In sci-fi stories, alien planets often have multiple species of indigenous intelligent life forms, whereas Earth has only one species much more advanced than others. Why didn't multiple species evolve comparable intelligence at the same time? —Ken
ON THE CONTRARY, some researchers believe, two intelligent species once competed to dominate Earth. Much as today we have normal people duking it out with House Republicans, Homo sapiens not long ago may have engaged in a long twilight struggle with Homo neanderthalensis—surely one of the more poignant conflicts in human history.
Thing is, Neanderthals may not have been all that dumb. Although the name has become a synonym for mouth-breathing dimwit, archaeological research suggests that, at least in terms of brain size, Neanderthals were comparable to us. In other respects they were ill-adapted to the modern age.Here's what we know:
• Neanderthals and modern humans diverged from a common ancestor 400,000 years ago, with Neanderthals living in Europe while our forebears camped out in Africa.
• Homo sapiens began spreading out of Africa around 60,000 years ago, and reached Europe 45,000 years ago.
• A short time after that, archeologically speaking, the Neanderthals were gone. Just how short is a matter of debate—some researchers think it may have been as little as 5,000 years.
What happened? Some theories:
• We killed them. Author Jared Diamond suggests we may have wiped out the Neanderthals as Europeans did with indigenous peoples, via war and disease. But Neanderthals, whatever their other deficiencies, were stocky and muscular and would have been formidable foes in close combat. As for disease, European pathogens depopulated the New World catastrophically fast—the Taino culture encountered by Columbus in the 1490s was virtually extinct just six decades later. The fact that the Neanderthals hung on for 5,000 years suggests that, whatever the differences in mortality, this wasn't a case where we annihilated the natives with germs.
• We assimilated them. Also not likely. Genome studies suggest some interbreeding occurred, most likely between male Neanderthals and female humans, but probably not a lot. The amount of Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of most present-day Europeans and Asians is no more than around 4 percent, and it's even lower for Africans, whose ancestors stayed home and had less contact.
• They couldn't adapt. The trendy version is that Neanderthals couldn't adapt to the changing climate, although climatic conditions at the time they disappeared from the fossil record were seemingly favorable. Timing aside, many argue that Neanderthals lacked sophisticated social organization and hunting skills (they apparently never domesticated dogs, for example), were awkward and slow, and generally just couldn't cope.
• We outcompeted them. The heart of your question. The maladaptation theory suggests Neanderthals would have gone extinct whether we'd been on the scene or not. The competition theory, in contrast, says that, even if we didn't necessarily destroy them in open warfare, by outgunning them in the battle for scarce resources we pushed them over the brink.
The evidence is circumstantial, but come on. Neanderthals had survived for hundreds of thousands of years. Then we show up, and 5,000 years later they're gone.
Not to say you can only have one intelligent species at a time. Consider what some claim is the second-most intelligent animal on our planet: the dolphin. Dolphins have the second-largest brain-to-body-weight ratio of any terrestrial creature. They form large social groups, communicate, use tools, and exhibit altruistic behavior.
The difference is dolphins occupy a separate ecosystem. Unlike the Neanderthals, they don't compete with us for the same resources.
Still, it's tempting to conjecture that a planet has room for one intelligent apex predator, and we're Earth's.
