Who were the Neanderthals?
Shanidar Cave is particularly famous for the discovery of 10 Neanderthal men, women and children dating to around 75,000 to 45,000 years ago, but who were the Neanderthals?
Close cousins
The Neanderthals are hominins (a group including humans and all our close evolutionary relatives) who are closely related to our own species, Homo sapiens. Neanderthals evolved in Eurasia around 400,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago.
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Neanderthals occupied a geographic range from North Wales to Siberia, and environments ranging from cold tundra near to the huge ice sheets that covered northern Europe during glacial periods, through to more temperate environments like at Shanidar Cave.
Map showing the geographic distribution of Neanderthals. I, Ryulong, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A reconstruction of a Neanderthal from 1888 by Hermann Schaaffhausen for the Neanderthaler Fund published by Marcus, Bonn, Germany
A bad press
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Neanderthals were first recognised as a distinct human relative in 1858 following the discovery of fossil remains at Feldhofer Cave in the Neander Valley, Germany, from where Neanderthals get their name ('thal' is an old form of the German word 'tal', meaning 'valley)'. Although Neanderthal fossils had been found earlier at Engis, Belgium, and Forbes Quarry, Gibraltar, their significance was not realised until after the Feldhofer Neanderthal remains were described.
Many early interpretations of Neanderthals saw them as a 'missing link' between apes and modern humans. They were often depicted as unintelligent and hunched over - a stereotypical caveman. As we learn more about Neanderthals, it is becoming clearer that this stereotype is wrong and they were more similar to us than we previously thought. Just how similar is still a matter of intense debate!
What did they look like?
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Neanderthals are characterised by a range of unique skeletal features. Compared to modern humans, their skeletons were more robust, with wider, stockier bodies, shorter limbs and a more muscular build. These and other features such as their larger noses were often interpreted as adaptations to the cold glacial conditions of Eurasia. However, newer interpretations suggest features like their larger noses were linked to their higher metabolic rates because of their greater muscle mass.
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The low, receding forehead and long skull likely show their brains had a slightly different structure from those of modern humans, who have a more globular brain case, but what this meant for their behaviour and mental abilities is not clear. Some of the earliest likely modern humans, such as those found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, share the distinctive Neanderthal brain shape.
Long, low cranial vault
Large brow ridge
Midfacial projection
Large nose
Projecting jaws (prognathism)
No chin
Occipital bun
Comparison of a Neanderthal (left) and modern human skull (right), highlighting some key features. Adapted from a derivative work by DrMikeBaxter (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
How did they live?​
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Neanderthals were hunter-gatherers, meaning they did not live in a single place but moved around the landscape in order to gather different plants and hunt animals. They likely lived in small extended family groups of around 20 individuals, including a mix of infants, children, teenagers, adults and elderly individuals. Exactly what they ate and how often they moved varied according to the environment they lived in, but evidence from their skeletons show that Neanderthals lived very active, mobile lives.
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Chemical analyses of their bones and teeth suggest they ate a high proportion of meat, as did early modern humans. Burnt food remains from fireplaces, and tiny food particles and DNA trapped in the plaque on their teeth, show they ate a range of plant foods too and also cooked their food. In more wooded environments their diet included foods like mushrooms, while in more open, warmer environments like at Shanidar Cave they were eating wild grasses, date palms, ibex and tortoise.
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We know that they made fireplaces, probably to keep warm and scare off predators as well as to cook food, and occasionally we find evidence that they built structures, such as at Bruniquel Cave in France.
Reconstructions of Neanderthals living at Le Moustier Cave, France, by Charles R. Knight, 1920
Neanderthal toolkits​
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Neanderthals used a kind of stone tool technology known as Mousterian or Mode 3. This involves preparing a stone ('core') in a way that multiple tools with a predictable size and shape could be produced. Early modern humans, such as those at Skhul and Qafzeh in modern Israel, used similar technology.
Although tools made of perishable materials like wood rarely preserve, we do have evidence that Neanderthals used wooden spears, digging sticks and other items. They also hafted stone tools - mounted them on wooden shafts - to make something like a spear, using a 'glue' made of heated birch bark called pitch, and probably plant fibres or strips of hide or tendons from animals. Neanderthals also made tools from bones and items from twisted plant fibres (although we don't know exactly what they made with the fibres!).
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There is evidence that different groups of Neanderthals had different technological traditions, or cultures, and that these were changed to make them more suited to specific local environments and available raw materials.
A Mousterian stone tool from Shanidar Cave. Photo: Emma Pomeroy
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White tailed eagle talons from Krapina, Croatia, from 130,000 years ago. The cut marks (arrows) and evidence that they had some kind of cord tied round them indicates they may have been used as jewellery. Image: Luka Mjeda, Zagreb, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Self-expression​
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We don't know for sure whether Neanderthals could talk, but evidence suggests they most likely did. They carry certain genetic variants we know are important for speech in humans today, and have similar shaped bones in the neck (the hyoid) to modern humans that have been linked to talking. Their ear structure indicates they could hear a similar range of sounds to modern humans.
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We have evidence that Neanderthals sometimes made items to decorate their bodies, such as perforated shell beads and talons from birds of prey that were hung from chords (maybe like a necklace?). Fascinating research from Gibraltar shows that they were hunting large birds specifically with black feathers, and cutting the feathers from the wings. As there is no meat on the wings, and they were choosing a particular coloured bird, this strongly suggests they were using the feathers for a purpose such as decoration.
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There are also a few cases of what might be called 'rock art', but these are generally fairly simple painted or carved lines and not like the elaborate 'cave art' we associate with the Upper Palaeolithic modern humans in Europe at caves like Chauvet in France. However, we should remember that early modern humans didn't always produce this kind of art either!
Did they care for each other?​
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One particularly controversial aspect of Neanderthal behaviour is whether they were capable of compassion and cared for one another when sick or injured. Evidence from Shanidar Cave has been central in these debates: the extensive injuries suffered by Shanidar 1, with which he survived for many years, and the chest wound to Shanidar 3 which had started to heal, suggest a level of care.
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Many Neanderthals have evidence of serious injuries to their head and bodies which had healed, showing they survived. Some people argue that the high levels of injuries indicate they engaged in dangerous hunting methods, getting very close to their prey, but studies of early modern humans have shown similar high levels of injuries suggesting that Neanderthals and humans had similar risks of injury, so it wasn't the case that Neanderthals used more dangerous hunting techniques.
Left: Shanidar 1's skull with a healed major injury to the left eye socket. Right: Shanidar 1's humeri (upper arm bones). The right humerus (A) appears withered indicating paralysis, has two healed breaks, and was likely lost or amputated above the elbow. The left humerus (B) has a typical appearance. Images: Erik Trinkaus.
Mourning the dead?​
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How Neanderthals thought about death and whether they treated their dead with rituals and compassion, as we see in modern human populations, is another hotly debated topic. While the discussions have centred on whether or not they buried their dead, we must remember that many human societies don't bury their dead, but have other symbolic death rites such as cremation, mummification, or leaving remains to be eaten by scavengers.
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Reconstruction of the burial of Shanidar 4 on a bed of flowers, as controversially argued by Ralph Solecki and Arlette Leroi-Gourhan. Image by Karen Carr, courtesy of the Human Origins Programme, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
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It is now widely accepted that Neanderthals buried some of their dead, in some places, some of the time, such as at Shanidar Cave. In other places they treated the dead differently. For example, at Krapina in Croatia, Neanderthal bones from many individuals had become mixed together ('commingled') and there is evidence for cannibalism.
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Today, studies of Neanderthal attitudes to death focus on understanding the variation in how they treated their dead, and how this relates to different groups, time periods, locations, and characteristics of the dead themselves such as their age and sex. It is these kinds of questions that the Shanidar Cave Project is investigating through detailed study of the Shanidar Z Neanderthal remains and their burial context.
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal child based on the La Quina 18 fossil. Image: Fährtenleser, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Neanderthal encounters​
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DNA recovered from Neanderthal fossils shows that modern humans and Neanderthals had children together. People alive today typically have 1-3% of their total DNA that comes from Neanderthal ancestors (somewhat less in African populations). As more Neanderthal genomes have been sequenced, the picture has become more complicated, and there is evidence for Neanderthals and modern humans having children together at several different points in time, most recently around 65,000-45,000 years ago.
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As modern humans only permanently expanded from their original homeland in Africa into Europe around 45,000 years ago and Asia perhaps 80,000 years ago, the early interbreeding events point to earlier, temporary movements of modern humans into Europe. The fact that Neanderthal ancestry is so widely shared among living humans today indicates this interbreeding happened in South West Asia as modern humans expanded out of Africa.
What happened to the Neanderthals?​
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Around 40,000 years ago, the last Neanderthals went extinct. Why they died out is still unknown and is a question that is intensely debated by researchers. The coincidence between the permanent arrival of modern humans in Europe and the disappearance of Neanderthals around the same time has led many to argue that these events are linked.
The idea that Neanderthals were out-competed by more intelligent and technologically sophisticated modern humans was once popular but is not well supported today. We now recognise that Neanderthals were also intelligent and adaptable - after all they survived hundreds of thousands of years through major fluctuations in climate and environment. The idea that climatic change was responsible is also doubtful for the same reason.
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Modern humans moving into Eurasia might have brought with them new infectious diseases that Neanderthals did not have immunity to, and this led to their demise. We can see the devastating effects of introducing new diseases into populations in more recent human history, such as the devastation of indigenous populations in the Americas by diseases brought by European people from the 15th century onwards. This theory is hard to prove, as acute infections rarely leave traces on the skeleton, our main source of evidence for Neanderthals.
Neanderthal brains (above) were more elongated than those of modern humans (below), which may indicate differences in cognitive function. Image: S. Neubauer and Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig, CC-BY-SA 4.0
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal man. Image: Neanderthal-Museum, Mettmann, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Analyses of Neanderthal DNA show that they lacked genetic diversity, suggesting that populations had become inbred. A lack of genetic variation can put species at risk of extinction because they are more likely to express rare, lethal genetic variants and they lack sufficient genetic variation to adapt quickly to new challenges. This lack of variation may have occurred because Neanderthal populations experienced cycles of decline and isolation when the climate was colder, making them more vulnerable to extinction.
Neanderthal legacies​
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Whatever the explanation, although Neanderthals went extinct, in a sense they survive in many of us today through their DNA, and Neanderthal genetic variants may have some important consequences. Neanderthal DNA in contemporary populations has been linked to a range of characteristics including body mass, immune function and being more likely to develop certain conditions like depression and autoimmune diseases. Whether Neanderthals also suffered from these conditions is unknown, as we can't tell if these genetic variants functioned in the same way in Neanderthals as in modern humans.
Find out more about the Neanderthals from Shanidar Cave
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Work by Dr Ralph Solecki and his team from 1951-1960 challenged prevailing ideas about Neanderthals, and put Shanidar Cave on the map
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Find out more about the Project's discoveries, including what the climate was like when Neanderthals and modern humans used the cave, and the kinds of evidence they left behind
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Read more about the discovery of the Neanderthal remains known as 'Shanidar Z', and the ongoing research into their life and death
