Osman Şenkul
As the science of history shows us, Neanderthals were the closest relatives of modern humans, who are descended from Homo sapiens, and the two human species lived in many of the same habitats and interbred on numerous occasions around 40,000 years ago. According to scientists, this is why traces of Neanderthal DNA are still present in most Eurasian populations today. However, despite this closeness, the lineages of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Homo sapiens had diverged between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago, and the two species differed in many respects.
According to Chris Stringer, a leading researcher in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, although Neanderthals had brains of the same size as Homo sapiens, the shape of their skulls was different from ours; however, the skeletons of Neanderthals, who could walk upright on two legs like our ancestors, were quite similar to ours:
“On average, they stood between 150 and 170 cm tall. This is about 12 to 14 cm shorter than post-World War II Europeans, but the same as, or slightly taller than, Europeans from 20,000 or even 100 years ago.”
Like all early humans, life was quite hard for Neanderthals, and this helped shape their appearance. Stringer says, “They lived on land, had to move around a great deal, and used a lot of muscle power. Their skeletons, built for strength and endurance, helped them cope with their physically demanding lifestyle.”
Homo sapiens also faced these challenges; however, they had lighter skeletons. This was likely due in part to cultural adaptations—such as tool-making and long-distance trade—that made their physical lives somewhat easier. Stringer says, “Clearly, the more complex your technology, the more it can reduce the load placed on the skeleton during daily activities.”
“It is believed that Neanderthals ate both meat and plant-based foods such as hard seeds and nuts. However, those living in colder climates likely followed a diet that was more meat-heavy than those living in warmer regions.”
Bailey says it is known that Neanderthals hunted large and medium-sized game animals, but did not use long-range weapons:
“Instead, they most likely used a technique known as ambush hunting. The earliest Homo sapiens actually bore a strong resemblance to Neanderthals; consequently, the differences between the two only emerged later. For example, when the first Homo sapiens left Africa around 200,000 years ago, they were probably using the same type of stone tools as the Neanderthals. Until around 50,000 years ago, there had been no ‘cultural explosion’ among Homo sapiens.”
An old cliché goes: humans learned to control fire and, with it, conquered the world. However, an intriguing development is emerging from the historical record. What if it wasn’t Homo sapiens who first discovered this? What if it was the Neanderthals or their ancestors?
According to findings from research conducted in the UK, Neanderthals were lighting their own fires 400,000 years ago — a date hundreds of thousands of years earlier than many anthropologists previously believed. With this new timeline, the possibility that Neanderthals taught us how to make fire is becoming increasingly likely.
We like to tell ourselves that we are unique. We used to believe that we were the only species with an advanced language, capable of using tools and possessing a culture. Science has gradually made us more humble on this point. We now know that New Caledonian crows make hooked tools to catch worms, and that pods of killer whales have different cultures and dialects.
This behaviour is the fundamental difference that sets humans apart from all other animals on the planet. Controlled fire meant warmth during the Ice Age, protection from lions and wolves, and perhaps most importantly, cooked food. Cooking releases calories, making it easier to digest meat and tubers, and this provides the energy necessary for the hominin brain to develop significantly.
We have long known that early humans used fire. Scientists have found ash and burnt bones in remains in Africa dating back over a million years. However, according to scientists, there is a huge difference between using fire and mastering it. Ensuring that bushes continue to burn after a lightning strike is one thing; possessing the technology to create a flame whenever you wish with a snap of your fingers is quite another.
According to experts, the former makes you a collector of energy. The latter makes you a master of fire.
Using advanced forensic techniques such as magnetic analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scientists discovered that this artefact had been heated to temperatures exceeding 750 degrees. This was the first clue. However, they later found the real clue: ‘iron pyrite’, known as ‘fool’s gold’. Iron pyrite is found in many regions, but it does not occur naturally on the surface in Barnham, West Sussex, England. The dominant local rock type there is limestone. Pyrite is usually hidden deep underground or requires rivers to wash it out.
Researchers analysed more than 100,000 stones from natural deposits in the region and found no pyrite. However, the excavation team discovered fragments of oxidised pyrite right next to the hearths and heated tools at Barnham.
According to scientists, this is a significant finding because when pyrite is struck against flint, it produces sparks hot enough to ignite dry tinder. This ‘ignition’ technique is a well-documented method in human history, used by everyone from ‘Ötzi the Iceman’—Europe’s oldest known natural mummy—to Victorian-era campers in England.
According to scientists, this strongly suggests that early humans (the ancestors of Neanderthals) knew exactly what they were doing. In other words, they did not collect pyrite by chance. Instead, they sought out this specific mineral, carried it, and brought it to their campsites to make fire; then they “lit a fire.”
According to scientists, the timing here is remarkable, because controlling fire is regarded as a significant milestone for the human species: “It is the technology that likely enabled us to become more intelligent and ultimately the dominant species on Earth.”
If you can control fire, you can move to colder climates. You can occupy deep caves or open areas like Barnham. Most importantly, you can shape your day not just for survival, but through social interactions around the hearth. In fact, researchers note that this technological breakthrough likely coincided with the development of the “social brain”:
“However, it seems that even in this respect, humans are not all that unique. We thought we were the masters of fire; yet the Neanderthals, or their ancestors, were the ones who could build fires when they needed to, long before humans. It seems we are not all that unique in this regard either.”
Let us turn to the present day, where artificial intelligence—which is not merely a new technology but is seen as a force capable of altering the course of human history, rapidly permeating almost every aspect of life—is advancing as swiftly as possible, surpassing our own mental capacities.
As T24 writer Hayri Cem, who attended a conference by the renowned historian and author Yuval Noah Harari, also emphasised: “Harari’s concerns about the future can be summarised as follows: Until now, the power of development and change has been in human hands. However, we are losing this power; it is passing into the hands of artificial intelligence. We cannot foresee where the world is heading. We do not know what kind of future awaits us, nor which human skills will come to the fore in the future…”
When asked about itself, artificial intelligence explains what it is capable of and what aspects of management it will take over in the future; whereas before it took time to access information, now artificial intelligence simplifies complex topics, offers personalised learning, and removes language barriers; in short, it is democratising education. In other words, it is no longer just certain groups but everyone who can now access learning opportunities more easily.
In the field of healthcare and medicine, widely regarded as one of the areas where artificial intelligence is most powerful, it can diagnose diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s at an early stage, accelerate the process of discovering new drugs, and develop personalised treatment plans; for example, artificial intelligence can spot a detail that might escape a doctor’s notice within seconds…
In the fields of manufacturing and the economy, AI enables automation in factories—which can also lead to unemployment—as well as optimising logistics and supply chains, conducting financial analysis and risk forecasting, and developing solutions for lower costs and higher efficiency. At the same time, it is transforming the workforce structure, with some jobs disappearing whilst new ones emerge.
It enables us to manage nature more ‘intelligently’ through climate modelling and disaster prediction, optimising energy consumption, and water and resource management in agriculture. Furthermore, it is making inroads into creativity and the arts, such as accelerating music, art and writing production, design processes, and the emergence of new art forms.
Furthermore, the number of fields where artificial intelligence is leading the way—such as discovering new protein structures, conducting simulations in physics and chemistry, and analysing data in space research—is steadily increasing.
Moreover, artificial intelligence is increasingly managing the unseen infrastructure of daily life through solutions such as autonomous vehicles, smart city systems and personal assistants.
However, the most critical aspect of this, as we mentioned in one of our previous articles (https://hermesnews.co.uk/en/commentary-en/the-blow-dealt-by-ai-to-new-job-creation-is-also-hampering-production/), is that artificial intelligence is not merely an opportunity; it is also exacerbating unemployment and income inequality. For this reason, measures must be taken to prevent human intelligence from slipping into a mindset where it simply leaves everything to artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence will touch virtually every aspect of our lives, from our health to our work, and from our learning to our creativity; our lives will become faster, more personalised and more efficient. But this change also brings with it ethical and social responsibilities.
Setting everything else aside, as we mentioned earlier, just as the Neanderthals—who discovered ‘fire’ thousands of years ago and passed it on to our ancestors—played a pioneering role in human development, it is understood that artificial intelligence will also serve as a guiding force in many fields today; we hope that the job losses it has caused so far do not deepen further, and that it continues on its path without blocking the way for new job opportunities to emerge.
Ah, you might say, “But after all, the Neanderthals were considered relatives of our ancestors, Homo sapiens…”; of course, they were our relatives; just like today’s “Artificial Intelligence”… And even closer relatives; isn’t it the descendant of Homo sapiens itself?