NEANDERTHAL THINKING

The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking; that everything’s fine, take off your mask and forget it. ~ Joe Biden 

Who would have guessed? Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, our very long-lost cousins in the extended human family recently made the news earlier this month. No, it did not have anything to do with their alleged voting irregularities in Pennsylvania or Georgia. Instead, President Biden was understandably upset at governors in Texas and other states who have relaxed covid restrictions. At least 18 states have begun to relax restrictions now that covid vaccinations are significantly increasing. The president was so upset he called their actions “Neanderthal thinking.”

Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, responded that Neanderthal was “not the type of word a president should be using,” but neglected to suggest an alternative word type. Rightists criticized Joe saying he was being anti-family since Neanderthals had families. Really? Neanderthals certainly pro-created, but whether they did it in a family fashion is lost in the deep dusts of history. Other commenters mentioned Neanderthals was an inappropriate throwback to the Stone Age; it being a fond memory for some in the Freedom Caucus (FC)? The Stone Age ended at least 4,000 years ago when hominids first began working with metal. Perhaps the Stone Age typified what the FC and other Repubs believe constitute the “good old days” that shouldn’t be desecrated.

Despite being bothered by these governors, President Biden rightly celebrated his first, significant legislative victory on March 11 when he signed into law the Dems’ $1.9T American Rescue Plan (Plan). Given this legislation’s solid public support, the Repubs self-righteously criticized it by lambasting Dr. Suess and Mr. Potato Head. Impressive? Not. 

The Repubs’ pseudo-synesthesia imagines the Dems’ Plan as a blood-red, deficit-financed maelstrom blowing leftist winds (and dollars) across every acre of America. Being completely hypocritical, the Repubs have conveniently become amnesiac about their own 2017 $1.5T deficit-driven tax reduction foray that largely benefited corporations and rich folks.

Prompted by the president’s remark, I journeyed to discover who Neanderthals were and how they might have thought. Here’s what I discovered.

Neanderthals followed Homo heidelbergensis, who is likely the most recent, common ancestor to both Neanderthals and modern humans. Neanderthals lived principally in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago, when they went extinct. They and early modern Homo sapiens co-existed for millennia during the Stone Age. Early modern humans ultimately passed the MAT (Metallic Aptitude Test) and later graduated into the Bronze Age. Neanderthals didn’t; they expired having stuck with stone.

Nevertheless, our two species were genetically similar enough to interbreed. Genealogists estimate that about 20% of Neanderthal DNA currently survives in modern, non-African humans, comprising roughly 2% of the human genome.

The first Neanderthal fossil was found in the Neander Valley, part of present-day Germany, in 1856. They sometimes lived in caves perhaps to escape inclement weather as well as predators like lions, bears and hyenas who didn’t care whether it was raining or not. Neanderthals’ typical body structure had a more rugged, sturdy build and commensurately shorter limbs than Homo sapiens. 

Hence, they became typified as cave-men and cave-women. As such they were popularly regarded as primitive and beastly. This characterization hasn’t changed much in conventional culture during the intervening 165 years. The president’s mention relied on this time-worn portrayal of Neanderthals. Movies like Caveman (with Ringo Starr as its Neanderthal-like protagonist) characterize Neanderthals as heathen brutes.  But as more of their artifacts have been discovered and analyzed, the scientific notion of Neanderthals has dramatically evolved.

Neanderthals apparently used animal-skin blankets, created tools, built cave dwellings (some with paleo-art they painted on walls perhaps to make the place more relaxing), went seafaring in the Mediterranean, hunted and killed deer and even an occasional wooly rhino, used medicinal plants and treated severe injuries. They probably dove into the sea to gather shells and fashion them into sharp tools and scrapers, as shown below.  

Tools fashioned by Neanderthals from sea shells.

 Their brain size was comparable to, if not a little larger than Homo sapiens, for what that’s worth. Such capabilities sound less beastly and more sophisticated; even civilized, given these accomplishments happened perhaps as long as 130 millennia ago. According to one French scientist, “Neanderthals were probably just as human as us, just in a different way.”

Getting back to the president’s statement, did Neanderthals think or speak? It’s impossible to directly answer this question, since mental thinking and verbal speech leave no archeological traces. They may have been civilized for their times, but we have yet to recover any graphophonic wax cylinders (or 9-track tapes) that a Neanderthal Cousin Brucie tucked away in his cave studio for us to listen to what they were saying and thinking. But archaeologists have been busy making inferences.

Scientists somehow have recently simulated Neanderthals’ middle and outer ear structure and determined that they had the anatomical ability to hear many sounds in similar frequencies pretty much like we do. [Whether they’d enjoy Aretha’s “Respect” is another story.] This includes fricative consonants like “f,” “s” and “t” where you make the sound with your lips or tongue by forcing breath through a partially obstructed passage in the vocal track, not with your vocal cords. Say “fast” three times slowly and you’ll get the idea.

These consonants appear in many human languages and distinguish them from other mammals’ communication. Mammalian grunts and howls have virtually no consonants, only vowels. Just listen to your cat or dog.

Hearing ability and vocalization are often coordinated in many animals, including hominins like us. It would be pointless for any animal to produce a sound frequency that it and its kind cannot hear. So, it’s possible Neanderthals’ anatomical ability to hear fricative consonants and regular ol’ vowels could have allowed them to speak among their brethren and sistren. There is, however, no consistent agreement among proto-linguists about whether Neanderthals used spoken language.

Unless we hitch a ride in “Doc” Brown’s DeLorean or H.G. Wells’ time-machine back some 45,000 years or so, we’ll never know for certain about their speechifying. But one can inferentially say it could have been possible via their likely hearing proficiency and other accomplishments. 

Perhaps looong ago, a Neanderthal tribe's elder might have even spoken on a par or better than some Congressional Repubs, e.g., dissing Dr. Suess. My bet is that Neanderthals would have been just as upset at Gov. Abbott as the president, but probably would have called the governor's thinking Heidelbergenic.