Were Neanderthals Actually Better Than Us? | Smartest Year Ever (Apr 6, 2025)

Neanderthals had bigger brains, stronger bodies, and possibly even faster sprinting speed than modern humans. So… why are we the ones still around?

In this episode, Gordy dives into what made Neanderthals such a powerhouse species—from their barrel-chested strength and visual-spatial superbrains to their survival skills in the Ice Age wilderness. We now know they weren’t just primitive brutes—they buried their dead, used medicine, maybe even made early art.

So what happened? Why did we make it, and they didn’t?

It might come down to something as simple—and powerful—as long-distance running, gossip, and better group coordination. Oh, and if you’re non-African? You’re still carrying a little Neanderthal in your DNA.

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Stay curious, stay clever—on our quest to become the world’s greatest conversationalists.

Sources:

• Green, R. E., et al. (2010). A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome. Science, 328(5979), 710–722. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1188021
  

• Pääbo, S. (2014). Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes. Basic Books.
  

• Pearce, E., Stringer, C., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2013). New insights into differences in brain organization between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 280(1758). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.0168
  

• Stringer, C. (2012). The Origin of Our Species. Penguin Books.
  

• Weaver, T. D. (2009). The meaning of Neandertal skeletal morphology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(38), 16028–16033. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903864106
  

#Neanderthals #HumanEvolution #Anthropology #SmartestYearEver #SciencePodcast #DailyFacts Music thanks to Zapsplat.