8 billion people: how different the world would look if Neanderthals had prevailed

[Judi Lynn]

Published: November 16, 2022 12.18pm EST

In evolutionary terms, the human population has rocketed in seconds. The news that it has now reached 8 billion seems inexplicable when you think about our history.

For 99% of the last million years of our existence, people rarely came across other humans. There were only around 10,000 Neanderthals living at any one time. Today, there are around 800,000 people in the same space that was occupied by one Neanderthal. What’s more, since humans live in social groups, the next nearest Neanderthal group was probably well over 100km away. Finding a mate outside your own family was a challenge.

Neanderthals were more inclined to stay in their family groups and were warier of new people. If they had outcompeted our own species (Homo sapiens), the density of population would likely be far lower. It’s hard to imagine them building cities, for example, given that they were genetically disposed to being less friendly to those beyond their immediate family.

The reasons for our dramatic population growth may lie in the early days of Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago. Genetic and anatomical differences between us and extinct species such as Neanderthals made us more similar to domesticated animal species. Large herds of cows, for example, can better tolerate the stress of living in a small space together than their wild ancestors who lived in small groups, spaced apart. These genetic differences changed our attitudes to people outside our own group. We became more tolerant.

More:
https://theconversation.com/8-billion-people-how-different-the-world-would-look-if-neanderthals-had-prevailed-194576

[True Dough]

1. Um,

the Neanderthals did prevail. They now control the House.

[bluedigger]

2. They would have been Nazis.

It was all explained on the show Sliders.

[Random Boomer]

3. So, the world would be different if...

...despite all our advantages, another species had somehow taken our place? You might as well have said the planet would have been so different now if dodo birds had taken our place instead.

Such a weird, useless thought exercise.

[wnylib]

4. I'm inclined to agree with you and also

to disagree with some assumptions made about Neandethal behavior and numbers. They were so closely related to Denisovans that they are almost the same subspecies, and both of them interbred, along with interbreeding with early sapiens. That does not sound like they were unfriendly and lived in self-imposed isolation.

[Random Boomer]

5. Unfriendly is such a vague term

A good case can be made for Neanderthals/Denisovans being more aggressive than Homo sapiens, based on the traits that are characteristic of domesticated species. Humans appear to be a self-domesticated species, and one of the facial traits associated with domesticated species in a shorter nose/snout and slighter frame. (There are others, but I don't have time to go look them up right now.) This would certainly be mirrored in the differences between humans and Neanderthals.

Less aggression between individuals leads to greater cooperation and teamwork in all aspects of survival, from food gathering to hunting. This is a powerful competitive edge over other species living in many of the same overlapping ecological niches.

For more on this topic, I recommend The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution by Richard Wrangham.

[wnylib]

6. I used the word "friendly" because the article used it.

We have evidence of Neanderthals living in small social groups, burying their dead ceremonially, and looking after members who were injured.

Regarding self domestication of Homo sapiens, that does not eliminate genocidal aggression. Ancient Rome, German Nazis, Stalin, Putin, etc., etc., etc. Nazi genocidal aggression drove Jewish Einstein to America, along with his knowledge of atomic bomb research going on in Germany. This led to Japan paying the price for their own aggression.

Since colonial times, the US has been aggressively suppressing talent and knowledge of individuals, to the point of mass murders, due to race.

I don't think that sapiens is all that domesticated.

[Random Boomer]

7. You're conflating two different kinds of aggression

There's reactive aggression in which an individual gets angry at another person and lashes out, versus premeditated aggression where an attack is planned in order to gain something (land, resources, prestige).

Compared to other apes (including bonobos), humans have significantly less reactive aggression. This is a reflection of domestication, and it results in unusually high levels of cooperation within a group. Conversely, humans have much higher rates of premeditated aggression between groups (tribes, countries) under certain circumstances (perceived advantages in the outcome).

That combination makes us extremely competitive with Neanderthals. More effective group cohesion with other humans, and greater likelihood of attacking Neanderthals if there is a perceived advantage for doing so.

Again, I highly recommend the book I cited on how human aggression developed as our species forked from other apes.

[wnylib]

8. So then our Neanderthal genes are a consequence of aggression

rather than of cooperative living between some Neanderthals and Sapiens?

Of the great apes, I think that it is the chimps who are the most spontaneously aggressive. Chimps have also shown in studies that they lack the willingness to delay gratification for a greater reward. Gorillas can be aggressive against other gorilla troops, or if threatened, but generally are calmer than usually believed. And, from my courses on apes and evolution, bonobos are less aggressive than humans and inclined to settle disputes with sex in order to create cohesion and harmony.

Yes, sapiens does pre plan aggression to gain territory, status, etc. But we also become spontaneously aggressive and murderous. Road rage, crimes of passion in the moment, spontaneous mob rage and attacks. (I was able to diffuse one of those once, thank God, by extending friendly overtures to their target, whom I happened to know from having once worked at the same company. She then became less of an "outsider" to the mob and was at least superficially perceived as 'ok')

I agree that sapiens has become more complexly organized in the process of civilization, which could be called self-domestication. But tribal societies also have some very sophisticated social structures, even though lacking the technologies of societies that we call civilized.

I think what you are referring to is the mental (and hormonal?) ability to delay actions and reactions in order to think of responses, to plan things in advance, and to plan and carry out some very sophisticated thought processes. That can be attributed to evolutionary brain developments as a result of evolutionary pressures beyond cooperation. Complex synaptic pathways, continued brain devolpment after birth, greater number of brain cells separate us from our ape cousins. It could be that cooperation in sapiens is a result of brain changes. Babies whose brains continue developing after birth are more dependent on adults for survival. Mothers caring for helpless infants are more dependent on others for protection and food.

The continued brain development is a result of becoming bipedal. Changes in hip placement and size as a result of bipedalism made it necessary for babies to be born before their brains were fully developed. So the changes you mention look like a result of physiological evolution which then caused a corresponding evolution of social behaviors.

Neanderthal was bipedal. Neanderthal brain cases were larger than ours. They had a well developed took kit and social behaviors - jewelry, ceremonial burials, caring for the disabled, art. They were not as different from sapiens as often believed.

Your premise seems to be that Neanderthal went extinct because they were less socially developed than sapiens. More likely, IMO, is that they went extinct as a separate subspecies because they WERE as social as sapiens and interbreeding diluted their genes until they were absorbed into sapiens, leaving only trace DNA.

[Random Boomer]

9. Love the discussion, but not sure I have time to address all your points!

I wasn't trying to propose any specific theory about the demise of Neanderthals, but if I had to, it would be this:

There are some very persuasive arguments being proposed by numerous anthropologist/paleontologists for human self-domestication. Those conclusions are based on a constellation of traits that domesticated species all share to some extent -- both morphological, developmental and psychological. If you're curious, follow the topic up for all the particulars.

If humans did indeed go through this domestication process (which I tend to believe), but Neanderthals did not (they don't share the traits I referenced above), then humans had an edge over them in terms of the degree of cooperation you could reach in a group of individuals. I don't equate that with "sociability" per se, but maybe that's quibbling over terminology. But larger human groups could cooperate in hunting ventures or other activities in which there is strength in numbers, and that could have conveyed more resilience than the Neanderthals experience in bad times. Even a small edge can make a big difference during the thousands of years in which the two species co-inhabited the same regions.

This doesn't rule out both co-mingling genes and outright fighting. Groups can do both over the course of centuries. As Wrangham outlines in his book, one of the common dynamics in premeditated violence between groups (whether chimpanzees or human hunter-gatherer cultures) is whether or not there is parity in numbers. Chimps won't attack another individual or group unless they are overwhelmingly in the majority; a typical ratio is 8:1. This is the number of chimps it takes to hold a single individual down and kill them, without a high risk of being injured in return. So when a patrolling group of chimps encounters a lone individual from another neighboring troop, if the ratio is less than 8:1, they won't attack, but if they've got the numbers, they will murder that lone chimp.

According to Wrangham and his sources, hunter-gatherer groups showed this same sort of dynamic. Within their own tribe/group, reactive aggression was almost non-existent; they were very peaceful among themselves. But if they had an advantage in numbers over a neighboring tribe, they would attack. It had to be a significant advantage, however, because the goal was to inflict damage without a high risk of injury.

If we extrapolate that same dynamic to early humans and their interactions with Neanderthals, in times of numeric parity, there were probably peaceful relations. But if at any time humans had an advantage (and possibly vice versa), then there was an increased risk of violence between the two species (sub-species, whatever).

I'm sure there were many factors in the decline and eventual extinction of Neanderthals. I very much doubt any one single factor could bring them down. But it wouldn't surprise me if humans weathered changing climate and other pressures better, as a group, because we had a greater ability to cooperate with other humans, and when we had the numerical advantage over another group, we attacked them and took their land and resources. It's a pretty deadly combination.