Scientists have questioned the myth of "stupid" Neanderthals

Scientists have revisited the old idea that the shape of Neanderthals' brains indicated their cognitive "retardation". It used to be thought that a more elongated skull and less rounded brain could mean weaker abilities in language, memory and social organisation.

Details

The authors of the new study compared brain data from Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens with modern MRI data from two large groups of people: ethnic Han Chinese and European Americans.

The researchers measured the volume of 13 brain regions. In nine of the 13 cases, the differences between the modern human groups were larger than previously described differences between Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens.

This means that the anatomical differences in the Neanderthal brain alone do not appear to be sufficient reason to consider them mentally vastly inferior to our ancestors.

The study does not claim that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were exactly the same. Differences between them existed - in body structure, skull, lifestyle and probably in individual behavioural traits.

But the work calls into question a simple scheme: "Homo sapiens were smarter, so they survived, and Neanderthals disappeared." If brain differences fit within the range of variation that modern humans have, then it is not possible to explain the disappearance of Neanderthals by "low intelligence" alone.

Scientists believe the reasons could have been more complex:

• climate change,
• population size,
• competition, mixing with Homo sapiens,
• adaptation to new environments and random demographic factors.

Why it matters

Neanderthals increasingly look not like a primitive branch but close relatives of humans with complex behaviour. Other studies have already shown that they made tools, hunted, used fire and may have had advanced social skills.

The new work adds another argument to this: the shape and structure of the brain do not provide sufficient evidence to consider Neanderthals cognitively impaired.

In other words, their extinction was probably not a "smarts beat the stupid" story, but a much more complex process.

Background

Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia for hundreds of thousands of years and disappeared about 40,000 years ago. For a long time they were portrayed as crude and underdeveloped, but that image has changed dramatically in recent decades.

Modern evidence shows that Neanderthals not only had contact with Homo sapiens, but also interbred with them. Many modern humans outside of Africa have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA.

Source

The study by P. Thomas Schoenemann and co-authors Neanderthal brain and cognition reconsidered published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2026. The material is devoted to the comparison of brain reconstructions of Neanderthals, early Homo sapiens and modern human populations.