Neanderthals had just as many head trauma injuries as Upper Paleolithic humans, according to new research from the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Neanderthals are commonly thought to have relied on dangerous close range hunting techniques, using non-projectile weapons like the thrusting spears depicted here; this hunting approach is thought to have brought them into violent contact with large mammals, resulting in high levels of injury especially to the head and neck when compared to modern humans; Beier et al found similar head injury levels in both Neanderthals and Upper Paleolithic humans, casting doubt on this hypothesis. Image credit: Gleiver Prieto.
“Neanderthals are commonly depicted as leading dangerous lives and permanently struggling for survival,” said University of Tübingen’s Professor Katerina Harvati and colleagues.
“Traumatic injuries, considered to be common among remains of adult Neanderthals, are a major piece of evidence supporting this hypothesis: not only are Neanderthals proposed to suffer from a high prevalence of trauma, but they are also thought to exhibit more traumatic injuries than early modern humans.”
“Explanations for this include violent social behavior, a highly mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle in glacial environments and attacks by carnivores. Moreover, Neanderthals are thought to show unusually high levels of head and neck injuries, attributed to their hypothesized reliance on close-range hunting leading to confrontations with large prey mammals.”
“These interpretations have important implications for reconstructions of Neanderthal paleobiology and behavior, and have shaped the prevailing perception of the species, yet mainly rest on descriptive, case-based evidence. Quantitative, population-level studies of traumatic injuries are rare.”
In the study, the researchers assessed the hypothesis of higher prevalence of head trauma among Neanderthals relative to Upper Paleolithic humans using a population-level comparison.
They identified 21 specimens with one or several cranial lesions (9 Neanderthals and 12 Upper Paleolithic humans) in a sample of 114 Neanderthal specimens and 90 specimens of Upper Paleolithic humans.
“Our findings refute the hypothesis that Neanderthals were more prone to head injuries than modern humans, contrary to common perception,” Professor Harvati said.
“We therefore believe that the commonly cited Neanderthal behaviors leading to high injury levels, such as violent behavior and inferior hunting capabilities, must be reconsidered.”
The researchers found that males of both species were more frequently injured than females, a finding consistent with observations in more recent human groups, explained by division of labor between men and women or by other culturally determined sex-specific behaviors and activities.
Beyond these similarities, the scientists also found interesting differences.
“While Neanderthals and Upper Paleolithic humans exhibited a similar prevalence of trauma overall, we found a different age-related trauma prevalence for each species,” said firs author Dr. Judith Beier, researcher in the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.
“This could mean that Neanderthals were more likely to be injured at a younger age than Upper Paleolithic modern humans. Alternatively, it could be related to differences in long-term survival after a (non-lethal) injury.”
“The age-related pattern is a novel finding,” Professor Harvati added.
“Overall, however, our results suggest that Neanderthal lifestyles were not more dangerous than those of our ancestors, early modern Europeans.”
The study was published in the journal Nature.
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Judith Beier et al. Similar cranial trauma prevalence among Neanderthals and Upper Palaeolithic modern humans. Nature, published online November 14, 2018; doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0696-8
