Who are generally more superior, Neanderthals or modern day humans?

Question

Some people say that Neanderthals are superior because they have larger brains (which means that they are more intelligent) and are physically stronger than modern humans. Then how did modern day humans win the war for survival against the Neanderthals if we are a bit inferior than the Neanderthals. Is it false that Neanderthals are more intelligent than modern humans?

Answer 1

Well, they were larger in frame, stronger and did have a slightly larger cranial capacity.  The assumption that a larger brain made them more intelligent is erroneous.

We have a very different brain which processes information more efficiently that theirs.

Keep reading, there is much to learn.

Answer 2

Obviously sapien had some trait offering a genetic advantage or we'd all look like the Neanderthal.  I suspect area 10 of the brain (larger frontal lobes) as the contributing factor.  While the Neanderthal brain was larger than the sapien brain, they did not display the initiative of the sapien (their tools remained unchanged for 100s of thousands of years).

Superior is a relative word because the short squat neandertal had far superior strength, while sapien had superior running abilities. The neandertal was also evolved to endure cold, while sapien was basically a warm weather species that had to use the brain to adapt to cooler weather.  

Perhaps the sapien simply out bred the neandertal & Asian erectus while scarfing up some of their genes? It is entirely possible, some think probable, that sapien & more archaic homo species produced fertile hybrids that were eventually absorbed by the population.

Answer 3

I agree with Bravo the most. There is no superior only a "fit" with the environment. There is nothing known about the amount of hair on their bodies or the color of their skin.  There may be a little information on their brains but you really have to have a brain in hand to say and one hasn't been found (I didn't look that up but it's a good guess). It has been thought that their muscle mass caused them to be less flexible, less able to throw a spear. Also, they may have hunted in a different manner such as actually attacking the animal whereas we tried to keep distance. We would chase animals off cliffs, trap them, spear them, etc.  Also, it is thought that we devised a system of division of labor that they didn't.  Success depends on systems. Anyway, they fit in an environment that produced big slow animals...big is eliminated in sparse times...have you sold your SUV yet. lol

Note: I think Bravo disappeared????

Answer 4

neandertals were superior in living in cold conditions and their bodie structures such as a short stocky torso and a wide insulated nose were perfect for the cold. modern day humans are superior technologically.

Answer 5

Eternal and Ed had good answers.  I would just add that their brain may have been marginally larger on average due to their robustness.  They were certainly close to intelligence to H. sapiens but larger animals need larger brains for muscle control.

Answer 6

I think it was to do with the ice age. The neanderthals weren't as fast as humans, so they couldn't run in a hunt, and they relied of cover in forests. During the ice age there were less trees as the couldn't survive as well, so the neanderthals became exstinct eventually as they couldn't hunt. People on the other hand were good at running and they could throw their spears at prey and stuff.

I guess that Neanderthals just didn't have the right environment, and I think people had better tools and weapons (I'm not sure though).

It's hard to say which is superior, we have different strengths

Answer 7

I think it would be hard to say which one of us is superior, but if I had to pick one, I'd pick modern day humans.

First off, Neanderthals had a larger brain, but that doesn't necessarily make them more intelligent. Obviously, a smaller brain was selected for, because our brains have not gotten much bigger. Just because they have a larger brain too doesn't mean that they are more intelligent. And not sure about them being 'physically stronger' than us either. I don't think there's any proof of that. They did have larger bones, but they had more robust bones because they lived in colder climates, where it was better to be shorter and thicker to keep in warmth. There are other things that come in too, like language. There is evidence that the Neanderthals had the ability to produce some sounds, but nothing as complex and modern humans. I think the ability to make a wide variety of sounds is pretty amazing and plus the ability to understand and make language.

There is still debate on the subject of what happened to the Neanderthals. One is, that they just completely died out when modern humans came to their area. Another is that they interbred with modern humans, this may also explain human variation if this theory is true. But it is still unknown and a source of much debate.

I think both the Neanderthals and modern humans are both well adapted and both had qualities that were selected for or against and that you see even today. I think if anything, it's a mixture of both. But I would have to lean more towards modern humans, since we obviously beat them evolutionary wise.

Answer 8

it is obvious that modern day humans are superior....try to look at everywhere,the buildings,technology,machines all of these were created by modern day humans,if Neanderthals were much more intelligent they must have invented these things a long time ago

like a neanderthal man bringing a staff with his left hand and an iPod with his right hand and checks yahoo answers for new questions with his new laptop

Answer 9

First off, it's important to rid yourself of the notion that bigger brains meaner smarter organisms. Elephants aren't smarter than people, but they're brains are much bigger. Similarly, a midget isn't any less intelligent than a normally sized person eventhough his brain is smaller. What matters is the size of the brain in ratio to the mass of the body. Essentially, since an elephant is so much more massive than a human, its brain has to be larger to control and regulate all that extra mass; so while its brain is bigger than a human's, the space available for what we would term "intelligent thought" is smaller than a human's. So if we apply this to homo sapiens and neanderthals we can see that while the neanderthal did have a slightly larger brain it also had more mass (as you noted yourself neanderthals are much more robust than homo sapiens). So it would be wrong to conclude that neanderthals are smarter than homo sapiens just because they have a larger cranial capacity.

Secondly, it should be pointed out that a large brain to body mass ratio isn't the only measure of intelligence; brain configuration seems to be just as important. Take two people of the exact same brain to body mass ratio and they will have differing levels of intelligence. For example, two normal sized people with the same cranial capacity, of the same social background and same education level will not always score the same on an IQ test. Why? Because differences in the configuration of the brain lead to different levels of intelligence.

While neanderthals were more muscular and stronger than homo sapiens, they were physically inferior to homo sapiens in other areas. For instance, neanderthals seem to lack the physical adaptations for language that homo sapiens possess. If this is true, then homo sapiens had an enormous advantagen in social organization and adaptation over the neanderthals. Also, while nanderthals are certainly stronger than h. saps, they are shorter and much more stocky than homo sapiens, meaning that h. saps would have had a distinct advantage in running speed, agility, and endurance. What effect this had on the survival of either species is unclear, and I do not mean to suggest that this is why neanderthals died off, it simply serves to illustrate that stronger is not always better.

Neanderthals do not appear to have been more intelligent than humans in any way, in fact the reverse seems true. Homo sapiens appear to have had the edge in all levels of intelligent adaptation: far more sophisticated stone technology, vastly superior linguistic abilities, far greater social organization and complexity, and much greater evidence of abstract thought (seen in cave paintings, ceremonial burials and sculpted figurines). So to finally answer your question: No, neanderthals were not smarter than homo sapiens, and were obviously not superior or they'd be the ones sitting here asking what happened to homo sapiens.

Answer 10

It isn't really a matter of superior.  Dinosaurs are superior to modern lizards and birds in many ways, but they are gone too.

It is about adaptability, and sometimes luck.

It is true that the Neanderthal might have been more intelligent than the Sapien Sapien brother.  But they were not built for the coming environment.

When the temperatures increased, their thick sturdy and hair covered bodies did not cool down as quickly as their counterparts.

The larger heads also made problems for them. The larger the head, the harder birth is for the mother.  Neanderthals probably had a much higher infant/mother mortality rate than the Sapien Sapiens.  That means that modern humans could breed faster.  More numbers = Better chance at survival.

The larger capacity in the skull might not have translated to intelligence though.  Their senses might have been much more evolved than the Sapiens Sapiens, and that could have accounted for the larger brain.  Or even the adaptability to the cold.  We don't know for sure.

Answer 11

Because we survived, and they didn't, the answer is obvious!

In the 300,000 years that they inhabited Europe & Asia, there were never more than 10,000 Neanderthals worldwide, at any single time!

Male & Female combined, their average height was 5'3".

I've seen cave burial photos of contemporary Cro-Magnon (Early Modern humans) remains, with two males, each, 6'6" (2m), and one woman, 5'10"...

Just because Neanderthals were strong, it doesn't imply that Early Modern Humans were weak. Also, Neanderthals may have been greatly outnumbered, when Cro-Magnon migrations into Europe began, 40,000+/- years ago...

To their credit, Neanderthals still survived for at least another 10,000 years, while sharing Europe with Early Modern Humans...