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- Nova is a United States popular science television series
produced by WGBH Boston. It is broadcast on Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS) in the U.S., and in more than 100 other countries.
The series has won many major television awards.
Nova often includes interviews with scientists doing research in
the subject areas covered and occasionally includes footage of a
particular discovery. Some episodes have focused on the history of
science. Examples of topics covered include the following: Colditz
Castle, Drake equation, elementary particles, 1980 eruption of
Mount St. Helens, Fermat's Last Theorem, global warming,
moissanite, Project Jennifer, storm chasing, Unterseeboot 869,
Vinland, and the Tarim mummies.
The Nova programs have been praised for their good pacing, clear
writing, and crisp editing. Websites accompany the segments and
have also won awards.

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- Wil Roebroeks is the professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at
Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is widely considered to be
the pre-eminent Dutch archaeologist. In 2001 he became a
member of the influential Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences. In 2007 Roebroeks won the Spinozapremie, the most
prestigious scientific award in the Netherlands.
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- In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from

an objective piece by percussion or pressure,"[1] and may also be
referred to as a chip or spall, or collectively as debitage. The
objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of
flakes, is known as a core.[2] Once the proper tool stone has been
selected, a percussor or pressure flaker (e.g. an antler tine) is used
to direct a sharp blow, or apply sufficient force, respectively, to the
surface of the stone, often on the edge of the piece. The energy of
this blow propagates through the material, often (but not always)
producing a Hertzian cone of force which causes the rock to
fracture in a controllable fashion. Since cores are often struck on
an edge with a suitable angle (x<90) for flake propagation, the
result is that only a portion of the Hertzian cone is created. The
process continues as the flint knapper detaches the desired
number of flakes from the core, which is marked with the negative
scars of these removals. The surface area of the core which
received the blows necessary for detaching the flakes is referred to
as the striking platform.
13
- Levallois flakes. The Levallois technique (IPA: [l.va.lwa]) is a
name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone
knapping developed by precursors to modern humans during the
Palaeolithic period.
It is named after nineteenth century finds of flint tools in the
Levallois-Perret 485340N 21718E suburb of Paris in France.
The technique was more sophisticated than earlier methods of
lithic reduction, involving the striking of flakes from a prepared
core. A striking platform is formed at one end and then the core's
edges are trimmed by flaking off pieces around the outline of the
intended flake. This creates a domed shape on the side of the
core, known as a tortoise core as the various scars and rounded
form are reminiscent of a tortoise's shell. When the striking
platform is finally hit, a flake separates from the core with a
distinctive plano-convex profile and with all of its edges sharpened
by the earlier trimming work.
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- Vindija is a cave located in northern Croatia, known for being

the site of one of the best preserved remains of Neanderthals
fossils in the world, found in 1974. It is estimated that
Neanderthals lived there about 30,000 years ago. One of these
Neanderthals was selected as primary source of DNA for the
Neanderthal genome project. Vindija Cave is a stratified
paleontological and archaeological site in Croatia, which has
several occupations associated with both Neanderthals and
anatomically modern humans (AMH).

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Decoding Neanderthals
Shared DNA reveals a deep connection with our longAired January 9, 2013 on PBS vanished human cousins.

Program Description
Over 60,000 years ago, the first modern humanspeople
physically identical to us todayleft their African homeland
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~ 18 ~
and entered Europe, then a bleak and inhospitable continent
in the grip of the Ice Age. But when they arrived, they were
not alone: the stocky, powerfully built Neanderthals had
already been living there for hundred of thousands of years.
So what happened when the first modern humans
encountered the Neanderthals? Did we make love or war?
That question has tantalized generations of scholars and
seized the popular imagination. Then, in 2010, a team led by
geneticist Svante Paabo announced stunning news. Not only
had they reconstructed much of the Neanderthal genome
an extraordinary technical feat that would have seemed
impossible only a decade agobut their analysis showed
that "we" modern humans had interbred with Neanderthals,
leaving a small but consistent signature of Neanderthal
genes behind in everyone outside Africa today. In "Decoding
Neanderthals," NOVA explores the implications of this
exciting discovery. In the traditional view, Neanderthals
differed from "us" in behavior and capabilities as well as
anatomy. But were they really mentally inferior, as
inexpressive and clumsy as the cartoon caveman they
inspired? NOVA explores a range of intriguing new evidence
for Neanderthal self-expression and language, all pointing to
the fact that we may have seriously underestimated our
.mysterious, long-vanished human cousins

More

Transcript
Decoding Neanderthals
PBS Airdate: January 9, 2013

NARRATOR: They were the brutes of Ice Age Europe.

Although a branch of our human family tree, they were seen

~ 19 ~
as a dead end, deep in our prehistoric past. They were called
.Neanderthals

JOHN HAWKS (University of Wisconsin): Neanderthals have

.the mother of all image problems

NARRATOR: They eked out a marginal existence, hunting by

brute force, with only simple stone tools. They were
considered primitive, with no language, art, or the higher.level thinking of advanced species, like us

APRIL NOWELL (University of Victoria): They lacked the same

.intelligence as modern humans

NARRATOR: They began to disappear 40,000 years ago, as

modern humans, our species, came on the scene. But this
primitive picture is being replaced by a different image of
Neanderthals. It's bringing them much closer to us, as
genetic evidence revises our human family tree and reveals
.their mysterious presence, right within our genes

ED GREEN (University of California, Santa Cruz): We started

to look at the problem from different angles, and the answer
".would come back, "It's Neanderthal

SVANTE PBO (Max Planck Institute): That was, sort of,

quite shaking to me. I thought this must be a statistical
.fluke

~ 20 ~
NARRATOR: Now, archaeologists are finding new evidence to
.help resolve bitter debates

JOAO ZILHAO (University of Barcelona/ICREA): This is the

smoking gun. We have here the case to settle the
.controversy

.NARRATOR: In tool-making, they're seeing signs of language

METIN I. EREN (University of Kent): There's some sort of

.advanced talking going on

.NARRATOR: A new Neanderthal mind emerges

WIL ROEBROEKS (Leiden University): We're not talking about

.idiots

NARRATOR: And if scientists are finally finding the real

legacy of the Neanderthals buried deep in our history and
?our genes, what does it say about all of us

.Decoding Neanderthals, right now, on NOVA

Forty-thousand years ago, Europe is in the grip of an Ice

Age. In harsh, unforgiving terrain live members of an ancient
human species, the Neanderthals. It is a brutal time to be
.alive, only the toughest survive

~ 21 ~
CHRIS STRINGER (University of Colorado): They were very
.muscular, short, wide, very stocky, very powerfully built

THOMAS WYNN (University of Colorado): They were huntergatherers; they had scarce game to find. Most Neanderthals
.were probably dead by 30 years old. It was a brief brutal life

.NARRATOR: Hunting was extremely dangerous

CHRIS STRINGER: They were confrontational hunters, so they

had to get close to their prey with stabbing spears. This
required not only a lot of bravery, but a lot of physical
.strength

FREDERICK L. COOLIDGE (University of Colorado): These

Neanderthals could bench-press 300 to 500 pounds. They
had big thrusting spears that they threw into the sides of
.300-pound animals

NARRATOR: The Neanderthals survived the harsh conditions

in Europe for at least 300,000 years. Then around 40,000
years ago, a different human species arrives on the scene,
our species, Homo sapiens. They migrated from Africa,
spreading across Neanderthal territory, outnumbering them
.10 to one

CHRIS STRINGER: Suddenly, you've got two species

competing for the same resources: hunting the same
animals, collecting the same plant resources, wanting to live
.in the best territories and the best caves

~ 22 ~
NARRATOR: After another 10,000 years, the Neanderthals
.disappear

ED GREEN: The story of the Neanderthals is a murder

mystery. They were there, and now they're gone, and they
go away at about the same time that we are showing up on
.the scene

NARRATOR: So why did they vanish, while we survived? For

years, many scientists believed we wiped them out: a simple
case of our brain out-classing their brawn. This theory
emerged when archaeologists unearthed the very first
Neanderthal skulls, over 150 years ago. To scientists at the
.time, skulls like these looked primitive compared to ours

Chris Stringer is one of the world's preeminent Neanderthal

.experts

CHRIS STRINGER: We can tell a Neanderthal skull 100

percent of the time. They've got a very broad skull, this
double-arched brow ridge and, perhaps their most distinctive
feature, the middle of the face is pulled forwards, their
.cheekbones swept back

NARRATOR: One influential discovery featured a skeleton

crippled by acute arthritis, incorrectly reconstructed with a
hunched posture and a shuffling walk. This early find helped
shape popular perceptions of Neanderthals for decades,
launching a wave of images of the Neanderthal as a brutish
.caveman

~ 23 ~
JOHN HAWKS: Neanderthals have the mother of all image
problems: "They're brooding, they're stupid-looking, they
".have no personality

CHRIS STRINGER: They were reconstructed as being much

more apelike, much more bestial: grasping big toes, very
.hairy, head hung forward, shambling in their gait

NARRATOR: Critically, scientists believed the Neanderthals

.lacked the one thing that defines us: our brainpower

APRIL NOWELL: They lacked the same intelligence as

.modern humans

NARRATOR: With only limited stone tools and no art or

personal ornaments, Neanderthals seemed less advanced
?than modern humans. But was that really the whole story

Now, new discoveries in genetics and archaeology are

.challenging this traditional view of the Neanderthals

Metin Eren has spent six years studying Neanderthal

technology. These "Levallois flakes," named after the place
in France where they first found, were the Neanderthals' tool
of choice. At first glance, they look rudimentary, the product
more of luck than judgment. But when Eren tried to
.reproduce one, he got a surprise

METIN EREN: I can tell you, just from my personal

experience, I find the Levallois technology much more

~ 24 ~
difficult to make than any of the modern Homo sapiens
technologies. You know, it took me about 18 months to
master Levallois technology, and this was after I'd been flintnapping for a number of years. The fact that there seems to
be a goal involvedthey're not simply striking flakes to get
.a sharp cutting edge

NARRATOR: Eren began to realize this was no hit and miss

process. He wanted to discover just how they did it. So he
turned to morphometrics, a technique which analyzes the
.exact shapes and angles of objects

It revealed Neanderthals must have used a precise set of

strikes to turn a raw flint block into a carefully-shaped
object, known as the core. The final crucial step involved
striking the core with a single precision blow. Only if aimed
just right, would this create the perfect flake, and a
.remarkably versatile tool

METIN EREN: I shape this in such a way so that the core has
a gentle convexity, so that the large flake that comes off has
a sharp edge all around this perimeter. That enhances its
.utility in a number of ways

Because it's uniformly thick, you can re-sharpen it a number

.of times more than you can other types of stone flakes

We also found the Levallois flake is statistically more

symmetrical, so that when you use it, it basically reduces
torque. It has ergonomic properties. I can actually get a lot
more force with each cut and each slice. I just put a little
more pressure, and the Levallois flake goes right through it

~ 25 ~
and that one big piece of gammon. That took about a minute
.and a half

This is an amazing tool. They were engineering their rocks to

get particular products that have specific properties. That
they were able to discover a technique that is incredibly
difficult to do is just a testament to how intelligent they
.must have been to actually invent it in the first place

NARRATOR: Metin Eren's work reveals the complexity of

Neanderthal tool-making, but there's even more surprising
.evidence of sophisticated Neanderthal technologies

Dutch archaeologist Wil Roebroeks is studying new finds,

one of them dating back a quarter of a million years. This is
a flint spearhead: at its base, a large sticky black mass, most
likely used as a glue. Evidence from many sites had already
shown how Neanderthals attached stone flakes to wooden
shafts, first binding them with sinew or leather, then
securing the binding with a glue-like substance. This turned
.the flake and its shaft into a robust weapon

WIL ROEBROEKS: What you see is a nice razor-sharp flint

flake, which is covered at the base in this pitch material. It's
a material that was probably used in many aspects of
.everyday life

NARRATOR: At first, it was thought this Neanderthal glue was

nothing more than sap from a pine tree, easy for them to
find and use. But detailed analysis revealed something
.different. It was a type of manmade pitch, from birch trees

~ 26 ~

WIL ROEBROEKS: Chemical studies have shown that that

material was produced by heating birch bark. Neanderthals
were producing these pitches. So it is not something like the
stuff you can retrieve from a pine when you hit a tree, that's
the natural stuff that comes out. But this is something, this
is another material. It's a synthetic, produced by
.Neanderthals a quarter of a million years ago

NARRATOR: This is the world's oldest-known synthetic

material. It makes Neanderthals, and not us, the inventors of
perhaps the first industrial process. But how could an
?allegedly primitive species have done this

To find out more, Wil Roebroeks decides to mount an

experiment with a colleague, Friedrich Palmer. They will try
to replicate the Neanderthal technique of pitch extraction, a
".complex process called "dry distillation

Crucially, they'll use only the materials available to

Neanderthals 250,000 years ago: an upturned animal skull
to catch the pitch; a small stone on which the pitch would
condense; some rolls of birch bark, the source of the pitch;
and a layer of ash to exclude oxygen and prevent the bark
.from burning

Roebroeks and Palmer need to heat the bark to 400 degrees

centigrade. Any less, and it won't produce pitch; any more,
.and it will simply burn

~ 27 ~
After eight hours, any pitch should have condensed on the
stone within the skull. Today, Roebroeks and Palmer manage
to extract only a tiny smear of pitch. They are on the right
track, but it isn't nearly enough to glue a spearhead to a
.shaft, as the Neanderthals did

.FRIEDRICH PALMER: It's sticky

.WIL ROEBROEKS: It's not much. It's very small quantities

NARRATOR: It seems this experiment is on too small a scale

to produce enough pitch. Neanderthals must have figured
out how to scale up the technique in a way we haven't yet
.reproduced

However they managed it, the Neanderthals had evidently

mastered a complex thermal process. The Neanderthals'
extraction of pitch and their distinctive tool-making, suggest
their technology was more advanced than previously
thought. What's more, artifacts like these have been found
across a wide area of Europe. And this raises a question:
how did Neanderthals communicate these complex ideas?
Could it be they shared that one ability we usually think of
?as unique to us: language

WIL ROEBROEKS: One could infer that there was some

communication, maybe, between generations or between
peers in a group. But language, of course, is very difficult to
.excavate

~ 28 ~
NARRATOR: Now, fresh evidence is emerging from a
completely different branch of science, applied to
Neanderthal research for the first time. Svante Pbo is one
of a new breed of detectives examining our deepest past.
.He's not an archaeologist; he does his digging in the lab

Pbo is interested in humans and what sets us apart from

our closest relatives. As a geneticist, his work involves
comparing our genetic material with that of the rest of our
.family tree

SVANTE PBO: It's really about finding out what makes us

special in the world, what made things such as modern
humans spreading across the entire globe, developing all the
.technology, all the culture that's typical in moderns

NARRATOR: Pbo and his colleagues wanted to look at

specific genes, where you'd expect humans and our closest
relatives to differ, like a gene fundamental for language,
.named FOXP2

ED GREEN: FOXP2 is a very interesting gene in that it's one

of the few genes directly related to this uniquely human
.characteristic: speech and language

NARRATOR: FOXP2 is found in many species, although the

human version is distinctive. By comparing it with a
potential Neanderthal version, Pbo was hoping to shed
light upon what makes human language special. But before
he could even begin, Pbo needed to have the genetic
.blueprint for both Neanderthals and humans, their genomes

~ 29 ~

A genome is the distinctive genetic recipe for a species,

made up of a specific set of chromosomes. These are
responsible for the characteristics that make every species
different. Within the chromosomes, genes determine
whether we have two legs or four, grow feathers or fur. And
every part of this unique recipe is encoded within just one
.molecule: D.N.A

When Svante Pbo started his work, the human genome

had already been decoded. No one had attempted to map
the Neanderthal genome. Pbo faced a seemingly
impossible task in attempting to map the D.N.A. in the
.nucleus of a 30,000 year old cell

.Ed Green is a geneticist on Pbo's team

ED GREEN: As soon as this was obvious, that this was

possible, in theory, we started to think about how do we do
this in practice, if we can get nuclear data, if we can get
some amount. And we did some back of the envelope
.calculations and thought, yes, this was feasible

SVANTE PBO: We spent a lot of time looking at many

archaeological sites and many different bones and,
.eventually, identified this site, in Croatia

NARRATOR: The Vindija cave in northern Croatia contained

genetic gold dust: the 30,000-year-old leg bone fragments of
three female Neanderthals. The exceptionally well-preserved

~ 30 ~
bones offered Pbo's team the best chance of extracting
.Neanderthal D.N.A

In sterile conditions, the team took samples of bone,

carefully dissolving them in solution, before spinning them,
at high speed, in a centrifuge, to retrieve the strands of
.D.N.A

But then the real difficulties began. The bone samples

.carried billions of unwanted passengers

SVANTE PBO: Most bones we looked at might contain a

few molecules of Neanderthal D.N.A., but the vast, vast
majority come from bacteria and fungi that colonize the
bones, when it was in the ground or in a cave, for tens of
.thousands of years

NARRATOR: Before the team could go any further they'd

have to destroy the rogue D.N.A. So they invented a cleanup
technique, using enzymes that specifically target and
.eliminate the bacterial D.N.A. from the sample

The resulting clean sample contained five-times the

concentration of Neanderthal D.N.A., compared to the
.original, which made the analysis easier

Still, reconstructing the genome remained a formidable

challenge. The D.N.A. molecule's intertwining strands are
held together by four key chemicals, represented by letters.
These bond together as pairs, always C to G and A to T.

~ 31 ~
These letters are like building blocks, repeating units which
.spell out the genome's unique recipe

Their order is critical. Just one letter out of place within

three-billion pairs, and the genome would be inaccurate. But
. the D.N.A. was in tiny fragments, like a

The team would have to place each piece in precisely the

.right order

ED GREEN: Svante and others were very skeptical. It was in

the realm of the impossible that the genome would ever be
.sequenced

SVANTE PBO: During the course of this project, there were

actually many times when we despaired about being able to
.make it

NARRATOR: It would take them four years, but finally, the

.last piece of the puzzle fell into place

ED GREEN: Human evolution is something everyone cares

about, and it's such an incredible thing, technically, to be
able to do. Add to that it's our closest extinct ancestor and
all that it can tell us about evolution and human biology: it's
.the most exciting thing I've ever worked on

NARRATOR: This is the result of all their work: the

.Neanderthal genome

~ 32 ~
Here is one tiny part of the actual sequence of over threebillion letters, corresponding to each D.N.A. building block:
the genetic blueprint of a species of human that became
.extinct 30,000 years ago

Now, at last, Pbo's team could begin comparing

.Neanderthal to modern human genes

One of the first areas they looked at was FOXP2, the gene
associated with language. Would an identical gene be
shared between human and Neanderthal? Would the gene
?be there at all

SVANTE PBO: To my surprise, I must say, it turns out it is

.shared

NARRATOR: Neanderthals had exactly the same version of

the FOXP2 gene as humans, the same chemical letters in
.exactly the same order

SVANTE PBO: I'm very sure that the Neanderthals had

communication. If it was a language exactly as we would
.understand language, that's another question

CHRIS STRINGER: I think Neanderthal language was a more

.practical language, it was a day-to-day language

NARRATOR: Pbo's work adds weight to the growing

argument that Neanderthals and modern humans shared
more abilities than previously thought. It begged a billion

~ 33 ~
dollar question: did we have enough in common that we
?could have interbred

If Neanderthals and modern humans had interbred

successfully, traces of their D.N.A. would be found in ours.
.Most scientists, Pbo included, thought this highly unlikely

When different species mate, their offspring are usually

.infertile

SVANTE PBO: I was biased against interbreeding. There is

.no evidence for it, so I don't think it really happened

NARRATOR: But with the Neanderthal genome now

sequenced, Pbo and his team could examine this
question. The first step was to map the individual genomes
of five people from different ethnic groups. Then they
.'compared this modern D.N.A. with the Neanderthals

They focused only on small specific regions, called variable

areas, where the order of the D.N.A. letters often differs from
one individual to the next. Here, if interbreeding had taken
place, letter sequences typical of Neanderthal D.N.A. would
show up in the human D.N.A. strand, but with no
interbreeding, there would be no trace of Neanderthal D.N.A.
.in the variable areas

Pbo expected to see the same negative result in the

genomes of all five modern humans, regardless of ethnic
.group

~ 34 ~
ED GREEN: Well, if Neanderthals are equally distantly related
to everybody, the Neanderthal should match the French guy
.and the West African guy equally often

.NARRATOR: But that is not what they found

SVANTE PBO: When we compared one African to a

European individual, the Neanderthal matched the European
.individual more often than the African

NARRATOR: The result indicated that Neanderthals were

genetically closer to Europeans and Asians than they were to
Africans. It meant that somewhere along the line, European
.and Asian humans had picked up Neanderthal D.N.A

SVANTE PBO: So, that was, sort of, quite shaking to me. I
thought this must be a statistical fluke. It was not quite
significant; this would surely go away when we have more
.data

NARRATOR: So Pbo told his team to do the work again and

.again and again

SVANTE PBO: We really needed to make absolutely sure

.we were right

ED GREEN: We started to look at the problem from different

angles. Every time we would ask the question in a little bit
different way and the answer would come back, "It's
".Neanderthal

~ 35 ~

We were able to convince one another and, eventually, the

world, we have a little bit of Neanderthal ancestry in modern
.human genomes

NARRATOR: The amount of Neanderthal D.N.A. in these

modern genomes is small, between just one and four
percent, but the implications are staggering: after migrating
out of Africa, early humans must have mated with
Neanderthals and produced fertile offspring, who inherited
.segments of Neanderthal D.N.A

SVANTE PBO: What we have shown, clearly, is that we

could interbreed with them, we could have fertile children,
and at least some of those children became incorporated in
the human community and reproduced and contributed to
.present day humans

NARRATOR: Pbo's groundbreaking research forces a

radical shift in perspective regarding Neanderthals. They
were genetically close enough to have children with our
.species. They probably also had language

And there are yet more revelations, as archaeologists reexamine previously discounted evidence in favor of
.Neanderthal skills and abilities

A hallmark of our species is our age-old affinity for art, ritual

.and adornment

~ 36 ~
JOAO ZILHAO: We see the astonishing cave art; we see
statuettes over the range of modern humans from Western
Europe to Siberia. And I think that's part of the fact that
modern humans are entering new territories. They're
covering wide distances, and they're having to signal and
.network with each other

NARRATOR: Communicating with others through art and

.ritual has long been considered a uniquely human trait

JOAO ZILHAO: People have always thought that Neanderthals

were not quite like modern humans, and there has been the
notion that perhaps Neanderthals were less intelligent. And
one way archaeologists have to deal with this question is by
.assessing the extent to which people used symbols

NARRATOR: Evidence of Neanderthal symbolism has been

elusive, until recently. This is one of many fragments of
manganese dioxide, a black mineral, found in a Neanderthal
.cave in France. Its tip is worn down, as if used as a crayon

In Neanderthal sites in Gibraltar, archaeologists have

discovered cut marks on the wing bones of crows and birds
of prey, bones with little value as food. The marks suggest
Neanderthals were cutting off the feathers and using them
.to decorate their hair or bodies

And in Spain, seashells have revealed faint traces of

hematite or iron ore, a red mineral often used as pigment.
Neatly-pierced holes allow the decorated shells to be worn
.as ornaments

~ 37 ~

Anthropologist Joao Zilhao believes the evidence offers a

glimpse into the Neanderthal mind. Now, he is reexamining
.finds from a Neanderthal site in Spain, excavated in the '80s

JOAO ZILHAO: This is a fragment of a naturally pointed horse

bone, and when we looked at the tip of the bone under the
.microscope we found reddish dots

NARRATOR: Although so faded they are hard to see, the

chemical analysis proves the spots are to be the red
.pigment, hematite

.And there is more

JOAO ZILHAO: This shell is from the Mediterranean oyster,

and you can see, adhering to the inner side of the shell,
.remnants of a pigment, which is black and reflective

NARRATOR: Zilhao has found a pencil-like sliver of bone with

a red mineral at its tip, and a shell stained with a shiny
pigment, alongside other fragments of colored minerals. It
.adds up to a significant collection, or so Zilhao believes

JOAO ZILHAO: You know these just look like, you know, shells
collected at the beach, but the amount of information they
.contain is tremendous

~ 38 ~
NARRATOR: Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together,
Zilhao is convinced he's looking at the remains of a
.Neanderthal body-painting kit

JOAO ZILHAO: This suggests what was being prepared in this

shell was a cosmetic preparation, and it suggests that this
.was a tool to prepare or apply something like glitter makeup

This is the smoking gun. We have here the case to settle the
.controversy of Neanderthal symbolism

NARRATOR: Zilhao believes Neanderthals used body paint as

a symbolic way of distinguishing friend from foe, just as we
.do today

JOAO ZILHAO: It's like when you go to a football stadium and

there are two teams playing. How do you know whether
you're safe to sit next to someone who may be supporting
the team that hates yours? You use an artifact that identifies
you as a supporter. And it's this kind of information about
.yourself that these kind of objects transmit

NARRATOR: But even if the Neanderthals were painting

themselves and engaging in symbolic behavior, does it
mean they thought the same way as modern humans? Our
.modern human ancestors practiced ritual and religion

Similar evidence for Neanderthals has been elusive. Then a

team of archaeologists made an intriguing discovery in
southern Spain. Their finds hint at the existence of a
.Neanderthal ritual

~ 39 ~

Inside this cave, a team, led by Michael Walker, excavated a

deep shaft, in which they found more than 300 bones from
around 10 Neanderthals, buried by rock falls from the
.unstable ceiling

Three of the Neanderthals stood out. Walker thinks they

.weren't necessarily the victims of a rock fall

MICHAEL WALKER (University of Murcia): If there are rocks

falling on you from a natural rock fall, it would be very
strange to find nobody trying to escape. And one of them is
with the hands close to the head, in almost sleeping
.position

NARRATOR: Although the bones of this young female are

fused to the limestone rock and are hard to see, Michael
Walker thinks her body may have been carefully arranged in
.a fetal position

If he's right, this was no rock fall. Around 50,000 years ago,
someone had intentionally buried her, piling stones to
.protect her body

And this cave had yet more to reveal. Near to the girl's body,
Walker's team uncovered the fossilized bones of a pair of
.panther paws

MICHAEL WALKER: This articulated paw of a panther was

found close by. And since the panther hadn't eaten and

~ 40 ~
disturbed the bones here, it's more likely the Neanderthals
.disturbed the panther and cut its paw off

I just wonder whether, in the way that hunters in America

cut off bear paws, I'm just wondering whether Neanderthals
.cut off the panther paw and kept it as a trophy

NARRATOR: Walker's idea that the severed panther paws

.were a trophy or funeral offering is an intriguing speculation

CHRIS STRINGER: I think that there are enough examples of

Neanderthal burials to suggest that they are intentionally
burying their dead. Perhaps when you come to the issue of
grave goods and whether they're putting material into those
graves and whether they are sending message beyond the
.grave with these materials, that's more controversial

FREDERICK COOLIDGE: You see, in humans, elaborate ritual

burials, maybe about 27,000 years ago, the clearest
evidence, in this place, in Russia, where these children are
buried with, like, 10,000 beads. There's nothing like that in
.Neanderthal burials

NARRATOR: Whether Neanderthal burials are evidence of

complex rituals and beliefs is hotly debated. But many clues
now point to the idea that Neanderthals were more
accomplished and advanced than previously thought. And
this opens up perhaps the biggest question of all: why are
?we still here and Neanderthals are not

~ 41 ~
The Neanderthals' story seems simple. Their forerunners
reach Europe around 800,000 years ago. When Homo
sapiens joins them, around 40,000 years ago, it marks the
beginning of the end. Some 10,000 years after modern
.humans arrive, virtually all traces of Neanderthals are gone

Some scientists believe we drove them into extinction, by

outcompeting them for scarce resources, maybe even by
killing them, but the latest evidence points to another
.possibility

Soon after Svante Pbo's team revealed that Neanderthals

and modern humans outside Africa had interbred,
anthropologist John Hawks re-opened the case files. He
wanted to know if this interbreeding had happened a little or
.a lot

To find out, Hawks needed more than just the five modern
human genomes that Pbo had analyzed, and he got a
lucky break. A team of scientists published a huge new
database of individual human genomes from around the
.world

JOHN HAWKS: The 1000 Genomes Project data began to

become available, and so we were able to expand the
comparison to, literally, more than a thousand from different
.populations

NARRATOR: If interbreeding had been a relatively rare event,

then all non-African humans, across the world, would have
inherited the same small dosage of Neanderthal D.N.A., but
.that's not what Hawks found

~ 42 ~

JOHN HAWKS: Now, my lab, we were able to look at more

people in China, more people in Tuscany, the U.K. And as
we're doing that, we're discovering there are some
.differences among these populations

NARRATOR: Hawks uses the jelly beans to illustrate the

relative percentages of Neanderthal D.N.A. he found in
.different groups of modern humans across the world

JOHN HAWKS: We see that in China there is a little less; in

Europe, it's a little more. And when we compare Europeans,
in southern Europe, in Tuscany, it's a little more than it is in
.other areas of Europe

NARRATOR: Outside Africa, Hawks' data showed the Chinese

have the smallest dose of Neanderthal D.N.A., some
individuals having as little as two percent. But in Tuscany,
northern Italy, in some cases, this rises to around four
percent. So, Hawks' data shows that Tuscans have more
.Neanderthal genes than any other people living today

If Hawks is right, Ice Age southern Europe was a hotbed of

.Neanderthal-human interbreeding

JOHN HAWKS: This was Neanderthal habitat. Modern humans

were interbreeding with them, for a longer time and over a
larger geographic space, and subsequently, Europeans got a
.little bit more Neanderthal D.N.A

~ 43 ~
NARRATOR: Today, a simple blood test can estimate how
.much of our genetic identity is Neanderthal

JOHN HAWKS: Okay, do you guys want to find out? Are you
?sure you're ready

At 1.3 percent is Arial. That's very characteristic of AfroAmericans in our sample. Next, at 2.5 is Vang. And the
?mostyou're left, how much do you think it is

.GIRL: No more than three percent

?JOHN HAWKS: Not five

.GIRL: I hope not

.JOHN HAWKS: All right. You're the most, with three percent

NARRATOR: This field of research is in its infancy and

evolving rapidly. Other experts report different percentages
of Neanderthal D.N.A., but most agree on one key finding:
there wasn't just a handful of sexual encounters between
humans and Neanderthals, but many. That presents a
dramatically different picture of how human and
Neanderthal interacted in Ice Age Europe, and leads to a
.new outlook on the Neanderthals' disappearance

JOHN HAWKS: When we think about the process of extinction

in other kinds of animals, we think of it, usually, as really

~ 44 ~
sudden, like, an asteroid hits the earth and they're gone.
With the Neanderthals, you're looking at a much more
gradual process, a process that unfolded over thousands of
.years

NARRATOR: Hawks believes the Neanderthals' D.N.A. was

absorbed by the dominant population. Outnumbered 10 to
one by modern humans, Neanderthals weren't hunted to
extinction by a supposedly superior species; they were bred
.out, genetically swamped

JOHN HAWKS: I would frame the end of the Neanderthals as

a process of interaction and absorption. The Neanderthals
were, sort of, on the losing end of that. Their only route to
.success was probably breeding with our population

NARRATOR: But is our dosage of Neanderthal D.N.A. just a

quirk of genetic history, or is there a serious side to this
inheritance? What, if anything, have Neanderthals done for
?us

Ed Green and his team are looking closer at the sections of

.Neanderthal D.N.A. that we inherited

ED GREEN: One obvious follow up question is what is the

impact of Neanderthal genetic contribution into people
?today

NARRATOR: Most of the genes they examine don't have any

known function, but then the team finds something
intriguing: Neanderthal D.N.A. in locations fundamental to

~ 45 ~
our immune system, involving genes that are vital to our
.ability to fight off disease

These areas are called human leukocyte antigens or H.L.A.s.

They make the cells that attack viruses and bacteria. Since
Neanderthals lived in Ice Age Europe for hundreds of
thousands of years, their immune systems must have been
specially adapted to fight off the diseases there. This was
something that modern humans, arriving from Africa, didn't
.have

JOHN HAWKS: It's absolutely a survival tool k it. H.L.A. types

.are important because they help our body resist disease

ED GREEN: Our ancestors, when they came into the

Neanderthal range, were, for the first time, encountering
this environment. Our immune systems would not be adept
.at recognizing and fighting pathogens new to us

JOHN HAWKS: So it's very clear that one product of this

interaction was the inheritance of immune system versions
.of genes

ED GREEN: Maybe they confer some selective advantage.

Maybe Neanderthals have a version of these immune
system genes that were beneficial for the Neanderthal, and
they were beneficial to the human people who got these
.genes by interbreeding

NARRATOR: This is the Epstein-Barr virus, linked to both

mononucleosis and a type of blood cancer. Ed Green's team

~ 46 ~
found that an H.L.A. we inherited from Neanderthals could
reduce the risk of contracting this deadly virus. But this may
.be just the tip of the iceberg

JOHN HAWKS: As we look more and more at the Neanderthal

genome and characterize what things are where, I think
.we're going to find more of these

NARRATOR: It seems the Neanderthals who mated with our

human ancestors may have given their offspring a lifesaving
legacy, a legacy that is potentially saving lives, even to this
.day

The genetic and archaeological evidence is still unfolding,

but already it is telling us something profound. The
Neanderthal story goes to the heart of who we are today.
We're finding out we owe a debt to a mysterious, longvanished branch of the human family, in ways we are only
.just beginning to discover