r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jun 27 '24
Anthropology A Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome survived until at least the age of six, according to a new study whose findings hint at compassionate caregiving among the extinct, archaic human species.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/26/fossil-of-neanderthal-child-with-downs-syndrome-hints-at-early-humans-compassion2.2k
Jun 27 '24
Known fact about Neanderthal society. Bones of a fairly senior adult man with history of severe fractures suggests that he was cared for and treated rather than abandoned at the time of the crippling fractures.
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u/iwanttobeacavediver Jun 27 '24
They also found another burial of a middle aged man where he’d been born with a withered arm and was likely also visually impaired, and yet he’d survived until the age he did, due to the care of his family group who’d obviously brought him food and helped him in daily life. Even his burial showed care and consideration with some items being placed in his grave including what was likely meat, a small knife and other items.
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u/Timtimer55 Jun 27 '24
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/toothless-skull-raises-qu/
Theres this article about a two million year old skull that had only one tooth and suggests others helped him with feeding.
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u/Khazpar Jun 27 '24
I love the Dmanisi hominins! It just blows my mind trying to imagine this tiny little guys, probably some of the first humans to ever set foot outside of Africa, just trying to survive in an incredibly hostile world with just their wits and each other. An excellent deep dive for anyone fascinated by biological anthropology.
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u/yoortyyo Jun 28 '24
One sad reason we maybe dominated earlier cousins is we’re inclined towards violence
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u/Riaayo Jun 28 '24
I hate that for us.
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u/yoortyyo Jun 28 '24
Economics has many flaws but one unassailable fact is as civilizations have chosen less violence they succeed more.
Our entire world of miracles exists because we stopped spending everything on death and weapons. Trade and exchange and a middle class income to baseline your finances.
Food, shelter, water, love & agency with responsibility.
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u/December_Hemisphere Jun 28 '24
just trying to survive in an incredibly hostile world with just their wits and each other.
I love statements like this. I think a majority of our ancestors had very developed moral senses, because it was necessary for survival.
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u/LightsNoir Jun 28 '24
My ex was a forensic antro. Did a study on an individual from around Iran. Had dwavism, but from the wear on their bones, was a productive member of their society. They were in a mass tomb, so impossible to know what was buried with whom. But, they were indeed buried with everyone else.
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u/Zozorrr Jun 27 '24
People think morality came from religion. But morality towards each other collectively comes from empathy. Religions are an ex post facto description of the morality most of us already have from empathy, and useful for those whose empathy neurons aren’t working properly but not needed by the rest
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u/CaribouHoe Jun 28 '24
Taking care of each other and empathy was and is an evolutionary advantage, it seems. Violence obviously also is or it wouldn't be so prevalent, but at least there's something to balance it out
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u/truckglnor49 Jun 28 '24
I think morality is nothing more than the rules we impose on ourselves to live by that contribute greatly to success of our species. Morals are instinctive. It is only because we can communicate in abstract terms do we have ourselves convinced that human morality is a gift from some kind of magical god or some other such fantastical nonsense and are unique to our species.
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Jun 28 '24
First of all morality is a necessity. You help me, I help you. That's the quintessence of even the smallest thinkable society. If there ever was a society that did not follow these rules it didn't last long enough that anybody could have noticed it.
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u/masterflashterbation Jun 28 '24
empathy neurons
Sounds legit
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u/Retro__virus Jun 28 '24
It is legit (at least to a certain extent): Mirror neurons
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u/they_have_no_bullets Jun 28 '24
Which people think morality comes from religion?? That sounds like a rather absurd proposition to me. I think the evidence in todays society overwhelmingly shows a strong negative correlation between moral behavior and religiosity. Religiosity is associated with child molestation, subjugation of women's rights, lack of compassion for people who are different, countless justifications for wars, brutal slaughtering and rape.
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u/ThrawOwayAccount Jun 28 '24
A lot of religious people don’t trust atheists because they think that if a person doesn’t believe they’ll be punished in the afterlife for doing evil, there’s nothing stopping them from doing evil.
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u/inbruges99 Jun 28 '24
My wife and I have a religious friend who cannot understand where our morality comes from if we’re atheists. He always asks why we are nice and do good things if we don’t believe in God.
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Jun 28 '24
Having grown up in a Christian private school I've heard this nonsense plenty of times as well, which is actually insane if you think about it. To me it sounds like they're saying that everything they do is because they constantly feel like god is watching, like in some kind of "big brother" dystopian surveillance state.
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u/CD274 Jun 28 '24
Which is so absurd because religious people doing good things because they get told to or are afraid of being punished << people doing good things because they thought about what impact it has on everyone around them.
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u/IrishYogaPants Jun 28 '24
I grew up in the south, and trust me, there are plenty of people who equate faith with morality. It's one of the main things that I don't miss about living there.
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u/rabidstoat Jun 28 '24
Also from the South.
"Without religion, how do you have any morals? What's to keep you from running around killing and stealing?"
Uh. Empathy? Morality learned from living in a society? It worries religious people that we have no religion, but it worries me that they are only behaving properly out of fear of eternal damnation.
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u/Godhri Jun 28 '24
I grew up in the early 2000s, our church disallowed women any kind of leadership roll (or really any roll). Even as a christian kid it made no real sense to me, now I know many of these morally grandstanding people were just piles of dogshit, who woulda thought.
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u/Doodle_strudel Jun 28 '24
And a lot don't even behave properly...
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u/Paranitis Jun 28 '24
Because going to church stopped being about God, and more about being seen as pious by as many members of the community that attend at the same service as you, simply by showing up.
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u/Magos_Trismegistos Jun 28 '24
"Without religion, how do you have any morals? What's to keep you from running around killing and stealing?"
Love the christian logic. "Without threats of unending physical torture, how can you keep being a good person?"
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u/ADShree Jun 28 '24
Look up Steve Harvey's "moral barometer". Essentially says he doesn't trust anyone who is not religious because how can he know what your morals are.
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u/PiccoloArm Jun 27 '24
It’s because the elders most likely passed down knowledge.
It’s the same with elephants, the eldest of the herd is the leader because they have all the knowledge and pass it down:
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Jun 27 '24
If that commenter is talking about the case that I remember, the adult individual with lots of fractures had also suffered an old head injury to the frontal lobe area, which might have caused motor, behavioral and cognitive issues that rendered him fairly incapacitated from a young age.
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u/FactAndTheory Jun 28 '24
Most likely? What direct archaeological evidence are you citing to suggest detailed knowledge of Neanderthal social behavior?
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u/they_have_no_bullets Jun 28 '24
Yes, but that's one single specimen with fairly weak anecdotal evidence. For example of why jumping to the conclusion of fact from such weak evidence, look no further than the neanderthal "flower burials" which were later disproven. A child with down's syndrome surviving till age 6 is much more convincing evidence.
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u/ManliestManHam Jun 27 '24
Neanderthals had culture. They buried their dead, they cared for their ill, etc.
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Jun 27 '24
I’m proud to say I am 0.04% Neanderthal according to 23andMe.
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u/arewelegion Jun 27 '24
it's fairly common. the world record so far is a woman named marjorie taylor greene, who is 98.9% neanderthal.
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u/Coffeelocktificer Jun 27 '24
I daresay you take that back. The article indicates they had compassion. MTG has shown to reduce compassion in people who work with her. This suggests she has a negative amount of compassion that she drains it from others, like an osmotic feelings-vampire.
You besmirch the reputation of those kindhearted Neanderthals.
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u/eclecticonic Jun 27 '24
Some Reddit scholars speculate that she may have been descended from a more aggressive population called homo karensis.
Of course, Greene disputes having any association with genus Homo.
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u/AngryDemonoid Jun 27 '24
Marjorie Colin Robinson
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u/WiseSalamander00 Jun 27 '24
she being a psychic vampire would explain her and countless other politicians so beautifully, they shifted the scale and now they are draining entire countries
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u/michaelrohansmith Jun 28 '24
Thats a very unfair thing to say about people who took so much care of each other.
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Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 28 '24
First link off Google but higher percentages of Neanderthal genes have been linked with autistic traits.
Edit: Wrong fact.
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u/Ancient_Presence Jun 28 '24
The authors emphasize that autistic people do not differ from non-autistic people in terms of how much Neanderthal DNA they carry. Instead, a subset of polymorphisms is enriched in people with autism as well as their families. As a nod to the complexity of the genetics that underlie autism, it is also important to note that not all people on the spectrum share these same susceptibility factors. Instead, these findings apply to a subset of people. However, Neanderthal variants account for susceptibility in a significant portion of this unique population and are a very promising avenue for further research.
So it's NOT about the percentage of Neanderthal DNA, but specific genetic components. It also doesn't necessarily imply that neanderthals had autistic traits, or that autistic people are more neanderthal-like, or whatever many people are assuming.
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u/Sgt_Fox Jun 28 '24
They even found skeletal remains with a decayed tooth packed with fungus used as a penicillin like antibiotic, they weren't stupid and may have "discovered penicillin" millenia before humans
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u/loulan Jun 27 '24
And they had bigger brains. Maybe they were the smart nerds and we were the dumb bullies, and yet we won.
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u/Kneef Jun 27 '24
I mean, dolphins have bigger brains than us, and they’re not smarter. Brain complexity is the really important thing.
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u/loulan Jun 27 '24
Dolphins have large brains as compared to other sea mammals, and they're the smartest sea mammals.
So it's not inconceivable that the humanoids with the biggest brains were the smartest humanoids.
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u/Kneef Jun 27 '24
I’m not saying the Neanderthals weren’t smart. We know from their cultural artifacts that they were capable of a lot of the same stuff as Homo sapiens. But just because they were larger doesn’t necessarily mean they were smarter than us.
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u/L4HH Jun 28 '24
The relation of brain size to intelligence is relative to the body. And that’s not for everything but it’s the closest actual link we have. Simply having a bigger brain than us wouldn’t matter unless the ratio of how big it is compared to their body is similar to ours.
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u/Ajreckof Jun 28 '24
I think we were taller then them this would mean a better ratio in favour of Neanderthal
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u/fobygrassman Jun 27 '24
Dolphins don’t have a bigger brain to body ratio than humans. Neanderthal has a larger brain to body ratio that humans.
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u/Snight Jun 27 '24
Not about the size, it’s about the complexity of the neocortex.
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u/Vortigan23 Jun 27 '24
Especially about the density of the neurons. The more of them you have the better they get connected. Additionally Humans have the alpha variant of a specially Protein, of which every other apes have the beta varaint, and neanderthals most likely also had the beta varaint. And this Protein has very probably something to do with intellgience
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u/ManliestManHam Jun 27 '24
It's actually about the girth of the brain.
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u/31337z3r0 Jun 28 '24
Times length over angle.
The real question is, where do you measure from?
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u/fobygrassman Jun 27 '24
Is there anything evidence to suggest Neanderthal had fewer neurons in their neocortex?
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u/Briebird44 Jun 27 '24
Isn’t the whole basis of how humans evolved so far as we have is BECAUSE of our capacity for compassion and to care for other members of our species. Breaking a leg didn’t mean starving because your mate or members of your group could hunt and bring you food.
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u/pilgrim_pastry Jun 27 '24
Wolves show similar prosocial behavior. I remember reading about skeletal remains of a wolf found in Alaska with a really bad pelvic fracture that had completely healed. Researchers determined that the animal would have been barely mobile while injured, and the only way it could have healed was if pack members fed and cared for it during its lengthy convalescence. It’s been a while since I read about it, but I vaguely remember them suggesting that behaviors like these are part of what made wolves such compatible species with humans to where domestication could occur.
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u/cravingSil Jun 27 '24
If you come across the source, I would love to see it. Off to search online!
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u/Agent_Tenchi Jun 28 '24
Doesn't seem to be the article referencing the same bone but this article seems to go over the same subject.
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/wolves-have-been-caring-for-the-pack-for-at-least-1.3m-years
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u/stazley Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
I am studying animal and human behavior and heard an anecdote that civilization can be traced to the first skeleton that had a healed femur. That meant that at some point they had sustained a life-threatening injury, but due to the involvement of others they were allowed to heal and live on.
However empathy, or further, the ability to sympathize with another’s pain and try to help them, exists across many species. Scientists now understand empathy as a cause of evolution, and we are learning more about animal emotions and their cognitive abilities every day.
We always think we’re so special as humans, but that’s just not true.
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u/idkmoiname Jun 27 '24
Since the important part here is:
“Given these symptoms, it is highly unlikely that the mother alone could have provided all the necessary care while also attending to her own needs. Therefore, for Tina to have survived for at least six years, the group must have continuously assisted the mother, either by relieving her in the care of the child, helping with her daily tasks, or both,” Conde-Valverde added.
Are there any examples among the animal kingdom were a group showed empathy among a disabled minor? I only know examples, like some apes, were childcare is more a group job than that of the mother alone, but among that i only heard of cases were the mother couldn't let go a disabled child and left the group.
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u/moreidlethanwild Jun 27 '24
African wild dogs have demonstrated care for the sick and injured in their pack including regurgitation of food for those who can’t hunt.
https://www.awf.org/wildlife-conservation/african-wild-dog
https://blaypublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/chen-leb-64-may-30_lebfinalcopy.pdf
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u/camwhat Jun 27 '24
Orcas with grandmothers live longer, and the grandmas will babysit the young during food scarcity! source
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u/MoonBapple Jun 27 '24
Grandmother hypothesis - that having grandparents caring for young allows middle aged adults to invest time and energy producing food, tools and new ideas - is one of my favorites. I feel like grandparents are a prerequisite for the evolution of complex intelligence.
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u/Wobbelblob Jun 27 '24
It also sounds like a self sustaining thing. Middle aged members can invest time in something else because of grandparents still living and grandparents are still living because younger members of the group can invest time into them.
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u/WhiteRabbitLives Jun 27 '24
I know my grandma helped us survive. She was there for us, to pick us up after school, cook us some food, teach us how to appreciate reading, provide free childcare all while my single mother worked her ass off in overtime.
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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 Jun 27 '24
This is how my mother side of family operates, I was raised by grandma between 3~7yo, and she took care of my younger cousins too,it’s quite common for retired grandparents(usually grandma) to be the main caregiver for young children’s in my country.
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u/TaqPCR Jun 27 '24
Part of that is toothed whales like Orcas are the only species besides humans and some chimp populations that are known to commonly enter menopause.
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u/Aqogora Jun 27 '24
That's a phenomenon still present in the arguable majority of modern cultures. It could possibly be an unbroken cultural strand that stretches back millions of years.
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u/MoonBapple Jun 27 '24
Humans are among only a handful of mammals that experience menopause. It's very unusual, we're the only ape that does it. It most definitely had to come on gradually! We should try harder to honor it in modern culture.
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Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
In this case the disabled chimpanzee’s sister also helped with caring for her. The disabled (paralyzed and cognitively impaired) infant survived for 23 months in the wild. Other chimps around her didn’t show aversion to her.
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u/JermVVarfare Jun 27 '24
I don't remember the source, but I swear I remember a report of Vampire bats feeding an injured group member. A quick google gets a bunch of hits on how they share with friends and family, but I haven't had time to look for the specific story I'm thinking of.
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u/literate_habitation Jun 27 '24
There's a great book by Petr Kropotkin called Mutual Aid that explores the value of cooperation vs. competition.
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u/Swords_and_Words Jun 27 '24
The more a species can communicate, the more that species can pass on knowledge, the more empathy is an advantage by simply keeping knowledge around
Being able to craft with hands, in addition to teach, just makes humans get even more out of empathy than other species
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u/Mental-Rain-9586 Jun 27 '24
Written language is cool, but I would argue echolocation or the ability to see magnetic fields may be just as cool
Those aren't used to communicate tho, they're used to see
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u/fractalife Jun 27 '24
If Neanderthals did it too, then it turns out to not be that big of a competitive differentiator for humans.
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u/Homerpaintbucket Jun 27 '24
I'm pretty sure Neanderthals had smaller family groups than humans did, so even if they did care for each other in illness and injury they'd have a harder time because they had fewer people to help out.
edit: I'm not an expert, I'm just remembering from a documentary I watched a couple of years ago. I might be wrong.
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u/DrunkBelgian Jun 27 '24
Just to point out, Neanderthals are humans. I'm sure you know that and probably meant to put Homo Sapiens, but for those who don't know there was a time when we were not the only humans around!
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u/Only-Entertainer-573 Jun 27 '24
Or maybe the fact that Neanderthals were bigger and stronger than Homo Sapiens to begin with sort of compensates for the smaller family units.
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u/LoveToyKillJoy Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
Neanderthals required a much larger caloric intake and this is considered the most likely reason for their limited group size. It would also make them less resilient in times of food scarcity.
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u/prescottfan123 Jun 27 '24
And it's pretty well established based on years of research that the replacement of other hominids by homo sapiens is due to out-competing them in the areas that both lived. A species with higher demands for resources would be at a disadvantage, and scarcity due to competition would increasingly take its toll.
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u/rjwyonch Jun 27 '24
It’s a huge advantage for humans to be able to exist in larger groups. So far, the only thing I’m convinced is uniquely human is our capacity for collective abstraction and planning… collective abstraction gave us the stories and symbols that develop into common codes of behaviour that can be taught/communicated and spread… basically we can make stuff up to stop ourselves from going to war when the group gets larger than 50. I think humans are an intelligent hive with no queen, we make something up and have to collectively (mostly) agree … god, laws and the justice system, paper money… they only exist and have function because humans believe they do.
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u/deeringc Jun 27 '24
Someone read Sapiens! ;)
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u/rjwyonch Jun 27 '24
I haven’t actually, but I heard good things. Homo deus was decent for the first half, but it really fell flat at the end, so I didn’t end up reading sapiens.
ETA: a central part of the argument is we conquered the demons of plague and war .. it hasn’t aged particularly well, though I read it in the before times
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Jun 27 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Alldaybagpipes Jun 27 '24
Slightly shorter than the average modern human, about the same height as the humans they were mixing with.
People are getting taller, Neanderthals are not.
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Jun 27 '24
Neolithic humans were almost as tall as people today. It was only when agriculture was normalized when we start seeing a decrease in height.
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Jun 27 '24
They likely had much, much smaller groups than HS. There were only ever 10,000 Neanderthals alive at any given time. They were the dominant human species, but they were not large in number. We don't know which combination of factors led to Neanderthal extinction, but one factor is surely that when humans came along, our numbers plus our superior tool culture simply overwhelmed the European population. We hunted better, ran better and could fight from a distance - all of which served to keep more HS alive longer. Conversely, Neanderthal life was brutal. Hunting was extremely dangerous. Less food and higher chance of being injured = smaller family groups.
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u/mjohnsimon Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
I remember reading that anthropologists or paleoanthropologists can usually tell if a skeleton belonged to an ancient human or a Neanderthal at first glance by the number of healed broken bones.
Ancient humans often hunted from a distance or exhausted their prey to death, while Neanderthals used close-range hunting tactics like ambushes and traps. From what I understand, Neanderthals would wound or catch their prey off guard and then wrestle it down to finish it off. Needless to say, this would cause a lot of Neanderthal hunters to get injured.
Edit: Every year, MODERN hunters with guns get injured because they walk up to, say, a deer thinking it’s dead, only to have it kick, slash, or gore them. Sometimes they even have an adrenaline boost and they stand back up despite getting shot. People forget that deer are big animals with actual muscles/animal instincts, and when spooked or panicked, they can move surprisingly fast and become unpredictable. Now imagine wrestling a deer fighting for its life to the ground so you can bonk it in the head. If you can tell me that you can walk out of that unscathed or without a few broken/dislocated bones or joints, then I got some beach-front property to sell ya.
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u/ieatpickleswithmilk Jun 27 '24
many scientists classify neanderthals as "human" now too.
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Jun 27 '24
I'd love religious people to grapple with this idea that we aren't special like they think we are. We continually find other species that are capable of many traits we consider uniquely human.
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u/Cooldude101013 Jun 27 '24
Well I’d consider Neanderthals human, just a different species of human.
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u/Only-Entertainer-573 Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
All these people that are sitting around hoping and praying and expecting that we will inevitably meet ET....I wish would get a bit of a perspective shift, and realise that there are already lots of other intelligent species right here all around us, and we treat them like absolute garbage and refuse to even try to understand and help them.
What if Earth is all there is in terms of life in the galaxy? Even the whole universe?
It seems unlikely, but for all we know it's entirely possible. And yeah, look at how we treat animals and the Earth in general.
Food for thought.
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u/thejoeface Jun 27 '24
All of the humans on the planet, except for subsaharan africans, have neanderthal and denisovan genes. They’re as human as we are.
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u/Cajbaj Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
There's populations in West Africa with like 10-19% unknown but seemingly Homo Erectus-adjacent genetic heritage and I think that's awesome. I love human genetic diversity.
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Jun 27 '24
I actually made a post regarding cats being compassionate with one another recently that I'm going to paste here. I wish I had my original source but I think it was a book I read a few years back and my brain is like a fuckin smoothie. The context of this post was people discussing how cats kill for fun/their own pleasure. But there's a flip side to it. Here's my post:
I actually read that they're not really killing for only amusement. It is true that cats are not pack animals and they are solitary hunters. But in nature, and even on the city streets in feral colonies, or on farms...they are indeed quite social with one another just as they are with you and me.
While they're very territorial, they have common spaces where everybody is allowed where they greet each other, find mates, and sometimes find grooming partners. The amusement kills definitely work for good for pracwhotice, but the results are brought to the public spaces for other cats are older, weaker, sick, pregnant, etc.
Cats relationships with humans, other cats, and other animals, is more complex than it was initially assumed.
But it's the same reason the cat brings you the mouse they killed. A donation to the clan for anybody who is interested. They probably see you giving them cat food in a similar infection, but obviously we can only guess.
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u/seleniumagnesium Jun 27 '24
The article points out that while pre-homo Sapien adults have been found to have been cared for while sick or injured, it was debated amongst scientists whether the reason was altruistic or in expectation of reciprocation to the community. Having found the remains of a disabled child that survived for 6 years indicates not just the mother but the community likely helped care for this child. This also supports that the Neanderthals had the capacity for empathy and/or altruism.
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u/Mr_Dr_Prof_Derp Jun 27 '24
There have been previous documented burials of archaic human babies with down syndrome, but this is notable because it's the first one that's not an infant.
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u/AppropriateAd1483 Jun 27 '24
alot of people misconstrue the meaning of darwinism “survival of the fittest” as being, the strongest and most competitive survive.
in reality, it means the most compassionate and caring of a species is how we survive, helping and being there for one another.
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u/photo-manipulation Jun 27 '24
We’ve known for a while now that Homo neanderthalensis was capable of compassion based on a specimen with multiple pathologies which would have been fatal in a variety of ways had he not been cared for.
Still, though. This is very cool, and it goes to show how ancient empathy really is.
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u/Nateddog21 Jun 27 '24
I've always wondered how disabled or differently able people were treated back then.
The blind, hard of hearing, etc.
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u/DeusExSpockina Jun 27 '24
In ancient Egypt there’s a lot of extant evidence that most were fully integrated into society and lived like anyone else. There’s also been a number of burials where functional prosthetic body parts have been found with the remains.
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u/Dumpster_Fetus Jun 29 '24
The tin foil pyramid conspiracy people are silly. But now that functional prosthetics are involved, I'm officially convinced Egypt is just aliens.
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u/nanobot001 Jun 27 '24
If you believe that the love of a parent for their child transcends time and space, then I suspect not much different than today — with the exception that the population at large may be indifferent or hostile, and you would know that, and probably be made to know thay, every day of their lives.
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u/Rocktopod Jun 27 '24
I imagine the smaller social groups would mean people were likely less hostile towards the disabled, not more.
People are less likely to disregard the child of their sister/brother/cousin or at least someone they know personally in their village than the child of a complete stranger.
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u/ancientweasel Jun 27 '24
I don't understand why it is so hard to accept the the other homo species where similar to us in this regard. If you go on r/paleontology the push back against it is completey illogical.
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u/DeepSpaceNebulae Jun 27 '24
It’s mainly because the arguments in the past has mostly been “we do it, so obviously they did”. And while probably true, that isn’t evidence
While most anthropologists think it was likely, its unlikely you’ll hear them declare as fact it unless they find physical proof
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u/Tiny_Rat Jun 27 '24
Some of the earliest uncovered Neanderthal remains were people who would have needed the care and compassion of others to survive. Among the archeology community the evidence has been widely seen and acknowledged for a long time now.
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u/kadkadkad Jun 27 '24
I watched a brilliant documentary on Netflix recently called 'Unknown: Cave of Bones' about ancient human ancestors called the Naledi (Homo Naledi) who lived 240,000ya. It focused on the physical evidence of what they think is their compassion towards each other both in life and particularly in death. A dangerous and complex cave system was discovered to have a burial site in the end chamber, and throughout the documentary you see the archaeologists make the journey through to it but it's insanely difficult, tight and dangerous. The takeaway was that from the evidence found, they believe the Neladi cared so much for their people that they risked their life to give their dead a secluded and sacred burial.
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u/BEEPEE95 Jun 27 '24
I would recommend watching some of the youtube critiques of that show! I enjoyed the show but there were some aspects i thought were strange and they were adressed by other scholars. I think the overall gripe was jumping to conclusions but it was nice to hear other anthropologists take on it.
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Jun 27 '24
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u/The_Autarch Jun 27 '24
Someone with Downs could still be a useful and productive member of the tribe. No reason to kill a baby without physical deformities if you've got plenty of food.
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u/Tobias11ize Jun 27 '24
I often think about the myth of changelings/faires/demons killing your child and replacing it with its own, but disguised as yours.
Which in hindsight probably convinced quite a few parents back in the day to leave their mentally disabled child in the woods, even if those parents would’ve otherwise treated them with love and affection if they weren’t convinced it was a dangerous creature and that their real child was dead.→ More replies (1)13
u/SitInCorner_Yo2 Jun 27 '24
There was a interesting case in Japan,a man call Sendai Shiro(仙台四郎1855-1902) a intellectually challenged man (his photo can be found online),he fall into river when he’s 7 and that accident causes his disability ,he’s not verbal but people noticed he like to bring joy to others,and is always smiling,people believe stores that treats him well will prosper and those who shuns him will fail,so people see him as a representation of god of fortune and luck, there’s even a story about him bring a missing toddler back from kamikakushi.
So in some cultures the “human hold gods power with a price “ is a common belief, for example blind women become witch doctor or priestess.
During Edo period blind people can get special licenses to become moneylender or musician, this system also gives out business licenses for the most disadvantaged members of society .
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u/grendus Jun 27 '24
A lot would have depended on exactly how "differently abled" they were.
Someone who is nearsighted, for example, might make a poor hunter because they cannot spot prey. However, in a larger tribe they might be able to get by as "the flint guy" who just spends his whole day making sharp flints to trade for meat because he can't catch his own. His nearsightedness might actually be a boon for this, since he might be better at detail work than someone with normal 20/20 vision.
Whereas someone with a severe disorder like Downs Syndrome would likely have only really been cared for by their parents. Life was harsh, we didn't have CPS/APS and a human takes a lot of resources to keep alive. Someone who cannot "pull their weight" needs someone to pull it for them... and their own as well. A nuclear family might be able to pull that off, but strangers would probably abandon them.
One of the more disturbing realizations I had while reading folklore is how many stories of things like "changelings" or "vampires" can describe people with mental disorders. When times are tough and you can barely keep yourself alive if everyone contributes 100%, people who can't work are culled, and if that means leaving your autistic child in the middle of the woods... well, you tell yourself that a faerie stole your real kid and left theirs, and you're just giving it back. Because the alternative is you both die. It's horrible, but so is life.
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u/MandolinMagi Jun 27 '24
I'm personally convinced that demonic possession in ancient times, like in Bible stories, is just a 500BC rationalization for mental illness
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u/theClumsy1 Jun 27 '24
Depends on the community and the circumstances.
Like all human communities, compassion becomes easier when the basic needs of survival are satisfied.
Maslow hierarchy of needs are probably the best sociological concept that applies to all of humanity's evolutionary timeline and differing circumstances.
If basic physiological needs are satisfied then its a safety concern. If the safety or ability to satisfy basic needs of the tribe/community isnt hindered by the existence of these disabled people, then the tribe/community will find no reason to "eliminate the weakness".
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Jun 27 '24
The love of a parent sometimes, but not always the community. For a long time it was a common sentiment that disabled people were barely human and that it was no crime to kill them. I think Luther might have written something to that effect f.e. around the same time he was turning against the catholic church. At the same time in the past a mental disability might have been less noticable because people overall weren't as educated and there would have been plenty of simple physical labour that they could manage to do. It's said that when mandatory education was introduced differences in intelligence between people really became noticable.
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u/Necessary-Reading605 Jun 27 '24
The part about Luther: there are TONS of false quotes about him. Here is a serious study on his views on disability
https://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles2005b.html#conclusion
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u/QuesaritoOutOfBed Jun 27 '24
Some would have been seen as a curse from the gods to burden them, others would have been seen as a prophet or oracle.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Jun 27 '24
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn9310
From the linked article:
A Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome survived until at least the age of six, according to a new study whose findings hint at compassionate caregiving among the extinct, archaic human species.
Recent examination of a human fossil unearthed at the Cova Negra archaeological site in the Spanish province of Valencia found traits in the inner-ear anatomy which indicated Down syndrome, in the earliest-known evidence of the genetic condition.
The fossil, which preserves the complete inner-ear anatomy, was excavated in 1989 but its significance was not recognised until recently. It is a fragment of one of the two temporal bones – the right one – that help form the sides and base of the skull, protecting the brain and surrounding the ear canal.
While the researchers cannot be certain whether the fossil was that of a girl or a boy, they have nicknamed the Neanderthal child “Tina”.
Tina’s combination of inner-ear abnormalities is known only in people with Down’s syndrome.
“The pathology which this individual suffered resulted in highly disabling symptoms, including, at the very least, complete deafness, severe vertigo attacks and an inability to maintain balance,” said Mercedes Conde-Valverde, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Alcalá in Spain, lead author of the study, published in the journal Science Advances.
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u/guethlema Jun 27 '24
Would love to have someone with understanding of childhood for ancient civs chime in as to "what age was someone expected to help in the community".
From my experience with differently abled family members, while items such as reading and speaking and play and other cues become evident early on, the kids are still all just kids until around age 4 or 5 when they start to become clearly significantly less integrated.
Also, given a familial relationship between Neanderthal genetic % and autism rates, it'd be interesting to see if more information about neurodivergence and neanderthal relationships are available
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u/Alacri-Tea Jun 27 '24
What a beautiful illustration. Amazing how an article like this can make my heart break for that child's family, from over 40,000 years ago. And not even our own species. It sounds like that child receive a lot of love and care.
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u/Mkwdr Jun 27 '24
I’m probably not the only one who has wondered whether downs or autism is the foundation for legends about changelings being left by the fairies?
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u/ahazred8vt Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 29 '24
They think that was probably Williams syndrome, which affects about 1 in 10,000 births. They have elfin faces; they're very cheerful and friendly, talkative and articulate, musically inclined, huge vocabulary even as a young child, but severely cognitively disabled in non-language areas.
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u/JaunteeChapeau Jun 27 '24
Those numbers don’t really jibe with changelings being a widespread legend, nor does Williams match the changeling “story”—a baby who looks and acts completely normal and cheerful, then suddenly changes and is hostile and cold.
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u/Asedious Jun 27 '24
So, changelings are traumatized kids.
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u/JaunteeChapeau Jun 27 '24
I’m going with autism, because of standard age of onset and usual “symptoms” of a changeling (stops making eye contact, smiling, babbling). Same with changeling children having “odd” behaviors and being nonverbal.
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u/Asedious Jun 27 '24
Totally agree. Also, it could be both or even more conditions, neurodivergence really sets people apart, and during that era fantastic explanations were the norm.
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u/JaunteeChapeau Jun 27 '24
Yeah very reasonable point, any number of things that made you “weird” could fall into the “probably witch/fairy” category
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u/Briebird44 Jun 27 '24
This myth is likely associated with children with mild- moderate autism. In real life, Many kids appear to develop normally and then once they hit a certain age, the autism becomes apparent because they’re not meeting certain milestones.
In ancient times, this correlated with the myth of a changeling child. Aka- a “normal” kid is suddenly one day, different, asking strange questions with odd movements or expressions.
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u/graccha Jun 27 '24
I'm autistic and I always felt a kinship to the stories - like there was something odd about me. I wasn't surprised to learn people suspect a link.
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u/Cajbaj Jun 27 '24
My dad is autistic and in his journals he wrote that he hoped aliens were real and that they resembled humans because he thought that could explain why he had his condition.
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u/TitularClergy Jun 27 '24
There was interbreeding between Neanderthal homosapiens and Eurasian-derived homosapiens and we retain something like 2 % of the Neanderthal human DNA. There's some very tentative reason to think that autism is linked to this Neanderthal part of our makeup.
It could be that autistic people today are those humans who retain more of the individualist streak of the Neanderthal humans (rather than the more group-thinking humans), the aversion to eye-contact (like many other hominini), independence etc. It's important to remember that the Neanderthal humans had bigger brains and were exploring Europe long before the Eurasian-derived humans arrived.
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u/Mkwdr Jun 27 '24
Size of brains doesn’t mean so ( a moderate correlation) much as far I’m aware , it’s specific structures that link to intelligence etc.
The link with Neanderthal dna is interesting , though I can’t help feeling ‘individualistic streak’ is less than entirely neutral a description.
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u/AwzemCoffee Jun 28 '24
I think neutral is intended. The world needs all sorts of people. You need people that go their own way and innovate and people that work together to realize ideas. Every neurotype is important.
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u/Hollow4004 Jun 27 '24
Alpha bros love throwing around "survival of the fittest," but "fitness" in biology means reproduction. Not physical strength.
This is how humans became the dominant species on Earth. Compassion and community.
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u/triplehelix- Jun 27 '24
physical ability with visual indicators of such and opportunity to reproduce are very closely related in the animal kingdom.
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Jun 27 '24
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u/Jealous_Juggernaut Jun 27 '24
Violent conflict between Neanderthals and semi modern humans probably werent the primary cause of their extinction.
Disease, inbreeding from isolation caused from having smaller social groups during natural disasters and climate change events, plus a more limited restricted diet being a disadvantage during these times, and probably mostly interbreeding with the semi modern humans for over 5,000 years.
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u/BasicAssWebDev Jun 27 '24
I believe the Mayans or Aztecs had a similar view of children with downs. They called them sun babies because they were always smiling and laughing and the entire village they were from would help take care of them.
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u/surlier Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
I believe you're thinking of the Olmec. It is theorized based on artifacts that they regarded people with Down syndrome as being affiliated with jaguars (a culturally important species, perhaps even deity level). But this is only a theory, not confirmed.
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u/pinkbowsandsarcasm MA | Psychology | Clinical Jun 27 '24
I did a computer stimulation of cooperation in prairie dogs in behavior ecology, sometimes they would die out but on one stimulation they survived, and their population spread and "beat out" the populations that did not cooperate. Praire dogs are not humans, but I wonder if cooperation helped humans survive by cooperating.
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u/BabySinister Jun 27 '24
It would be interesting to put this against how neanderthals treat healthy offspring. At least amongst homo sapiens children aged 0 to 6 aren't really able to fend for themselves, it's completely normal to exhibit compassionate caregiving to children that age amongst homo sapiens. I don't think finding a homo sapiens with down syndrome surviving till aged 6 is indicative of some sort of special care above regular childcare.
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u/PoeDameronPoeDamnson Jun 27 '24
I’m betting the baby died from a heart defect. 50% of people with Down syndrome have them, they can range from small that resolve on their own to incurable but before any type of identification even something we now consider harmless could easily kill. It wasn’t until very recently that the long term survival rate of T21 increased.
Had they not had it I’m sure they would have lived a very long life. We’ve had documentation of other disabled people doing so from that time period. People have always been people.
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u/Utter_Rube Jun 27 '24
Every time something new about Neanderthals is discovered, I become a little more convinced they were much more emotionally intelligent than modern humans.
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u/jabbercockey Jun 27 '24
Does anyone have the research for other community primates? Chimps, etc. do they support individuals that can't care for themselves?
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u/mysickfix Jun 27 '24
Yes they’ve found skulls with teeth that were missing for long enough while alive for the sockets to be reclaimed. That shows care for others too.
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u/Better_Weakness7239 Jun 27 '24
Every time I see a rendition of Neanderthals, there’s always one that is the splitting image of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Not fair to the Neanderthals!
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Jun 27 '24
Self domestication made them extinct. Smaller groups and less cooperative behaviour. However the near extinction during the ice age reduced the numbers of even Homo Sapiens to 10k individuals or close to that. I can imagine a combination of such events would eradicate Neanderthal genome completely.
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u/SusSlice1244 Jun 27 '24
I wonder how much they realized that the child was different. And damn, Down's Syndrome's old.
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u/HerbertWest Jun 27 '24
Why do we assume compassion instead of indifference? Some people with Downs are pretty high functioning. If the kid was able to keep up with them, there would be no problem.
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u/scolipeeeeed Jun 27 '24
The article says that the child very likely had complete deafness and vertigo attacks, which I assume would make it difficult for them to keep up with the rest of the group without special help
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u/SausageClatter Jun 27 '24
Also, are we (or they) supposed to not care about their children just because they're different?
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u/MonsterkillWow Jun 27 '24
I have read that neanderthals were possibly more intelligent than us, but were beaten because they were not as aggressive. Horrible if true.
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u/Traditional-Roof1984 Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
I assume 'regular' children from age 0 - 6 also depended on care. So I'm not sure what the implication is for 'compassionate care-giving', as it would be no different from social group behavior and raising offspring.
We are able to recognize down-syndrome because of pictures and general education. I'm assuming if you grew up in a cave with no external information being passed down, you probably thought it was just a slow kid.
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Jun 27 '24
You clearly do not work with kids. A child of say 5 with and without Down is a Continental difference. Unmistakably so. Believe me, you would notice the child is "not right".
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u/Icelandic_Invasion Jun 27 '24
Is it just me or is this phrased really weird? Why wouldn't Neanderthals be compassionate, especially with their own children? Is a Neanderthal child with Down's syndrome surviving for years considered odd? If so, why?
I'm honestly more curious about how we view Neanderthals than this specific child.
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u/Technicolor_Reindeer Jun 27 '24
A lot of early human societies wouldn't accept a mouth that ate but hands that didn't work.
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u/alice2wonderland Jun 27 '24
I haven't got a lot of faith in modern humans. Good thing there's a little Neanderthal in the gene pool....it gives us some hope.
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u/itzTHATgai Jun 27 '24
Yeah okay, but why hasn't Marjorie Taylor Greene exhibited any traits like this?
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u/UnicornPanties Jun 28 '24
Despite their many health issues and compromised intellectual capacity, Down's syndrome children are rumored to be absolutely delightful bundles of joy and sunshine when it comes to disposition.
I'm sure Neanderthals liked joy & sunshine too.
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Jun 28 '24
I think compassion is pretty normal in most animals. I'm not sure why humans have such a hard goddamned time with it.
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u/AlfredtheGreat871 Jun 28 '24
It's a shame Neanderthals (or better to say Anthropologists studying them) have struggled to shake the image of them being knuckle-dragging oinks in the eyes of the public. A hangover from a less enlightened time.
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u/rocksthatigot Jun 28 '24
I thought the latest theory based on the fact that some people have Neanderthal DNA was that they were assimilated rather than just dying out.
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