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:48.480 No, no no. 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:55.720 So the bias could be that you had more Neanderthal 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:02.160 men interbreeding with more modern human women. But it could 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:10.040 also be that the Neanderthal female DNA was filtered out 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.520 because it was not you know what you called toxic 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:14.800 got it. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.960 So it's not conclusive to me. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.840 The main takeaway of all this, and it's not just humans, 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.520 but it's all mammals, is that they're just they're very 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.840 promiscuous like this if you can imagine sexual combinations that 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.560 are happening somewhere in nature, and so maybe it shouldn't 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.800 have been a surprise. It was a big surprise when 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.479 it turned out we carry Neanderthal DNA in us, but 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.000 maybe it just shouldn't have been maybe you know, there's 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:44.880 just mixing. 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.439 Everywhere, got it. Yeah, like our r being shocked about 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.639 it was sort of looking at human exceptionalism and not 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.760 considering what you see in the in the broader community 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.120 of mammals in general. 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:02.639 Do you they had a language? You think they were talking? 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:03.520 Absolutely? 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:04.560 How complex? 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.520 That's that's one of those words that So for for years, 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.560 the idea was that what you know, the question is 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.000 what makes us special? And it's really disturbing that you've 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.280 got these really strong, you know, Neanderthal's really strong, kind 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.520 of strange faces, slightly different bodies living about the same 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.760 time that Homo sapiens were. But but we've got to 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.879 explain what makes us special. So for years the idea was, well, 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.000 we have complex language and they must not have. And 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.560 then well that it turns out they did have language, Well, 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:39.960 ours was more complex. I just think it's one of 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.960 those words to hide behind, like we're still special. I 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:47.560 tell you we're still special. Yeah, you know we, I 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:49.359 mean we at some point we need to get into 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:55.160 the whole. There's a whole theory, the social brain hypothesis 0:20:55.680 --> 0:21:00.000 and which which is a theory that explains when lange 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.400 which should have first appeared, and it kind of predates 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.280 both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals according to that theory. Well 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:12.120 we'll get into that, but there's this idea we still 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.360 need to keep something for ourselves. And yes, modern humans, 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.840 Homo sapiens do stuff that Neanderthals didn't do. It doesn't 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.840 mean that you're going to see that in language, perhaps, 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:24.359 but not necessarily. 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:29.840 Yeah, so the word complex language doesn't that doesn't mean anything. 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.880 Well it to me, it's it's a way to hide 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.960 behind we're but but our language is better than their language, 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.679 Like because for a long time as they didn't have language, 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.560 we have we're the only species that has language. Well 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.280 it turns out we're not so, but ours we're the 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:46.840 only species that has this really really complex language. 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:50.080 Well how do we know they how do you know 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:50.800 they had language? 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.679 Do you? I mean? Like, so let's look, if you're 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.360 looking at bones, how do you how do you know 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:57.640 that they were talking to each other? 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.280 Because the bones that you're looking at, well, the bones 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.000 that you're looking at are the skulls and its brain 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.800 size is the big thing. But within the brain is 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:15.159 pre prefrontal cortex and so this part so yeah, so 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:16.639 there is so there. 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:18.080 Let me just rewind. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.520 There was a day that when Demetro was a post 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.119 doc at Southampton in the UK, she came home one 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.480 day and she's like, Mike, I saw this guy, Robin 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.000 Dunbar speak and he explains everything, and I'm like okay, 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.879 and you were just like bursting with excitement. It's like, okay, 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.080 what does he explain? You're like, why do people sing 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:40.200 at soccer matches? Why do people sing in church? Why 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.240 do we have language? What's our social organization? It all 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:49.159 comes together in this one big theory. So here's the thing. So, 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.359 so the theory is that so prefrontal cortex is correlated 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:56.520 with group size. So if if you go if you 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.560 look at chimpanzees, which is a nice proxy for our 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:04.840 ancest there's pre you know, pre Homo, our oldest ancestors 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:09.119 from six million years ago. They live in groups of 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.600 fifty to fifty five individuals. So how do they keep 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:14.399 the group together, how do they know that they're in 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:14.879 that group? 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:16.360 They do grooming. 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:18.320 They spend a lot of the day, you know, picking 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:22.040 little insects off each other's backs. If you've ever had 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:26.400 someone rub your back, it's incredibly relaxing. You know, tho's 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.159 brain changes, there's enderfins. You feel very close to this person. 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:34.040 So in chimpanzees, they groom each other to the point 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:36.840 that they all feel like one unit together. 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:37.399 Got it. 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.719 So as your prefrontal cortex grows, as the brain gets bigger, 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:47.280 the group size gets bigger. So we today have a 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:49.600 natural group size of one hundred and fifty, which is 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:53.360 called the Dunbar number. And this and the incredible there's 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:55.880 so many incredible things about the Dunbar number. My favorite 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.199 is that it's a it's a hard stop at one fifty. 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:01.520 So if you have like a group of one hundred 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:04.520 and fifty one, it will break up into two groups. 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:09.040 It's just our brains can't. We don't have the capacity 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:11.000 for a group larger than one hundred and fifty. And 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.360 so you'll see this in the ways companies are organized, 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.280 the way the military is organized. I once experienced this 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.000 myself when I went to a conference that had one 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:23.840 hundred and thirty five people there, and after a couple 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:26.119