Neanderthal Brains Show Fatal Lack of Social Skills

Replicas of the La Ferrassie 1 (Neanderthal) and Predmosti 3 (early modern) skulls. Image courtesy of The Natural History Museum London. The brains of Neanderthals were about the same size as those of humans, but they were not organized the same way. In a study published yesterday, researchers at Oxford show that much of the Neanderthal brain was dedicated to vision and movement instead of the higher order thinking characteristic of the human brain. They say this limited brain capacity could also explain Neanderthals' eventual demise. The researchers compared Neanderthal fossils with the skeletons of ancient but anatomically modern humans. To get an idea of how much actual brain tissue once filled these skulls, the researchers calculated the ratio of brain to body size for the skeletons and compared them with the brain/body size ratios of living primates. They found that Neanderthals dedicated a larger portion of their brain to ...