“We prize our individuality, but our survival is tied to larger social groups, like a bee’s fate depends on the colony’s survival.”
It’s still a mystery. Why did the Neanderthals die out when modern humans didn’t? One theory is that homo sapiens were more intelligent than the Neanderthals, but this alone can’t explain the extinction of the Neanderthals. After all, fruit flies and cockroaches are less intelligent than humans, yet they have not gone extinct.
Neanderthals were intelligent and creative. They used advanced tools and expressed themselves artistically, still they vanished from Europe and western Asia around 40,000 years ago. Why?
New research on DNA recovered from bones and teeth of Neanderthals, suggests that the critical difference between modern humans and Neanderthals might not have been individual intelligence but rather societal structures.
Neanderthals lived in smaller social groups compared to homo sapiens. Our ancestors also lived in small band societies but these autonomous groups interacted with each other. Connected by language, religion, and relationships, our ancestors formed larger, loosely organized societies.
This societal advantage might explain why modern humans thrived and eventually replaced their Neanderthal counterparts. As paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, Nicholas R. Longrich put it: “We prize our individuality, but our survival is tied to larger social groups, like a bee’s fate depends on the colony’s survival.”
If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend that you start by reading this article by Nicholas Longrich: https://theconversation.com/why-did-modern-humans-replace-the-neanderthals-the-key-might-lie-in-our-social-structures-195056
