# Did Neanderthals have bigger or smaller brains than humans?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 14, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905 "2013-03-14T12:35:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/1 "2013-03-14T12:35:08Z")
Hi
I see a lot of contradictory assertions on the size of neanderthals brains relative to humans/homo sapiens. Who is correct?
Wikipedia says humans have bigger brains than Neanderthals. So does a recent Atlantic Magazine artice. Ian Morris’ “Why the West Rules --For Now” states the opposite. Who is correct?
I look forward to your answers.
davidmich
---
### Author:  [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/2 "2013-03-14T12:44:54Z")
Reported for forum change.
---
### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/3 "2013-03-14T13:29:17Z")
Moved ATMB --\> GQ.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/4 "2013-03-14T13:46:17Z")
The average Neanderthal brain was bigger than a modern human’s (not by much), but there’s a lot of overlap. Also, and probably more importantly, the shape of the Neanderthal brain was different. Theirs was longer and lower.
Some scientists have interpreted this as simply the brain mimicking the skull shape for balance purposes, and recently some have suggested that this means Neanderthals sacrificed some of the “social brain” (in the front) for the “visual brain” in the back, and this is what led to their demise. I find the latter claim to be :dubious:
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/5 "2013-03-14T14:10:19Z")
You’ll also find some debate over what, exactly, happened to the Neanderthals: Did Cro-Magnons (early modern humans) kill them off, did Cro-Magnons out-compete them and drive them to extinction that way, or did Cro-Magnons interbreed with them and create modern Europeans? The answer is that we still don’t really know; it’s an active area of debate in modern paleontology. I don’t know what the current consensus, if there is one, is.
Anyway, we do know Neanderthals weren’t the animalistic brutes popular culture paints them as: They made stone tools, probably other kinds of tools as well, probably made houses using animal bones, buried their dead with flowers, and likely had some kind of language. They even looked more human than not.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/6 "2013-03-14T14:11:03Z")
[An academic source.](http://www.pnas.org/content/105/37/13764.full)
Interestingly the brains of Neandertals and anthropologically modern humans (AMHS) were similarly sized at birth but …
> [@](#):
>
> Comparison of endocranial growth trajectories from birth to adulthood further indicates that on average, Neanderthal brains expanded at a higher rate and attained larger adult volumes …
>
> … Brain size reduction in AMHS during the late Pleistocene is well documented, and it went in parallel with body size reduction (39). We can only speculate on potential selective constraints driving this evolutionary trend toward rate hypomorphosis. Evidence from recent human populations indicates that size reduction is correlated with faster life histories and higher mortality risks (40). Alternatively, brain size reduction during the Late Pleistocene could be the result of an evolutionary performance optimization. Evidence for substantial cerebral reorganization comes from Late Pleistocene AMHS (Cro-Magnon 1) and Neanderthals (La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1, La Ferrassie 1, and Forbes’ Quarry 1), which had larger cerebral hemispheres relative to cerebellum volume than modern humans (41). It could be argued that growing smaller—but similarly efficient—brains required less energy investment and might ultimately have led to higher net reproduction rates. Such an evolutionary shift might have contributed to the rapid expansion of Upper Paleolithic AMHS populations into Eurasia.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/7 "2013-03-14T14:21:38Z")
> [@Derleth](#):
>
> You’ll also find some debate over what, exactly, happened to the Neanderthals: Did Cro-Magnons (early modern humans) kill them off, did Cro-Magnons out-compete them and drive them to extinction that way, or did Cro-Magnons interbreed with them and create modern Europeans? The answer is that we still don’t really know; it’s an active area of debate in modern paleontology. I don’t know what the current consensus, if there is one, is.
>
> Anyway, we do know Neanderthals weren’t the animalistic brutes popular culture paints them as: They made stone tools, probably other kinds of tools as well, probably made houses using animal bones, buried their dead with flowers, and likely had some kind of language. They even looked more human than not.
Well, we’re pretty sure they did interbreed with us, but we don’t know why they went extinct as a population.
Also, making stone tools is not a sign of non-brutishness. OUr earliest Homo ancestors made stone tools, and they’d probably be considered brutes if we could see them behave. Neanderthals made hafted tools, which is a big step up from cracking two rocks together. Their tool kit was pretty much the same as what we were making in our early millennia as a species.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/8 "2013-03-14T14:24:44Z")
I first learned that the Neanderthal brain was larger, in cubic capacity, than modern human brains in that great 1953 documentary, _The Neanderthal Man_, one of those 1950s cheap horror films that corrupted and shaped my youth.
> **[The Neanderthal Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Man)**
>
> The Neanderthal Man is a 78-minute, 1953 American black-and-white science fiction film produced independently by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, as Global Productions Inc., from their own original screenplay.
> It starred Robert Shayne, Richard Crane and Joyce Terry, was directed by E. A. Dupont, and was originally distributed in the United States by United Artists Corp. Beverly Garland, in a supporting role, appears here in her first feature film under her new stage name (previously she went ...
> **[The Neanderthal Man (1953) - Plot - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046121/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl)**
>
> The Neanderthal Man (1953) - Plot summary, synopsis, and more...
The thing is, this larger capacity was explicitly mentioned in the film as the reason the scientist/hero/monster wants to regress himself, so it was certainly common enough knowledge sixty years ago for a grade-B scriptwriter to latch onto. I was surprised to learn, when I looked it up myself years later, to learn that this nugget (like many appearing in cheap horror flicks) was actually true. I’ve encountered it many times in the years since.
I wouldn’t be surprised at changes in the “accepted knowledge” over the years as science advances, but I never heard this one contradicted before, and I’;m surprised that Wikipedia makes the claim. The Atlantic article is in line with everythimng I’ve ever heard or read.
---
### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/9 "2013-03-14T14:25:21Z")
As has already been pointed out, small differences in adult brain size won’t tell us much about the relative abilities of modern humans and neanderthals.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/10 "2013-03-14T14:29:21Z")
> [@davidmich](#):
>
> Wikipedia says humans have bigger brains than Neanderthals.
Wikipedia is usually very good about getting stuff like this right. Can you quote the section that says this? I’d be surprised if someone didn’t correct it.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/11 "2013-03-14T14:30:52Z")
Jusdt a note, _The Neanderthal Man_ should not be confused with 1958’s _Monster on the Campus_, another 1950s cheap horror film in which a scientist gets turned into a Neanderthal Man by exposure to something from an aparent atavism. In this case, it was purely accidental, and he wasn’t trying to increase his brain capacity.
Just wanted to make that clear.
> **[Monster on the Campus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_on_the_Campus)**
>
> Monster on the Campus (a.k.a. Monster in the Night and Stranger on the Campus) is a 1958 American black-and-white science fiction/horror film from Universal-International, produced by Joseph Gershenson, directed by Jack Arnold, from a script by David Duncan, that stars Arthur Franz, Joanna Cook Moore, Nancy Walters, Troy Donahue, and Whit Bissell. The film was theatrically released as a double feature with the British horror film Blood of the Vampire.
> The film's storyline tells of a university s...
> **[Monster on the Campus (1958) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051948/)**
>
> Monster on the Campus: Directed by Jack Arnold. With Arthur Franz, Joanna Moore, Judson Pratt, Nancy Walters. The blood of a primitive fish exposed to gamma rays causes a benign research professor to regress to an ape-like, bloodthirsty prehistoric...
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/12 "2013-03-14T14:36:00Z")
From the wikipedia page on Neanderthal Anatomy:
> [@](#):
>
> The brain space of the skull, and so most likely the brain itself, were larger than in modern humans.
Not sure why they had to say “most likely”, but it certainly doesn’t say _H. sapiens_ have larger brains.
---
### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/13 "2013-03-14T15:16:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Not sure why they had to say “most likely”
Unnecessary weasel words, IMHO. You can’t say anything for certain because we don’t have an actual neanderthal brain to look at. Still, I think it’s a pretty safe assumption to say that the neanderthal brain filled up the entire brain cavity.
The interesting thing is that when you look at what h.sapien was doing back then and what h.neanderthal was doing at the same time, the differences are pretty subtle. People sometimes like to think of us as the smart ones and them as the stupid cavemen, but that’s not true. H.sapien had religion and buried their dead. So did h.neandethal. Both hunted in organized groups. Both made jewelry and art. The difference is that when you look at things like the jewelry and art, h.sapien stuff is just a bit more complex. This seems to indicate that h.sapien was just a bit smarter. The important thing though is that it wasn’t a drastic difference.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/14 "2013-03-14T16:24:33Z")
Neanderthal art is pretty controversial, so I wouldn’t say it’s a slam dunk that we know they made art. And it’s not clear that they had jewelry before the encountered us, so maybe they got it from us, or learned it from us.
---
### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/15 "2013-03-14T16:36:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> before the encountered us
They didn’t encounter “us”, they interbred with some folks and became “us” if you are of European descent. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/16 "2013-03-14T16:40:30Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> The interesting thing is that when you look at what h.sapien was doing back then and what h.neanderthal was doing at the same time, the differences are pretty subtle. People sometimes like to think of us as the smart ones and them as the stupid cavemen, but that’s not true. H.sapien had religion and buried their dead. So did h.neandethal. Both hunted in organized groups. Both made jewelry and art. The difference is that when you look at things like the jewelry and art, h.sapien stuff is just a bit more complex. This seems to indicate that h.sapien was just a bit smarter. The important thing though is that it wasn’t a drastic difference.
One of the stupid things that comes under consideration is also h sap sewed clothing [bone needles are found in dig sites] and h neander didn’t [no apparent needles] though to be honest, I can’t see why ‘draped’ clothing means less intelligence - Romans, Indian [subcontinent] and Greeks ‘draped’ their clothing [togas, saris, dhotis, chiton and so forth] are draped and pinned and I wouldn’t consider them unintelligent. I see no reason to need to sew if your clothing is comfortable.
As to lack of social abilities, ever hung out with a bunch of Frat guys? Talk about no real social ability and some serious Darwin in action behaviors, you can’t convince me that they are any sort of survival traits … how many teens have managed to darwinize themselves recently?
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/17 "2013-03-14T16:49:01Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> They didn’t encounter “us”, they interbred with some folks and became “us” if you are of European descent. 🙂
I know you’re kinda joking, but that’s not the best way to describe the encounter as we know it. There seem to have been a few isolating interbreeding incidents, but mostly the Neanderthals died out. Neanderthals only contribute about 2-3% of the genome of those us descendant from the Modern Humans who came into Neanderthal territory.
---
### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/18 "2013-03-14T16:53:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Neanderthals only contribute about 2-3% of the genome of those us descendant from the Modern Humans who came into Neanderthal territory.
I worked with a guy at a library whose forehead shape had to be 25%.
🙂
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/19 "2013-03-14T17:42:03Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> I worked with a guy at a library whose forehead shape had to be 25%.
> 🙂
Hey, I resemble that remark!
---
### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905/20 "2013-03-14T18:06:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> I know you’re kinda joking, but that’s not the best way to describe the encounter as we know it. There seem to have been a few isolating interbreeding incidents, but mostly the Neanderthals died out. Neanderthals only contribute about 2-3% of the genome of those us descendant from the Modern Humans who came into Neanderthal territory.
2-3% is a lot for DNA. We’re only separated from chimps by 1%. And if Neanders and Sapiens already had a lot of DNA in common, that again makes just 2-3% rather significant.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-neanderthals-have-bigger-or-smaller-brains-than-humans/652905.md?page=2)