Chapter 1: How did Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interact?
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You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. Europe. 45,000 years ago. Two species of humans coexist.
On the one hand, you have our ancestors, early Homo sapiens, who have recently dispersed out of Africa and are now reaching the lands north of the Mediterranean Sea, bringing their own technologies and lifestyles with them. On the other hand, you have a species that has already been living in Europe for well over 100,000 years.
Robust in their body structure and well accustomed to the colder climates this far north, they are the Neanderthals. Now we know that early Homo sapiens and Neanderthal groups did interact with each other, and not always violently. But how they communicated and the nature of these interactions largely remains a mystery. Could they have exchanged knowledge and ideas?
Could there even have been friendships and alliances between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens? We know they interbred with one another. There would have been early humans who had one homo sapien and one Neanderthal parent. What might that have been like? It's questions like these that we're going to delve into today.
We're going to explore this fascinating area of human evolution, how the paths of homo sapiens and Neanderthals finally crossed after hundreds of thousands of years. and why it was ultimately Homo sapiens that won the competition for survival, why Neanderthals went extinct, and we did not.
Welcome to the Ancients, I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the ever-developing story of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Our guest is the paleoanthropologist, presenter, comedian, and author Ella Al-Shemahi. Ella's new tour, Becoming Human, continues in the UK on the 28th of May. Ella, it is such a pleasure. It's an honour to have you on the show.
An honour?
Jeez!
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Chapter 2: What evidence challenges the stereotype of Neanderthals?
And then another paleoanthropologist was like, yeah, maybe that says more about the New York subway, but it doesn't about Neanderthals. And I think it really captures, I think, for me, that recognition issue. Like, would we recognise each other? And actually, my very first TV show, when we were just pitching it and playing with it, I was like, guys, we need to bring this scene to life.
And it's like one of my proudest moments of television that we managed to put a Neanderthal on the London Underground and ask the audience... Would you effectively swap carriages? Would you look at that person and be like, and it really split the audience. You know, some of them were clearly like, no, they look weird. And others were like, I mean, I've seen stranger things.
That's the thing, isn't it? Or just be polite. Yeah. British politeness.
And it's so weird being a paleoanthropologist because I know everybody talks about the tech revolution and how like now is the moment for tech, et cetera, et cetera. Like now is the moment to be studying paleoanthropology because like there's a new discovery like every week and it's, They're not even small discoveries anymore.
They're the kind of discoveries which are so big that they make you question so many things, including who on earth the Neanderthals are, you know. And so it's just a fascinating time to also be studying this, because I feel like if I had been studying this even 40 years ago, the conversations would be so boring by comparison.
Whereas like literally we are now having a conversation about, oh, we think it was probably Neanderthal males and Homo sapien females interbreeding, which is just a fancy word for having sex. And I'm just like, well, how have we got to this point, you know, where we're discussing this now? But that is the state of the research.
I mean, just imagine like with the technology to say what, I mean, how different our conversation on this same topic could be in like five to 10 years time. That's how quickly things are changing.
Yeah. And that's the terrifying thing when you're writing a book, by the way. I'm writing a book and I'm like, oh my God. Oh God, I'm going to have to be careful about this. I'm going to have to be careful about this. Because as soon as that book is published, it will be out of date.
Neanderthals have had such a bad rep for so long. And yet you can't help with all this information coming out and all this promotion, like your new series and so on. You can't help but love them. You can't feel that actually they're not too different from us.
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Chapter 3: What was the significance of interbreeding between species?
I don't know if you're feeling that as well I am and also on the Ancients podcast we've done a few episodes on Neanderthals and their stories and people love like the story of the last Neanderthals as well but yeah Have you had Ludwig on?
No for that we had Chris Stringer on Amazing and that was learning about DNA and the lack of genetic diversity variation we'll get into I'm sure but like learning from that the interest in it Yes, we still had a comment just like, no, the ancestors aren't extinct. I saw one down the pub last week.
But yes, there is just a real fascination actually wanting to learn more about who these people are because we now have the information to give like a detailed 40, 50, 60 minute podcast episode about it.
No, completely. It's interesting because I think also just DNA testing, because now people can see some DNA within them and maybe people don't want to think, oh, I've just, my ancestors are, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's been really, really interesting to see that kind of people come to terms with who they are. And I think one of the things that I argue a lot and I'm actually preparing a tour right now. So I'm kind of thinking about the kind of, you know, the messaging that I want to put out to the public. And one of the things that I'm arguing quite heavily is like, look,
When we portray these other species, like the Neanderthals, as incredibly primitive, not only are we doing an injustice to them, like, bless them, they're not here to defend themselves, do you know what I mean? But I would argue that we actually make our story less remarkable. Because those other species were incredible.
And if you were to get a lot of paleoanthropologists together in a room, and I mean, we don't agree on much, but if you were to say, all right, like between us and the Neanderthals, who's going to make it? A lot of us would not be betting on ourselves until right kind of much more recently, shall we say. Like even Chris, Chris Stringer, is like, yeah, 100,000 years.
He wouldn't have been betting on us. And so for me, I'm like, if we keep portraying them this scientifically inaccurate way, we actually do our own really remarkable story more of a disservice. Because how on earth are we the only ones left when the Neanderthals seem to be doing this? Okay, they seem to be more experienced than us.
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Chapter 4: How did environmental factors influence Neanderthal survival?
We're going to his shrine right after this, right? Yes, yes, yes.
That's what we have to do, yes. He's living shrine at the Natural History Museum because he's kind of still there. But yeah, he's an absolutely incredible paleoanthropologist. And he and a number of Chinese colleagues, they have new dates on another species called Denisovans. Now, bear with me, right? Because I'm talking about Denisovans, but I'm talking about Neanderthals. So...
The thing with our family tree is we consider the Neanderthals to be our sister species, and by that I mean that they are our closest relatives and we share a common ancestor. Yes, exactly, like this shape basically, like a triangle. But then the Denisovans we also consider to be the sister species of Neanderthals or very, very closely related.
So it's kind of like actually now there's a three-way thing going on. Yes, like a fork. Yes, exactly. And by implication, because we are kind of sister species, the implication is that we will be similar-ish ages. Because whenever the split was with our grandparent or our parent species... You kind of broadly expect that those species will be the same age.
It doesn't necessarily have to be true, but broadly speaking. Chris and some Chinese paleoanthropologists have basically are now of the opinion that they have a Denisovan around a million years old. So the implication... And if it had come from many others, I think we wouldn't have been taking it as seriously.
But the implication is that therefore, if the Denisovans are a million years old, the Neanderthals are something similar and we therefore are something similar. So surprise, you're a lot older than you think you are.
I feel this is a topic that we could delve into for a long time, but it's worthy of another episode in its own right. But I mean, that length of time is mind boggling, especially with the human Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interacting. It's very late in that story.
Yes.
But with Neanderthals, are we largely then just going to be thinking Eurasia?
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Chapter 5: What role did culture play in Neanderthal and Homo sapien interactions?
So we're in Nerdy Bunch and we have all these rules about how you... They're called the a priori rules in taxonomy. And basically what that means is when you name a species, whoever names the species first, you call dibs. I know that sounds insane, but it's... It makes sense.
It's fair enough.
So if you found a fossil and... You just think of the most ridiculous name for it.
Oh, it's like Tristanosaurus or something like that.
Yes, there we go. Although you can't call it after yourself, so somebody else would have to name it. So essentially, you've called dibs on that species. And anyone that comes after, if I come along and I want to give it a more respectable name, I technically have to go by your name and colleagues have to then take your name as well. Does that make sense?
So basically, the thing with the Neanderthals is... It was a mispronunciation and a mis-spelling, I guess, of a German name because it's Neanderthal Valley, but the Anglos were basically saying Neanderthal. And so technically it's an incorrect thing, but because it's there, it then becomes complicated.
But now if I was to, oh my God, this is complicated, but if I was to write Neanderthal with just a T and not a TH, that would be incorrect. But pronunciation is a bit more ambiguous. So I would argue that we should probably do TH because we made a mistake and we should live with it. And the rules of a priori are such that you have to stick with it. But...
Other people very respectably point out that it's pronunciation, it's not written, and it was a mistake. Maybe grow up and just go with the actual German pronunciation. The truth is, it does not matter. It's really fun to annoy people.
I'm going to show you how malleable I am now. I will now, for the rest of this episode, try and always say Neanderthal.
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Chapter 6: How did technology differ between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens?
Chins are actually a very modern invention. There's no real species of human that has chins besides us. They had also very prominent brow ridges. Yeah, very, very prominent. And also you see your forehead and my forehead, they kind of go up and the Neanderthal forehead is kind of, it's much shorter and it kind of just kind of recedes straight into the rest of the head basically.
So there are different physical characteristics. that broadly it's been argued are kind of in line with you're in a slightly colder climate. It kind of makes sense if you're in a colder climate to have a bigger chest comparative to your limbs. Although, honestly, it's constantly debated as to whether... It's really funny, actually. People keep...
suggest that is the prevailing theory but every time people test it sometimes it proves correct sometimes like there's something about nasal size that Neanderthals have slightly bigger noses and there was thinking about that being about you know cold air and what have you the testing is always it's never conclusive but I think broadly most of us kind of buy that it's because it's
They were cult adapted.
And then bigger body mass, so then they have to hunt more. But we think of Neanderthals with like spears and the like. And I mean, the classic image is them with woolly mammoths or woolly rhinos.
Yeah, but also even the hunter, like, you know, once you... I don't know that they're necessarily bigger because they might be stockier, but they're so short by comparison. But what we do think is that they were doing a lot of short range hunting. So not really projectile weapons. Projectile weapons are quite an incredible invention. Oh my God, especially when you get to arrows.
You could suddenly be incredibly deadly. Obviously, the force, velocity, what have you, speed is increased, but it's less deadly for you on the other side. Neanderthals have so many injuries. We think partly because they're doing close range hunting. Think about the logic. How interesting is that? Once you're kind of doing close range hunting, you're risking your life so much more.
So, yeah, we think, you know, very similar hunting to us, though, in terms of the prey that we were eating. I mean, every so often you get a headline that's really interesting. Like some archaeologists years ago now started looking at different assemblages, like different within the archaeological record, the animals that were being... consumed by us versus the Neanderthals.
And they were of the opinion that the Neanderthals were hunting less small animals like rabbits. And so they came to this conclusion that we survived because of small animals. And the logic of that was that we had smaller furs that we could kind of cover ourselves better with. And that's the thing, I think, in the field, everyone's always going, maybe it's this! And you just, you know...
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans?
Brunekel is a massive headache to anyone that sees Neanderthals as primitive. So Brunekel is this one site in France that we had understandably assumed was Homo sapiens because it's basically full of these... Are they stalagmites or stalactites? Stalagmites or stalactites. One or the other. I know what you mean. Those big things.
Yes, exactly.
And they're basically maned into these concentric circles. So it's this crazy structure. And everyone had just always assumed it was, I mean, you know, it looks potentially ritualistic, but it certainly looks creative. Do you know what I mean? And it doesn't seem to have a structural purpose. It doesn't seem to have been because it's an abode and a home and that kind of thing.
And then they did the dating on it a while back now, maybe 10 years ago. And they were like, oh, it's really old. It's over 100,000 years old. And in Europe, that's not really Homo sapiens. I mean, it's possible that a Homo sapiens group got to France at that point. It's absolutely possible. It's just we've got no evidence for it. The only evidence at that period is Neanderthals.
So if Neanderthals are... I mean, what are you doing moving around stalagmites, stalactites, making them into these strange circles in a cave? That seems incredibly creative to a lot of us. They also, we know now, were doing cave... I mean...
handprints if you want to call that cave art i personally would some people wouldn't call it cave art but i mean you know i don't know any other species that we know of that was putting their hand in pigment and putting it against a wall you don't get chimpanzees doing that don't get hummer heidelbergensis or any of these other species that we know of doing it dennis fins were probably doing it but the others there's no evidence for it that's them and i'm
I remember seeing this when watching one of your episodes on Human, talking about the feathers. Oh, thank you for reminding me. Well, I feel I had to. Yes, I forgot about that.
It was shocking. Yes. And I think that for a lot of us is incredibly visual. So for those of you who didn't watch the series Human, I won't take it personally. But there is this moment where we're talking about feathers.
And I think what's really interesting is, obviously, you can imagine, as you know, these things you kind of talk to your whole team about them or the production team and the directors and what have you. And we were all kind of just like, feathers will hit it home to people.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn from the extinction of Neanderthals?
And to think that, you know, these Neanderthals who, the way we've told their story, they're just uninterested in survival and procreating. They're doing that. And then they're building these strange structures in Brunekel in France. I think it forces us to re-evaluate the way we see the Neanderthals.
So if we go towards, let's say, 100,000 years ago, and then towards up in Europe, all these amazing artifacts and so on. And into Central Asia. And into Central Asia, thank you. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, we've been on our own path. I mean, our evolutionary story, even up to that point, before we leave Africa, has already been, it's been quite a journey in itself, hasn't it?
Yeah, yeah. Basically, we're an African species. And for those who are kind of like, hold on a second. So how exactly are we thinking we're related? The basic thinking is that there was some kind of ancestral species. We used to call them Heidelbergensis. Now we don't even know if that's a species or not. But anyway, so let's just say Species X, for example, right?
Species X started in Africa, we think. Then some of them broke off and went into Asia and Europe and gave birth to, eventually with time, the Neanderthals. The ones that stayed behind eventually became us. That's the broad thinking. Now, we were in Africa. We started in Africa.
We used to think... Hopefully, we're not going to go back there a million years again.
Well, up until before COVID, I think it was, we thought it was 200,000 years. Then they found the incredible Jabal al-Hud fossil in... Well, they didn't find it. They just started dating things more accurately. in Morocco. And then they were like, oh, hold on a second. We actually think we're 300,000 years old.
And now, obviously, if you're to accept Chris Stringer and colleagues' interpretation of things, we're even older than that. And every so often we would leave Africa. And this was a thing. We constantly actually left Africa. But we would leave and we never really got a foothold and we'd become locally extinct. And it was just this pattern that just kept going on.
Actually, the first time we think we left and we interacted with the Neanderthals was probably in the Middle East. In fact, it would have been in the Middle East. There's a lot of evidence for us being contemporaneous with the Neanderthals in that region. There's an incredible mountain called Mount Carmel in Israel that has two caves. One cave is called Tabon, which is a Neanderthal cave.
And around the same time, so 90,000 to 120,000 years, there was this overlap with the occupants of another cave called Scholl. And Scholl had, well, it was a Homo sapiens cave. And firstly, let's just acknowledge how amazing that neighborhood must have been. The same mountain. We think the same time. You've got a cave of Neanderthals and a cave of Homo sapiens.
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