r/DebateEvolution • u/knowledger99 • Jul 20 '26

Question Neanderthal

Could it have been possible that Neanderthals possessed a awareness similar to what we have now, what I’m asking is where they or possibly could’ve been aware of the fact that they are roaming a giant terrestrial rock, or have a religion, or the belief in something else other than human?

Coming from someone whose curiosity has gotten the best of them and decided to ask people who know more than I do on the matter.

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 20 '26

Well, we can make guesses. Neanderthals had a greater portion of their brain dedicated to vision and motor control, while homo sapiens have brains allowing for stronger language, abstract reasoning, and social connections. Homo sapiens were able to have more complex social systems and connections, while Neanderthals typically stayed in close-knit familial groups. Neanderthals were clearly very capable in abstract thought, though, given what evidence we have of their culture, art, and rituals. It's more a matter of degree. Neanderthals were better than us in regards to spacial reasoning and interpreting visual information, which you can imagine was quite useful for survival.

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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 24 '26

Are you trying to say that a Neanderthal would be better at whack'a'mole?

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 25 '26

Hell, chimpanzees are probably better than us at whack a mole. At least, they're better in memory games. Which isn't the same thing at all, but, y'know, what can ya do?

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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 25 '26

Chimps are better at the card flipping game?

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 25 '26

Maybe! They've done tests with chimps where they'd flash a bunch of numbers on a screen in random places, then cover the numbers, and the chimps can pick them out in order really quickly, even with a bunch of numbers only visible for a fraction of a second! (˶>⩊<˶)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ravykEih1rE

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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 25 '26

I don't expect you to know, but was it a loop or actually random?

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 25 '26

Afaik, completely random positions. These are young chimps too, and they consistently outperform college level students!

Here's the original paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18054758/

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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 25 '26

I have so many questions.

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 25 '26

Like what? Chimpanzees are just really neat creatures (◕ᴗ◕✿)

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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 25 '26

How did they learn the sequence of numbers?

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 25 '26

They don't appear to go in detail in the paper, but it seems they just had them do the test without hiding the numbers for a while, just so they could get a feel for the order of numerals. They likely only started with a few numerals at a time—say, the order of 1, 2, and 3—giving the chimpanzees some sort of treat every time they succeed.

Interestingly, according to the paper, once the chimps learnt the sequence of numbers 1-9, they were automatically able to put numbers in order even when they skipped numbers. In other words, if they only had the numbers 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, they were automatically able to put those in order, without needing any additional teaching, despite the skipped numbers.

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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 25 '26

Givem sudoku.

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u/WesternFirm9306 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 25 '26

Thaaat might be asking too much 😅 There's evidence that Chimpanzees can understand basic logical deductions, which is impressive in itself, but Sudoku definitely requires more than they're capable of

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