The Differences Between Neanderthals and Their Early Human Contemporaries

Popular myth holds it that modern humans are descended from Neanderthals. This is demonstrably false. Neanderthals were a different hominid species from Homo sapiens, or modern man. The two species existed side by side as late as 24,000 B. C., but the Neanderthals lacked either the technical sophistication or the cultural and artistic dispositions of their human contemporaries. In essence, Homo neanderthalensis was a "dead end" species in the scheme of evolution; both the Neanderthals and modern humans had the same common ancestor, but are divergent branches of the evolutionary tree.

Neanderthals did not display any signs of a symbolic life. Though they buried their dead, they did so haphazardly. In contrast, throughout the past 50,000 years, modern men buried their dead with great care and ceremony, indicating their value for human life and their grief over its loss. In the realm of tool-making, Neanderthal technology was far more primitive and less efficient. Neanderthals wielded heavy stabbing spears that did not require any fine craftsmanship to manufacture and possessed a far smaller range than the versatile throwing spears of modern men, which often required great mastery and time to construct.

Whereas there is no evidence of systematic teaching in Neanderthal communities, and it was likely that every generation had rediscovered the same primitive technologies, modern humans, from their beginnings, passed on to their offspring the technical skills that would eventually dominate the planet. This communication of skills and techniques also contributed to the evolution of language and firmer social bonds, as those facilitated more effective creation and use of tools.