Transcription
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the ancient world is the disappearance of the Neanderthals around 32,000 years ago. Neanderthals were at the heights of the food chain for quite a long time. They were intelligent and most likely taught us modern humans at least a thing or two. But the question remains, why did they go extinct? What made them disappear? Or are they still living among us? Maybe they never went extinct, but just became a part of us Homo sapiens through extensive interbreeding.
This video is sponsored by Plaude, but as always, more on the sponsor later in the video. [music] [music] [music] My name is Kaylee and in this video we are going to take a look into all the possible reasons for the disappearance of Neanderthals and we are going to look into the possibility that they never went extinct but that they were assimilated into our own species. You know, Homo sapiens, modern humans.
But before we get into the nitty-gritty, one of the more important things to mention when it comes to Neanderthals and their possible extinction is their smaller overall population size compared to us modern humans. It seems that their population size was never as large as our own. Possibly not even larger than 50,000 individuals at the peak. While around 45,000 years ago, we Homo sapiens could have had around 2 million individuals, which is a massive difference between population sizes.
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So there are a multitude of possible reasons as to why the Neanderthals disappeared or went extinct as some call it. So let's take a look into these options and let's see how probable they are. For a very long time, it was believed that the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe was the reason for the disappearance of the Neanderthals. Although new discoveries in the field of archaeology have mostly discredited this belief. As most of you watching me will know that the fossil record is very incomplete and we can only go off from what we have already discovered. And as new discoveries come to light, our understanding broadens. So the fossil record used to show that the Neanderthals disappeared around the same time as the arrival of the first Homo sapiens. You know, us modern humans. But new evidence has shown that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens actually lived in Europe together for approximately 15,000 years instead of 5,000 years. I've actually made a video on this discovery a couple years ago. So, I'll put that as a card in the upper right corner for you to click on if you haven't seen that video yet. This earlier arrival of Homo sapiens around 50,000 years ago instead of 40,000 years ago makes it a lot less likely for modern humans being the culprit for the disappearance or extinction of Neanderthals. There's also no evidence pointing to Homo sapiens directly combating the Neanderthal populations. We know that they interacted with each other because of the evidence of interbreeding between the two species or lineages depending on how you want to look at it. If they are two separate species or one species with two distinct lineages that were split off from the same ancestral species but evolving differently, whatever you want to call it, usually they're seen as two separate species. But the arrival of Homo sapiens in their territories could have led to a reduction in food supplies, which in turn could impact their overall health and fertility in a negative way.
Some experts believe that the disappearance of Neanderthals has a lot to do with their ability to procreate. Like I mentioned earlier in the video, the number of Neanderthal individuals at their peak was only around 50,000. So it is a possibility that they became less fertile due to too much inbreeding as time went on. And combined with the reduction in food supply, this could have had a major effect on their reproduction rates. Neanderthals also dealt with high infant mortality rates which is estimated around 43% and a high adult mortality rate with many individuals dying before they reached the age of 40 which both put an immense pressure on their population growth. We know that their birth rates started to decline around 52,000 years ago and this may have led to the male to female sex ratios becoming very unbalanced and too many of them could have died off due to earlier mentioned reasons.
Some researchers believe that modern humans, you know, Homo sapiens had more sophisticated weapons and technology which made it harder for Neanderthals to compete with our species for food. The more sophisticated technologies and weapons are, for instance, sewing needles to make clothes and innovative tools like bows and arrows, as it seems like modern humans had bows and arrows around 40,000 years ago. I couldn't find any evidence that suggests that Neanderthals had bows and arrows, although the bow could have been made from wood and could have very easily degraded over time, leaving no trace. So, it's possible. But really, it it does seem unlikely that Neanderthals developed archery. It does seem like they may have created simpler throwing darts, but some anthropologists believe that the shoulder structure of Neanderthals were less rotationally flexible and thus were more suited for powerful thrusting motions instead of the overhand throwing motion needed for throwing darts or later modern human weapons like for instance the atlatl. We do know that Neanderthals were used to hunting big game like for instance the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinos, saber-tooth cats, cave lions, and more. And it's very possible that Neanderthals were not equipped to hunt smaller game. And therefore, it is possible that when the big game animals declined in numbers, they might have not adapted as well to hunting the smaller animals, making their survival a lot more difficult. And again, the arrival of Homo sapiens reducing their food supply didn't really help.
But as I have shown in my Neanderthal intelligence video, it's almost preposterous to think that Neanderthals didn't have the ability to create clothes. They created bone ornaments. They had the ability to decorate themselves as evidence has shown us. Neanderthals had the ability to create strings, which shows a high level of intelligence and capability. And they had many lissoirs. These were bone tools, typically created from a polished rib to scrape hides with. So really, string in combination with scraped hides and the ability to create bone tools show that Neanderthals were able to create pieces of clothing to keep themselves warm during the ice age, just like their modern human counterparts did.
Then there are the physical features of a Neanderthal. Some experts believe that the morphology of the Neanderthals was much more suited to survive in colder climates. So when the climate started to warm up, their bodies were not good at adapting to it. Their large noses would have been very well adapted to humidify the cold air and their short, stout, and muscular bodies would have been very good at conserving heat, but this is not really helpful in a warmer climate.
Another possibility is diseases that modern humans brought with them as they arrived in Europe. The Neanderthals could have been extremely affected by these and maybe their immune systems were not equipped enough to deal with these new diseases that were foreign to them. We have seen countless times now that the diseases that we modern humans carry with us can be absolutely detrimental to an existing population that we have never encountered before. We have killed a lot of people just by interacting with them and giving them our diseases for fun.
But a major volcanic eruption may have been the culprit for the extinction of the Neanderthals. Close by Mount Vesuvius, a little to the west of the city of Naples, is the location of the Campi Flegrei super volcano. This volcano erupted around 37,000 years ago. And this event is known as the Great Campi Flegrei Ignimbrite [music] eruption. Try to say that fast 10 times in a row. Adaria. This was a colossal eruption. Actually, it seems to be Europe's largest and worst volcanic eruption in the past 200,000 years, which occurred around 37,000 years ago. We know that the Mount Vesuvius eruption was devastating, but honestly, Mount Vesuvius was child's play compared to the Campi Flegrei eruption. So, Campi Flegrei erupted around 37,000 years ago and the radius of spewed ash has been estimated to have been around 3.7 million square kilometers. And for the people in the comments saying that that radius is wrong, I've checked this like 10 times now 'cause I've seen your comments on my earlier videos about this. So, not only was the falling back down to Earth ash from this volcano a massive issue, I think the poisonous sulfur dioxide it released into the atmosphere was way worse than the ash. It released 450 million kg of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, subsequently cooling the entire northern hemisphere, cooling the global average temperatures by 1 or 2°C for at least 2 to 3 years. But in Europe, the temperatures might have dropped by as much as 3°C. And in Russia, the temperatures might have dropped as much as 6°C, where the ash cloud spread most. Now, you may think 1 or 2°C on average isn't too bad, but this is quite the massive temperature change on a global scale, which would have severely impacted all living creatures in Europe and would have had an impact in some way on all life on Earth. It is really hard to fathom just how destructive the eruption of Campi Flegrei would have been for the people living in Europe around that time. We know that Neanderthals lived in smaller communities and we also know that there were fewer Neanderthals roaming around approximately 40,000 years ago when compared to Homo sapiens. And we know that Neanderthals disappeared somewhere between 40,000 and 32,000 years ago. This actually does fall right in the aftermath of the Campi Flegrei eruption. So we know that most Neanderthals lived in Western Europe and Eurasia, at least as far east as the Denisova cave in Siberia. Around 40,000 years ago, the number of Neanderthals were already declining with Homo sapiens spreading more and more into their territories, slowly taking over their living environment and their food supply. The researchers don't necessarily believe that Neanderthal communities lived close enough by the volcano to be directly impacted. Although there is a possibility that the existence of such communities close by would have been completely wiped from the face of the earth, leaving absolutely no trace. The ash cloud and most of the poisonous sulfur dioxide spread east away from western European Neanderthal territories. But to be completely honest, this was, as you can imagine, straight towards the Neanderthal and Denisovan territories in Russia and Asia. So if the ash and the sulfur dioxide wasn't bad enough, it would have also resulted in acid rain across parts of Europe, Asia, and even as far as North America. So even if these Neanderthal communities didn't witness the actual eruption, they without a doubt felt its effects and it would have severely impacted their lives with sunsets that would have been dark and red for about a year after the eruption due to the high concentrations of sulfur in the atmosphere. Imagine a dark and [music] red sunset for about a year.
So the eruption took place in an especially cold and dry period in the last ice age and would have without a doubt made conditions much worse for the Neanderthals but also for the Denisovan and modern human populations as well. But like I mentioned earlier, the modern human population size was much bigger. So higher chance of survival, strength in numbers. The ash that rained back down on earth would have been incorporated into plants which would then be eaten by various animals and the surviving hominids. This could have potentially caused a condition known as fluorosis that can lead to tooth, eye, and organ damage. So if we add up everything that I have just spoken about, the initial eruption of Campi Flegrei would have been terribly devastating. The ash clouds and poisonous sulfur dioxide would have caused acid rains that would have been crippling to the ancient communities of Neanderthals, but also for the Homo sapiens and the Denisovan communities. The subsequent cooling down of the average temperatures by at least one or two degrees Celsius would have made survival even harder. And for the ones that did manage to survive all of this destruction around them, they might have died due to complications of the condition known as fluorosis, which could have damaged their organs and be the final nail in the coffin for both Neanderthals and Denisovans. So while we don't have conclusive evidence pointing to the eruption of Campi Flegrei being the direct culprit of the Neanderthal extinction, it definitely had a severely negative impact on the already dwindling numbers of them around the time of the eruption and it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
But then there's the theory that Neanderthals never went extinct. Their smaller population size in combination with their interbreeding with us Homo sapiens, they may have been fully assimilated into our own species. We know that humans living in modern times may have up to 4% Neanderthal DNA in their genomes and approximately 20% of the full Neanderthal genome seems to have survived in the Homo sapiens gene pool. That's quite a high number. That's 1/5 of all their genomes surviving into modern times. So, can we truly without a doubt say that Neanderthals went extinct? I honestly don't think we can. Did they disappear from the face of the earth? Yes. The full Neanderthals no longer exist, but they do seem to live on within us. Neanderthals became a part of us modern humans through interbreeding. And after thousands of years of interbreeding, they eventually were no longer distinctly different from us.
When I look at all these proposed options for the extinction of the Neanderthals, I personally believe they never truly went extinct and that all of these possibilities are to blame as a collective. I don't think that there's one thing that we can ever point to as being the culprit for the Neanderthals disappearing from the face of the earth. So, here is what I personally believe happened. And understand that this is my hypothesis. I'm not speaking fact here. This is my opinion. I think Neanderthals and their smaller existing populations had some trouble when the climate started to change and warm up as their big game animals slowly started to go extinct. They had more trouble finding food. On top of that, the arrival of Homo sapiens, reducing their food supply even more didn't really help. The Campi Flegrei volcano that erupted may have made all of this even more difficult because not only did [music] it make the global temperatures cool down, especially in the region where Neanderthals lived, it is a lot harder to survive, but when everything around you is covered in ash as well. All the while acid rain comes down from the sky contaminating your food and water supplies. While at the same time the modern humans started to inhabit their habitat who brought diseases with them which made their numbers even more lower. So they started to interbreed with these modern humans because they were already quite inbred and most likely they were very unbalanced in the amount of males and females who were alive at the same time. And all of this together made the Neanderthals slowly disappear from the face of the earth while their genes were assimilated into the modern human [music] gene pool, making the Neanderthals officially live on inside all of us. Even in the sub-Saharan African populations, it has been discovered that they carry a little bit of Neanderthal within their genomes. It's only around 0.3 to 0.5%, but it's not nothing. Neanderthals survived as a separate species or lineage on Earth for nearly 400,000 years. But the combination of all the given reasons in this video, we can understand why they no longer roam the earth in modern times. Their demise and disappearance was slow and filled with immense struggle. And eventually they became a part of this younger human lineage because they were able to interbreed with us. They live on within us. So if you have Neanderthal DNA in your own genomes, [music] be proud of those ancient ancestors as they were an incredible species.
So what do you think of the Neanderthals and their disappearance? Do you think my opinion on this matter is the one you believe as well? Or do you have other beliefs? Let me know in the comments down below. If you research, script, or just love capturing ideas on the go, Plot Notepin has been a game-changer. Check the links below to try it out yourself, but do make sure to click the correct regional link to access the deal and maybe save yourself a few late-night transcription sessions. If you enjoyed watching, then don't forget to give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you'd like to see more of these kind of videos and click that bell icon if you want to be notified whenever I upload. If you haven't seen my previous videos yet, then click the card in the upper right corner or click one of the links in the description down below or click a video in the end card. I would also like to say a massive thank you to my patrons and my channel members. Thank you so much for supporting me. Truly, it [music] really does mean the world to me. And uh yeah, this was my revised video on the disappearance of the Neanderthals. I've made one couple years ago and I felt like I could have done a better job. So yeah, that's this. And uh if you like this skull, it's a 3D print by North 2. I will link to that in the description down below as well. And I highly recommend grabbing yourself one 'cause uh who doesn't like a two-piece Neanderthal skull? It's awesome. You want a jaw? I want a jaw. Do you want a jaw? Who doesn't want a jaw? People who don't want jaws are weird. People who don't want skulls are weird. I like skulls. I'm a weirdo. So having skulls is weird. Not having skulls is weird. Everything is weird. I'm Dutch. What else did you expect from me? All Dutch people are weird. All right, peace out. Bye. [music] [music]