Our biggest difference with Neanderthals - David Reich

Full Episode: • David Reich - How One ...
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[@tayzonday]

Parrots got a vocal tract that can make many sounds too. I wonder what evolutionary pressure caused that?

[@porkmilk8984]

Always awesome to see you commenting Tay

[@gyozop]

Parrots are monogamous. Thus it is the wife saying do this do that to the husband.

[@timmyhenningsson9276]

My respects sir

[@jondrew55]

Cracker tract?

[@fuckman297]

My grl gave me chocolate brain last night

[@johnrobinson4445]

Short version: we talked the other species to death.

[@irenerosenberg3609]

LOL!

[@gstlb]

Some of us excel at this but have turned off the gene that says when to stop.😂

[@toi_techno]

Neanderthals definitely had a more sophisticated grasp of language than all TikTok users

[@robertkern3887]

True not. Me talk good you. Dab dab hyman.

[@MarkRoy-e2b]

You have to be careful about how you frame the question. Neanderthals may not have had complex language (similar to ours), but they could have had a simpler form of language. In fact, along our direct lineage, there must have been many levels of speech and language in different species. Apes communicate with each other - Neaderthals may have had a very loose syntax and more limited phoneme production than us. DNA can tell a lot, but a lot will always be unknowable.

[@PeacefulRallyCar-pw3cs]

Primates other than human are not capable of complex sign language. Some have mastered a few dozen words, but compared to deaf homo, their ability is marginal. They do not have the module for complex language.

[@TheStrangeBloke]

It seems very plausible to me that even without these changes you'd still have language of some kind, but a less articulate form. After all, language is an essential aspect of human social behavior, and neandertals exhibit the social behavior, so it follows they'd have some kind of language even if it lacked some of the traits of modern human languages.

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

Think Abkhaz with dozens of consonants and only two vowels, or Khoisan click languages. These features don't require vocalization.

[@JamesBarry-j7m]

Love you and your guest!!!!!

[@altontacoma]

The visuals were very helpful, thank you!

[@springfieldbearpatrol2937]

What's cool about Neanderthals is we have fossils/skulls for comparisons, plus we sequenced DNA (99.7% match for humans). Looking at the skulls you can infer a different topology. Bigger eye sockets, eyes higher up on the face, thick brow, and of most interest > the occipital bun. The thought here is that the brain was different with that occipital bun housing the "vision processing" parts of the brain. Whereas modern humans have eyes lower, and brain sitting more so above the eyes with a flat forehead. The theory is that humans have this different layout for cognitive functions. Incoming speculation: it's likely humans were a bit more dynamic - we could out think, out plan, out organize, out network, out communicate, and out compete the other hominids - based on our unique design. Much of that is speculation. But think about Neanderthals living in extreme north climates - they need better vision and more robust bodies to survive. Perhaps more so than communication skills. I'm not answering the question about Neanderthals having language - I have no idea. I'm just speculating that the old axiom of Neanderthals being a bit more brutish and simplistic may be true. Certainly they were highly capable - they survived for hundreds of thousand of years.

[@StoccTube]

That’s an interesting reflection. I read / heard that Neanderthal had burial rituals, looked after their sick, created early art, made jewellery, stone tools and hand axes, and made spears, which makes me lean towards them being social and likely to have had a language. Pure speculation on my part, but it appears their extinction (albeit we have some Neanderthal DNA in our genome today) was likely the result of climate change (ice age) keeping their population low in the last 20K years of their 350K+ year existence (far longer than modern humans have been around).

[@springfieldbearpatrol2937]

@@StoccTube i hope that is why. Seems there's calamity everywhere humans go... Look at all the Megafauna that disappeared in North America, around the same time humans appeared....

[@cecileroy557]

And - wall art in caves! Their bodies were shorter and thicker - but I do think the idea that Neanderthals were "brutish" is no longer believed true.

[@springfieldbearpatrol2937]

@@cecileroy557 they were highly capable and survived over hundreds of thousands of years. I'm saying that humans would have an edge cognitively. Planning, networking, organizing, etc. While they cave painting humans were likely forming and army and planning their conquest.n

[@Cobalt1520]

""But think about Neanderthals living in extreme north climates - they need better vision and more robust bodies to survive. Perhaps more so than communication skills."" -> if that was true we would never be able to replace them, and they would thrive in numbers and prosper in larger communities. Instead they were replaced and extinct, after thriving for 500 000 years, declining when we started to arrive in their territories. I think it is pretty obvious what happened, but people seem to prefer a fairy tale of interbreeding and "oh they are still here within us!!!" than the simple truth, that's why this is being fed, because it sells much more books and seminars. It will end hopefully, when people find another fairy tale to ocupy their time, and someone will appear with "ummm you know.. that interbreeding thing.. it never really happened... we simply exterminated them".

[@stefanthorpenberg887]

The idea that neanderthals had no language is very old. We can always stare at genes and try to interpret them. But if we check the Bruniquel cave in Languedoc, we know that neandrthals build circles of stalagmites in a total dark cave, that they burned meat from a cave bear, and that they had some 36 fires there, so they visited the cave at least some 30 times, and there was a tent there from a hide. So… to get all that together, they first need torches, a hide, meat, and the original idea why it was necessary to build circles in the dark from some 400 stalagmites that they broke off from the cave floor. Most likely it was some ritual they had 330 meter into an absolute dark cave. Now, imagine that you should organize all that without a language? That you could only show some signs, and say ugh ugh? It’s impossible. But did they have the same complex language as we have today? No, absolute not. But sapiens did not have that complex language either at that time. The complexity of language comes much later, in the beginning of civilisation and written language. But it’s a cultural development, not a genetic.

[@Cdearle]

Excellent comment

[@douginorlando6260]

Not just more articulation with more distinct phonemes, a thought process that develops more around language and less around spatial relationships. Lines of reasoning can sound logical based on meanings and associations that words bring to mind. The whole legal system is based on words with only a nod to moral sensitivities. The legal system has evolved via prior interpretation of words and phrases into a detailed map of subtle differences that go beyond common usage. The legal profession becomes a game where reality only matters in so far as it affects perception, and perception is driven by language. Evidence for language driving the thought process is when half way through describing a problem to someone, you suddenly realize the answer … the act of verbally explaining the problem makes the solution obvious. On the other hand, lines of reasoning can be founded on spatial awareness which gives a different intuitive feel that guides making sense. This approach is a useful extrapolation of innate awareness of surroundings and proximity linked to security,protection, belonging, hunting. It becomes a powerful framework to science, math, quantitative relationships. For example, Gaussian surfaces with enclosed volumes are the foundation of the first law of Thermodynamics and also leads to Maxwells’s famous equations that explain electricity, magnetism and radiation. Verbal skills are not conducive to math … try telling someone an equation and going through the solution of a problem that requires a set of equations (it’s very difficult to follow because written equations are very spatial on paper and many variables & constants must be meticulously taken together in context without error. The Sumerians had a sophisticated written system for math including a written numbering system tied to astronomy and accounting. Also for plots of land including calculating area using summation of squares, rectangles, triangles,trapezoids, and then verifying the area by calculating the summation of geometric shapes but with the map turned 90 degrees. One more consideration … written language and spoken language invoke similar but different thought processes, even on the same subject matter.

[@davefoc]

An argument against the idea that Neanderthals couldn't speak is that they interbred with humans. But if most of the interbreeding was involuntary then maybe speech was less important? Regardless interbreeding between sapiens and neanderthals is believed to have occurred in two different time periods between two different groups of Homo sapiens. Why wouldn't at least some of the sapiens speech methylation mechanism have transferred to at least some of the Neanderthals during one of those events? ETA: @tayzonday below mentioned parrots. That suggests that speech is possible with some very non human vocal mechanisms. So why not in Neanderthals with a vocal setup that was different than the one sapiens have? ETA: Could improving speech capability in sapiens have been part of the reason neanderthal/sapiens didn't interbreed in the last 10,000 years or so of Neanderthal existence?

[@ryanfranz6715]

It’s almost as though cultural accumulation, and anything that would’ve assisted in cultural accumulation such as the ability to speak in fast, fluent, complex sounds (and even singing), leading to easier spread of shared knowledge, is what was being selected for in modern humans. I.e. there’s a real sense in which culture is the organism that’s succeeding or failing and subject to darwinian pressures, and humans are merely the host (and selectively pressured in the direction of an ideal host).

[@christopherellis2663]

Hypothesis

[@ryanfranz6715]

In the realm of possibility from known evidence

[@bennyandersen742]

Yes, very interesting. It's very interesting how western culture is choosing a direction out of existence. Advanced but not reproductive with disastrous bith rates. . So what is going on there?

[@PeacefulRallyCar-pw3cs]

Complex language has a huge advantage in hunting. From planning and calling plays to mimicking animal noises. Furthermore, complex language is essential in establishing a social order. They cannot stop the chase to argue about who is in charge.

[@calasangel]

I like how he voice boxes human speech without the diaphragm, tongue, lips, and teeth.

[@alexbowman7582]

Humans are usually upwardly mobile, that is they tend to have complex societies which are constantly improving and they often form widespread trade and social networks, they also have many children despite the conditions. Neanderthals meanwhile, may have been content in a subsistence existence, living similarly for millennia, happy to just exist and having less children in difficult times. Eventually Sapiens would have just elbowed them out. Surviving Neanderthals presumably isolated and living in small groups would have suffered from eventual inbreeding and slowly died out.

[@muzwell]

I'm confused about the timeline. At the start of this clip he talks about a "qualitative change" that happened in language 50 to 100k years ago. At the end of the clip he says the change in methylation happened 500k years ago - but they are linked? Can anyone clarify?

[@user-yt3xd2jl6d]

The Methylation change occurred sometime between 500 thousand to 200 thousand years ago, this implies the ability to organize or speak correctly, but does not necessarily imply that we have language in its modern form, but 100 thousand or 50 thousand years ago a cultural revolution occurred in Homo Sapiens, language and symbolic language emerged, this cultural, linguistic and cognitive revolution, made Homo Sapiens populate all of Eurasia, and displace the Neanderthals & Denisovans.

[@user-yt3xd2jl6d]

In simpler words, first came the "ability to develop language in its modern form" and then came modern language.

[@muzwell]

@@user-yt3xd2jl6d thanks for the clarification

[@rajeshji2811]

Interesting analysis. Can you please invite Dr. Nilesh Oak. He has a take which might be in line with David Reich.

[@jamesswanson3419]

Could Neanderthals have had a whistle language such as survives in the canary islands and doesn't need a sophisticated vocal tract. In fact, hunters still communicate with whistles at times and so it seems this may have been an early stage of language in hunting societies.

[@sharonhoerr6523]

'Gotta love how some folks talk about interbreeding, when rape, which was the most likely, does not require language.😒

[@j-rocgood7680]

Rape is certainly possible. However from what I understand Europeans have about 3-4% Neanderthal ancestry. While Papuans have even higher. This is quite substantial and implies a major and prolonged interbreeding event. Probably more than one. I’ve read the high proportion makes rape far less likely. Which implies that Humans and Neanderthals must have been able to communicate effectively and in some cases even raise children together.

[@zero11010]

I spent the entire video trying to figure out what his tongue is doing to give him that very specific speech impediment with some sounds but not other very similar sounds. Definitely going to have to watch this a second time and try to tune out the speech impediment.

[@carlharmeling512]

In the Gospel of John it states; ‘’the word is God.’’

[@Eben948]

Why did he keep emphasizing how weird this was? Seems perfectly sensible to me. Great guest btw, I like this guy.

[@brutefo]

It was believed methylation patterns were very fragile and didn't survive for 1000s of years

[@ManishGupta-cb1sk]

It's very hard to digest that it's just evolution that made us what we are today.

[@irenerosenberg3609]

Circa 3:53, "seems possibly reasonable" - best hedge ever!

[@markphc99]

Right , so he doesn’t know

[@maiaallman4635]

I'm just throwing this out there: there are some humans today (some autistic) that prefer communication with the visual centres. Reading, writing (or typing). Not going through the audio part of the brain.

[@odderlendsolvang3790]

i mean gorillas cant teach sign language.

[@odderlendsolvang3790]

can*

[@kilipaki87oritahiti]

Well as someone who has Denisovan genome, not Neanderthal, language is more than words and sentences. Take our pets, they don’t speak nor do they understand our human language, but they do understand body language and the tone of our voice. Also facial expressions. Same can be said about those who can’t hear, or speak. Sign language for example? We’ve always managed to communicate even if we didn’t speak the same language or had a lingua franca. How would our ancient human cousins be any exception? If Neanderthals was so dumb, then it’s a huge paradox and irony then that we humans who pride ourselves of being the smartest species on earth, has Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA.

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

If true, this doesn't nec imply that Neanderthals didn't have language, even complex language like ours. A language like Abkhaz has dozens and dozens of consonants, with only two vowels, while other languages use clicks of various sorts. All those help convey meaning. So maybe Neanderthals spoke a language, just sounding more like Abkhaz or Khoisan speakers!

[@odderlendsolvang3790]

or they could sign

[@joelt2002]

Interestingly the modern human's brain shrunk in size over the last several hundred thousand years. So when he says that both gropus have similar brain size, I wonder what he is referring to.

[@beeasy9927]

Terrence McKenna said something similar

[@christopherellis2663]

Well, they didn't survive and improve their technology and make tools and clothing and fire by mute handsigns. It's a totally useless question

[@nanopug]

So,, wats weird?

[@ezera1979]

Sober Ari looks great

[@JoshSmith-fr6fx]

Whats weeeeeiiird is how this dude says the word weird. The fuck

[@oaktreet4335]

yes they did......I know it is hard to believe but it was somewhat akin to English..... "Og, be a good chap, pass the finger sandwiches. "

[@maxdondada]

This was an informative discussion. I worry however that we spend so much time on neanderthals and so little on early humans pre and post migration in Africa.

[@Knucklehead4400]

we spend time on what interests us, if you are interested , do some research

[@alastairbrewster4274]

This questions keeps being raised and then “ answered “. My hunch based on everything that has already been discovered such as art etc is that they can talk and they did talk. In a few weeks new evidence will prove this then something else will disprove it. It seems a very cyclical debate . But what living creature produces art and buries their dead that doesn’t have communication?

[@normanwilder4935]

Why do most language researchers have a lisp?

[@bartholomewtott3812]

Well, he isn't a language researcher.

[@normanwilder4935]

@@bartholomewtott3812 But he has a bad lisp

[@chetisanhart3457]

Whales, chimps, and dogs communicate. They didn't need several words to say green. 'Pretty sure that words like sage, seafoam, and chartreuse weren't needed in their daily life. Sailors have been breeding with women who spoke no common language since long ago.

[@RogerMance]

Speaking of weird... who's this guy?

[@r.ladaria135]

2:08 Why is a barefoot woman walking in the background?

[@xennialsavants8226]

😂😂😂

[@tunneloflight]

Ah yes. Sapiocentrism survives and thrives.

[@Wizardess]

How much of the human genome seems to be from viruses and bacteria that found their way into the human genome? {^_^}

[@jameswoodard4304]

Why is this "weird?"

[@gregorynixon2945]

No they did not. It is not within reason. They may have managed a gestural protolanguage, but I don't think they had the cognitive capacity for that. Scholarly speculation based on flimsy evidence to make a name for yourself just won't do,

[@vmcla]

He is so interesting but ultimately, unintelligible. He is talking too damned fast in a near monotone. It’s impossible to give it the deep attention it deserves especially since the fear of missing stuff makes me anxious. If the guest can’t be understood, you need to find someone else instead to interview.

[@hrayz]

I watch these at x1.25 speed because it's too slow otherwise...

[@amberg5926]

Perfectly understandable to me. If anything, he repeats some parts

[@georgesheffield1580]

A bigger question is ,DO murikuns have complex language ? Or any communicative language ?

[@Maryland_Kulak]

An even bigger question: do 21st century British men have any testicles whatsoever?

[@PrincipalSkinner3190]

This guy is quite annoying to listen to.

[@aronchai]

Useless comment

[@senju2024]

You are annoying !!!! You need to get your ass off the coach and stop trolling on youtube!!!

[@GEMSofGOD_com]

Who even listens anymore. Use AI with transcripts

[@sharonhoerr6523]

Even chimps, elephants and orcas have language. We just don't understand much, if any, of it yet.

[@michaeldavis3819]

They have ways of communicating things; that's not the same as a language that is used to communicate complex abstract concepts. My chickens have different clucks and shrieks that can mean "I just laid an egg!" or "Danger, hide!" or "There's food here!" or "Go away or I'll fight you!" That's not the same thing as communicating "I just spotted a chickenhawk to the North," versus "I need my water supply cleaned and replenished to avoid botulism, please." My dogs have grunts and barks and whines that can communicate things like, "Watch out! Stranger!" or, "Play tug with me!" or "Let me out, I need to use the restroom!" or, "Ouch!" That's also not the same as being able to say, "My left ankle is hurt; I need a pain killer tonight and a veterinary consultation tomorrow at 6:00." or "I'm worried about what the inflationary economy is going to do to the process of manufacturing my food." The difference is that animals seldom communicate anything beyond base biological urges and simple emotions. I respect animals and love them; and they often surprise me, but I have yet to see them spring very far beyond crude basic communication (although Koko was shockingly complex and speaks to the capacity of some primates if they have intense amounts of resources invested and dogs can learn many simple verbal commands). It's just not in the same category as human language.

[@YaBoiDREX]

I wonder how much sign language was used among Neanderthal and Sapien populations. Probably a lot since we use hand signals a lot in our day to day lives today in the modern age.

[@wecanjump7512]

I wonder when the first middle finger was thrown

[@hermask815]

i wonder if males and females of the other tribe were attractive and vice versa. or if you brought food home was more important.

[@YaBoiDREX]

@@hermask815 Food seems way more important in those days. Picking a partner based solely off attraction is a luxury only humans in the last 150 years have enjoyed. Where or not your partner can keep you safe and fed matters way more than looks so in a world without industrialization and modern science.

[@dougsinthailand7176]

I haven’t read the original paper, but it seems very interesting. The question of Neanderthal speech finds clues in areas such as brain structure, apparent ability to articulate, evidence in culture and I think the FOX2 gene as well. It’s obvious that there is some major genetic difference happening among archaic individuals. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.

[@alexbowman7582]

I’ve seen in a KZbin video, although I don’t know if it’s true, that Neanderthals had flat skull bases whilst Sapiens had arched skull bases meaning more space to fit in complex vocal cords.

[@jjhantsch8647]

Is it possible that the Toba event (74,000 YA) caused a survival advantage for those modern humans with language?

[@dbmail545]

I think it is more likely that better language facility made the destruction of other groups and the taking of their resources easier. Something happened to make one group much more successful than the others. No technology seems unique among the surviving groups so a biological advantage is suspected. Language or perhaps asymptomatic carriers of a pathogen that decimates the other groups as seems to have happened in Africa where the spread of malaria carrying mosquitoes seems to have facilitated the spread of resistant groups at the expense of less resistant groups.

[@jjhantsch8647]

@@dbmail545 Toba was the largest volcanic eruption modern humans have witnessed. Its nuclear winter may have reduced the human population to just a few thousand breeding pairs.

[@Lech_Robakiewicz]

No. I do not agree. It is an at least 100 years old problem and about 60 years ago it was already solved. Neanderthals had definitely ability of speaking. Period.

[@bobaldo2339]

Neanderthals had language sufficiently complex to pass on whatever complex skills they developed.

[@saraandstuartshannon2160]

I have recently been to Neanderthal museum, and it’s quite obvious that there’s no evidence that they either had or didn’t have vocal cords. So, nobody can tell for sure. When I studied history of medicine, we did learn that Neanderthal people were performing ancient head operation called trephination. They made cut out piece of the skull in circle to relieve pressure. Some didn’t survive it, but many did as scientists find regrowth on the skull bone, which means that a person lived after such procedure. I find it hard to believe that a race of humans who didn’t have vocal cords and couldn’t communicate were able to perform such surgery. To me, suggesting that Neanderthal people couldn’t talk is another desperate attempt to suggest that we actually come from Neanderthal people who were nothing else than evolved monkeys.

[@douginorlando6260]

Here’s my take on evolution of speech. Not just more articulation with more distinct phonemes, a thought process that develops more around language and less around spatial relationships, and less around simple moral sensitivities. Lines of reasoning can sound logical based on meanings and associations that words bring to mind. The whole legal system is based on words with only a nod to moral sensitivities. The legal system has evolved via prior interpretation of words and phrases into a detailed map of subtle differences that go beyond common usage. The legal profession becomes a game where reality only matters in so far as it affects perception, and perception is driven by language. Evidence for language driving the thought process is when half way through describing a problem to someone, you suddenly realize the answer … the act of verbally explaining the problem makes the solution obvious. On the other hand, lines of reasoning can be founded on spatial awareness which gives a different intuitive feel that guides making sense. This approach is a useful extrapolation of innate awareness of surroundings and proximity linked to security,protection, belonging, hunting. It becomes a powerful framework to science, math, quantitative relationships. For example, Gaussian surfaces with enclosed volumes are the foundation of the first law of Thermodynamics and also leads to Maxwells’s famous equations that explain electricity, magnetism and radiation. Verbal skills are not conducive to math … try telling someone an equation and going through the solution of a problem that requires a set of equations (it’s very difficult to follow because written equations are very spatial on paper and many variables & constants must be meticulously taken together in context without error. The Sumerians had a sophisticated written system for math including a written numbering system tied to astronomy and accounting. Also for plots of land including calculating area using summation of squares, rectangles, triangles,trapezoids, and then verifying the area by calculating the summation of geometric shapes but with the map turned 90 degrees. One more consideration … written language and spoken language invoke similar but different thought processes, even on the same subject matter.

[@seventhson27]

What happened to the Neanderthals? WE STOLE THEIR WOMEN.

[@davidthurman3963]

We are the Borg so says the Borg. One only has to look at very recent History to understand that.

[@lucev7497]

Complex concepts need to be explained slowly, that was a little fast

[@whynottalklikeapirat]

A big difference I noted is that we exist and they currently don’t 👌

[@andrewbreding593]

Epigenetics: beyond genetics. Tell me gene sequencing was a letdown without telling me it was a letdown. 1. That's the number of major diseases caused by a single set of genes malfunctioning. The rest are epigenetic af

[@anonymoususer6037]

Isn't this Liberman's old claim from the late seventies or early eighties?

[@anthonymichaelwilson8401]

We need to understand Telepathy 😊

[@Eriugena8]

this, to me, was the coolest part of a sweet talkie talk.

[@Drbob369]

What about orphan genes????

[@freefall9832]

They weren't capable of past and future tense. They didn't plan for the future.

[@kencusick6311]

Complex language is what separates Homo sapiens from all other species. It is through complex language that we can create conceptual thought. No other species thinks conceptually. It is all perceptional thinking. Which humans also retain but with in an over arching conceptual framework.

[@Y81715]

What do you base this assumption on? your own beliefs, 20 hours of KZbin archeology? or all the Neanderthals and Denisovans you've met?

[@dugebuwembo]

All species within the Genus Homo are "Human" this includes Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, Homo Heidlebergensis etc.

[@kencusick6311]

@@Y81715 it’s an observation about humans and all current species. I don’t know that Neanderthals or Denisovans didn’t have complex language. I suspect not but don’t know.

[@rad4579]

@@kencusick6311 So you don't know if complex language is what separates Homo sapiens from all other species.

[@kencusick6311]

@@rad4579 I have no doubt that it does. Without complex language we cannot think conceptually. Conceptual thinking is how we create all the markers that separate us from other species.

[@safe-tactcrap2922]

Patel look like them