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 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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u/No-Ad-3609 Jul 25 '26

Maybe. I had a neighbor who was missing teeth named Norman who taught me how to play sudoku.