User:Hannah M Weinstein/sandbox

Tools[edit]
Neanderthal and early anatomically modern human archaeological sites show a more simple toolkit than those found in Upper Paleolithic sites, produced by modern humans after about 50,000 BP. In both early anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals, there is little innovation in the toolkit.

Tools produced by Middle Paleolithic humans in Eurasia (both Neanderthals and early modern humans) are known as Mousterian. These were likely often produced using soft hammer percussion, with hammers made of materials like bones, antlers, and wood. They used this rather than hard hammer percussion, which uses stone hammers. Because of this, their bone industry was relatively simple. They routinely made stone implements. Neanderthal tools consisted of stone-flakes and task-specific hand axes, many of which were sharp.

There is evidence for violence among Neanderthals. The 40,000-year-old Neanderthal skull of St. Césaire has a healed fracture in its cranial vault likely caused by something sharp, suggesting interpersonal violence. The wound healed and the Neanderthal survived.

Whether Neanderthals had projectile weapons is controversial. They seem to have had wooden spears, but it is unclear whether they were used as projectiles or as thrusting spears. Wood implements rarely survive, but several 320,000-year-old wooden spears about 2-meters in length were found near Schöningen, northern Germany, and are believed to be the product of the older Homo heidelbergensis species.

Neanderthals could control fire on occasion, but it is not certain whether they were able to produce it. They may have used manganese dioxide to accelerate the combustion of wood. "With archaeological evidence for fireplaces and the conversion of the manganese dioxide to powder, [it has been argued] that Neanderthals at Pech-de-l’Azé I used manganese dioxide in fire-making and were able to produce fire on demand." MnO2 lowers the combustion temperature of wood from 350 degrees Celsius to 250 degrees Celsius and is common in Neanderthal archaeological sites.

Neanderthals produced birch tar through the dry distillation of birch bark.

Pendants and other jewelry showing traces of ochre dye and of deliberate grooving have also been found in one single stratigraphically disturbed Neanderthal archaeological layer, but it is debated whether these items were ever in the hands of Neanderthals or were mixed into their archaeological layers from overlying modern human ones.

Tools and Hand Anatomy[edit]
'''A group of German and Swiss scientists compared the hand structures of Neanderthals with early modern humans in order to understand Neanderthal tool use. Tool use was made possible for Neanderthals because their anatomical capability allowed them to wield both a power and precision grip. Today, modern human professions that use power grips consist of manual labor. Workers doing manual labor would use a power grip to wield a hammer. Another example of a power grip in the modern day is young children who color with crayons by gripping it with a fist. In both of these examples, the whole hand is used to control the object being used. Precision grips, however, are used in detail-oriented professions; they involve using the fine-tune skills and muscles of the fingers to generally produce a softer, but more exact force. Workers in detailed-oriented professions such as desk jobs would use a precision grip to write or type papers. Evidence of Neanderthal hand anatomy implies the capability of these two specific skills, meaning that they could perform both manual labor and master the craft of tool-making.'''

Language[edit]
See also: Origin of language The hyoid bone and larynx in a modern human. It is not known whether Neanderthals were anatomically capable of speech and whether they actually spoke. A once widely believed theory that the Neanderthal vocal tract was different from that of living humans, and hence probably could not speak, is now discredited. The only bone in the vocal tract is the hyoid, but being fragile, no Neanderthal hyoid was found until 1983, when excavators discovered a well-preserved one on Neanderthal Kebara 2, Israel. It was largely similar to that of living humans. The original excavators claimed that the similarity of this bone with that of living humans implied Neanderthals were anatomically capable of speech. However, it is not possible to reconstruct the vocal tract with information supplied by the hyoid. In particular, it cannot be determined whether the larynx of its owner was in a low-lying position, a feature considered important in producing speech.

A 2013 study on the Kebara hyoid used X-ray microtomography and finite element analysis to conclude that the Neanderthal hyoid showed microscopic features more similar to a modern human's hyoid than to a chimpanzee hyoid. To the authors, this suggested the Neanderthal hyoid was used similarly to that in living humans to produce speech. Yet, because the authors did not compare the microscopic structure of the Kebara 2 hyoid with that of speech-hindered living humans, this result is not yet conclusive.

Although some researchers believe Neanderthal tool-making is too complex for them not to have had language, toolmaking experiments of Levallois technology, the most common Neanderthal toolmaking technique, have found that living humans can learn it in silence.

Neanderthals had the same DNA-coding region of the FOXP2 gene as living humans, but are different in one position of the gene's regulatory regions. Therefore, the extent of FOXP2 expression might have been different in Neanderthals. Although the gene appears necessary for language, living humans who don't have the normal human version of the gene have serious language difficulties. Thus, it is not necessarily sufficient. It is not known whether FOXP2 evolved for or in conjunction with language, nor whether there are other language-related genes that Neanderthals may or may not have had. Similarly, the size and functionality of the Neanderthal Broca's and Wernicke's areas, used for speech generation in modern humans, is debated.

In 1998, researchers suggested Neanderthals had a hypoglossal canal at least as large as humans, suggesting they had part of the neurological requirements for language. The canal carries the hypoglossal nerve, which controls the muscles of the tongue, necessary to produce language. However, a Berkeley research team showed no correlation between canal size and speech, as a number of extant non-human primates and fossilized australopithecines have larger hypoglossal canals.

The morphology of the outer and middle ear of Homo heidelbergensis, the Neanderthal's ancestor, suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans and different from chimpanzees.

Dunbar Theory
'''The study of Neanderthal brain anatomy and language development can be linked to the Dunbar Social Brain Theory. The Dunbar Social Brain Theory hypothesizes that due to the large and complex nature of primate groups, primates, including Neanderthals and early humans, evolved larger brain sizes to cope with the challenges of increased interactions among group members. Specifically, in 2009, primate behavior specialist Dunbar proposed that it was the nature of primates to form a pairbond with another group member for biparental care and the cognitive mechanisms for such, which were adopted by non-reproductive members. According to his proposal, this led to an overall increase in brain size. Dunbar concluded that in mammals, and thus also hominins, an increase in group size leads to an increase in the volume of the brain. An increase in the volume and complexity of the brain would allow Neanderthals increased physical capability for cognitive abilities, such as more complex behavior and language as group size grew.'''