Who are you calling a Neanderthal?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Who are you calling a Neanderthal?" on Unexplainable by Vox

Release Date: May 5, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Who are you calling a Neanderthal?" the Vox podcast Unexplainable delves deep into the historical and scientific perceptions of Neanderthals. Hosted by Noam Hassenfeld, Julia Longoria, Byrd Pinkerton, and Meradith Hoddinott, the episode explores how cultural biases and scientific misinterpretations have shaped our understanding of these ancient relatives.

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Historical Perceptions of Neanderthals

The conversation begins with a light-hearted reference to Neanderthals through the lens of popular culture, specifically citing the familiar Geico caveman commercials. Host 2 remarks, “Neanderthals weren’t less intelligent than early modern humans, or, you know, just Neanderthals weren't stupid, essentially” (03:08). This sets the stage for a critical examination of the longstanding stereotypes associated with Neanderthals.

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Marcelin Boulle and the Birth of the "Brutish Neanderthal" Image

The hosts introduce Paige Madison, a science writer whose PhD thesis focused on the perception of Neanderthals. Madison explains, “there's a very strong reason why we tend to think of Neanderthals as these kind of brutish, dumb, lesser Homo sapiens” (03:53).

The episode recounts the story of Marcelin Boulle, a French scientist in the early 20th century, who misinterpreted a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. Boulle described the Neanderthal as “hunched over brutes that were so dumb that they couldn't even really stand up straight” (03:08), a depiction that was widely propagated by newspapers and entrenched the negative stereotype of Neanderthals in public consciousness.

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Scientific Biases and Craniometry

Host 2 contextualizes Boulle’s interpretation within the broader scientific paradigms of the 19th and early 20th centuries. “When Europeans first got interested in Neanderthal skulls,...people were also getting into sort of craniometry,” Host 2 explains (06:51). Craniometry, the measurement of skull features, was then a prevalent but flawed method used to assert racial hierarchies and intelligence levels based on physical characteristics.

Paige Madison elaborates, “the differences are minuscule, and they are certainly not meaningful in terms of intellect and cognition” (08:16), highlighting that the scientific community erroneously used skull morphology to justify preconceived notions of superiority and primitiveness.

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Shifting Perspectives Post-World War II

The hosts discuss how the discrediting of craniometry, particularly after its association with Nazi ideology, initiated a reevaluation of Neanderthal characteristics. Madison notes, “all of these factors kind of lining up that suddenly the earlier ideas about Neanderthals just didn't make as much sense” (10:10). This shift allowed for a more nuanced understanding of Neanderthals, challenging the previously held beliefs of their inferiority.

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Contemporary Understanding and Cultural Context

As the conversation progresses, the focus shifts to the present-day implications of cultural context on scientific interpretations. Host 1 poses a critical question: “how do we know if what we think of Neanderthals right now is right or anything is right if we're not sure about the water we're swimming in?” (11:12).

Paige Madison responds thoughtfully, “It's a little bit like holding a mirror up to ourselves” (13:52), emphasizing that our interpretations often reflect our own societal biases more than the subjects of our study.

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Strategies to Mitigate Bias in Science

To address these biases, Madison suggests broadening the scope of questions posed to avoid preconceived limitations. “If you find artwork in a cave and you assume that artwork is something that only Homo sapiens have done...you just ask who did this in a more open way” (14:08).

Additionally, paleoanthropologist Helene Rougier offers practical advice: “one of the main things that scientists can do is to look for evidence that doesn't fit what they'll assume they'll find and kind of zero in on that” (14:47). This approach encourages scientists to actively seek out and consider data that challenges their initial hypotheses, fostering a more objective and accurate understanding.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with reflections on the difficulty of completely eliminating cultural biases from scientific research. Host 1 acknowledges, “it feels like easier said than done” (16:19), underscoring the ongoing challenge of achieving unbiased science. The discussion wraps up with acknowledgments to contributors and a nod to future episodes.

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Notable Quotes

• Host 2 (03:08): “Neanderthals weren’t less intelligent than early modern humans, or, you know, just Neanderthals weren't stupid, essentially.”

• Paige Madison (03:53): “There's a very strong reason why we tend to think of Neanderthals as these kind of brutish, dumb, lesser Homo sapiens.”

• Paige Madison (08:16): “The differences are minuscule, and they are certainly not meaningful in terms of intellect and cognition.”

• Paige Madison (13:52): “It's a little bit like holding a mirror up to ourselves.”

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Unexplainable offers a compelling examination of how scientific interpretations are often influenced by the cultural and social contexts of their times. By dissecting the historical misrepresentations of Neanderthals and exploring strategies to mitigate bias, the podcast encourages listeners to critically evaluate the information presented to them and recognize the underlying factors that shape our understanding of the past.

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Produced by Byrd Pinkerton. Edited by Meredith Hodinott with assistance from Jorge Just Mera. Music by Noam Hassenfeld. Mixing and sound design by Christian Ayala. Fact-checking by Melissa Hirsch and Julia Longoria. Special thanks to Brian Resnik for co-creating the show.

Transcript

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[Host 1]

Today on Unexplainable, we've got a big announcement.

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[Host 1]

This is unexplainable.

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[Susan Ettlinger]

Unexplainable.

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Expanding.

[Host 2]

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Listen closely and you can even hear it multiply.

[Host 2]

Unexplainable.

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Suddenly, from one, there are more Unexplainable. Twice a week, many unexplainable follow for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

[Host 2]

All right.

[Host 1]

Hello, Bird.

[Host 2]

Hello. No, what are we.

[Host 1]

What are we talking about?

[Host 2]

Okay, so as you know, we recently did a whole episode on Neanderthals.

[Host 1]

Neanderthals.

[Host 2]

Neanderthals. But what you might not know is how to pronounce Neanderthals. What you might not know is that I also went on kind of a. I guess like a side quest is the best way to describe it for that episode. So I was talking to a bunch of different people sort of about how we'd perceived Neanderthals over time, essentially. Okay, so if I were to ask you sort of what the classic view of Neanderthals was, what would you say?

[Host 1]

Oh, my brain immediately goes to the Geico commercial. I think it's so easy to use.

[Advertiser 3]

Geico.Com, a caveman could do it.

[Host 2]

Yeah, I think that's a good example, actually, because the whole joke of those commercials is that, you know, you have so easy. A caveman can do It. And then you have a guy who looks a lot like our classic image of a Neanderthal, right? Being like, what? What do you mean?

[Host 1]

Like, I'm super competent, walking upright, discovering fire.

[Host 2]

But it turns out that these commercials, like, kind of have a point. Like there are headlines about how Neanderthals weren't less intelligent than early modern humans, or, you know, just Neanderthals weren't stupid, essentially.

[Host 1]

Were these articles written by the caveman from geic?

[Host 2]

No, it's just a coincidence that the byline is H. Neanderthalensis. But so I was reading through these various articles about Neanderthal intelligence and I started to wonder essentially, why do we think they're stupid? Like, where did this idea even come from to begin with?

[Paige Madison]

And it turns out there's a really deep past to that. There's a very strong reason why we tend to think of Neanderthals as these kind of brutish, dumb, lesser Homo sapiens.

[Host 2]

So I reached out to Paige Madison, who's a science writer, but she also wrote her PhD thesis on our perception of Neanderthals. And she says that there's this kind of a common story that a lot of people point to to explain why we think Neanderthals are dumb. And it starts with this anthropologist, paleontologist, geologist guy named Marcellin Boulle.

[Paige Madison]

And so as the story goes, this French scientist, Marceline Boulle, misinterpreted a Neanderthal skeleton.

[Host 2]

So this was the early 20th century and people had, had been kind of digging up bits and pieces of Neanderthals for a while. But this time some diggers had found a more complete skeleton in France and they sent this Neanderthal skeleton to Boulle, who was at the Natural History Museum in Paris.

[Paige Madison]

He got ahold of one of the first really complete specimens and he took a look at it and decided that these were these hunched over brutes that were so dumb that they couldn't even really stand up straight.

[Host 2]

And again, as the story goes, this is what people ran with. Like newspapers spread Bull's version of Neanderthals and that's how it became sort of the dominant perception. And then decades later, in the late 1950s, people reexamine the skeletons and we're essentially like, so this is the skeleton of an old man with arthritis. Okay? So like this is kind of the equivalent of basically like if someone were trying to figure out, like, what were people like in the 21st century and they only looked at like the skeleton of one old man.

[Host 1]

Or like if someone Found like Shaq skeleton, you'd be like, oh, yeah, humans. They're all like, seven feet tall.

[Host 2]

Exactly. So this Boole story is. It's compelling, right? And it is true that Boole did publish this paper in the early 1900s, that his vision of the arthritic Neanderthal was republished by newspapers. Right. It did contribute to the narrative that Neanderthals were stupid. But Page says that his image of the sort of brutish Neanderthal is actually just one part of a much larger story here.

[Paige Madison]

Boole didn't create this image alone. It was more of a confluence of factors that happened all around the same time.

[Host 2]

She says instead of looking at sort of one scientist, it's actually more interesting to kind of look at the scientific waters that he was swimming in. And her contention is that those scientific waters were actually already assuming essentially, that Neanderthals were brutish and boorish and stupid at the time.

[Host 1]

Interesting.

[Host 2]

So essentially, like, when Europeans first got interested in Neanderthal skulls, like. Like the middle of the 1800s, people were also getting into sort of craniometry. You know, what. What craniometry is, right?

[Host 1]

That's like the. The skull measuring thing that I guess the Nazis. I tend to associate with the Nazis, which I guess is later. But the idea is they would measure skull sizes of various ethnic groups, and they would say that, oh, we can determine your ethnic group based on the shape and size of your skull, and that correlates with how smart you are or how good of a person you are or how much you deserve to live.

[Host 2]

Right. And I guess, to be sort of abundantly clear here, right. Like, we do now know that skull measuring is not a useful way of understanding people's mental capacity or their other traits. Right. But if we go back to the 19th century, this logic was really popular. Right. Like, a lot of scientists had bought into this. And so they would look at, for example, brow ridges. And so the idea was that, like, if you had a prominent brow ridge, you were somehow more primitive. And then if you had, like, a steep forehead, say, they thought your brain was more developed. And so scientists would argue that, like, Europeans were superior because their foreheads were steeper.

[Paige Madison]

And again, these are features that we know. First of all, those differences are minuscule, and they are certainly not meaningful in terms of intellect and cognition. But at the time, they were seen as incredibly meaningful and a way that you could differentiate these different groups.

[Host 2]

And Neanderthal skulls, as they were digging them up, they kind of fit perfectly into this narrative.

[Paige Madison]

They fit in exactly the spot that these European scientists were categorizing as the lower end of human intellect and sort of the more primitive end.

[Host 2]

So basically, like, when this scientist bull, like, looks at this Neanderthal skeleton, he's kind of seeing, like, what he expects to see in the context of, like, the science leading up to this is essentially saying, like, hey, Neanderthals seem to be kind of stupid. And he's like, yeah, and they hunched too.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Paige Madison]

I think what he did was he took it one step further. So he kind of applied this brutish conception that had already existed and applied it to their posture. And so, of course, yes, that is significant. It did partially shape how we think about them, but he certainly did not invent it by any means. And it's worth mentioning, too, that the signs of arthritis on the skeleton are well recognized, and Boole probably should have been able to recognize them. I mean, there's no reason, given his training, that he wouldn't. So it kind of goes to show how our expectations can lead us towards a certain conclusion and kind of, like, push us in that direction, even when, you know, the evidence isn't quite there. And that's why you see these interpretations change over time, right. Is because there's so much else that's going into the interpretation. It's not as simple as looking at the bones and immediately knowing exactly what they meant, but that is being filtered through, you know, tons of other information, both scientific and cultural. You know, we just can't turn off that lens at any given moment.

[Host 1]

So this is like, this is just saying it's not this one scientist's fault. It's sort of like, why was everyone else around so ready to believe this? It's because everyone kind of was in the same context, right.

[Host 2]

And this idea, it's reinforced if you look at the reexamination of the skeleton that happened later on. So different historians will suggest different times for when people sort of started changing their perspective on Neanderthals and Neanderthal intelligence. But for Paige, she starts to see people rethinking things after World War II. And again, like, the Nazis were involved in this project. Right. Of skull measuring and using those measurements to justify horrific things, horrific race categorization. And so it's not that surprising to Paige as a historian that as you start to have people after the war reevaluating school measurement science, that's also when you start to see people maybe changing their perspectives or starting to change their perspectives on Neanderthals as well.

[Paige Madison]

So you just had all of these factors kind of lining up that suddenly the earlier ideas about Neanderthals just didn't make as much sense.

[Host 1]

That's fascinating. I guess the place that leaves me is just. I guess I want to. How do you. How do you change the social context? I assume you can't. And then how do you know when you're in a social context?

[Host 2]

Are you asking basically, like, what do we do about current.

[Host 1]

Yeah, like, how do we know if. How do we know if what we think of Neanderthals right now is right or anything is right if we're not sure about the water we're swimming in?

[Host 2]

Yeah, I mean, great question. Stay tuned.

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[Susan Ettlinger]

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[Host 2]

So before the break, you basically asked, like, how do we know we're not being misled by our own cultural context, right? And we asked Paige this question. She was essentially like, yeah, we live in a society, you know, like inevitably we're going to have some degree of our cultural moment acting as the lens that we see through. And she even said that, you know, some scholars say that our ideas about Neanderthals have often said more about us than they have about Neanderthals.

[Paige Madison]

It's a little bit like holding a mirror up to ourselves.

[Host 2]

But she also says that there are ways to try and kind of avoid this trap. Okay, so one way that she describes is just keeping your questions really broad.

[Paige Madison]

So, for example, if you find artwork in a cave and you assume that artwork is something that only Homo sapiens have done and that Neanderthals were not capable of it, then you never even ask that question. You just ask which Homo sapiens did this and when. But if the worldview has changed and you come into a cave and you see that there's art in there, you can then ask who did this in a more open way. And that's something I work with, with scientists a lot, is just thinking about the ways that just their starting points, their questions, have already either opened or closed certain possibilities.

[Host 2]

And then I also talked to a paleoanthropologist named Helene Rougier. So she is, like, actively studying early modern humans and Neanderthals. And I asked her basically, like, how do you avoid having your cultural assumptions color your science? Right? And she said that one of the main things that scientists can do is to look for evidence that doesn't fit what they'll assume they'll find and kind of zero in on that.

[Host 1]

Like, specifically, look for things that contradict your expectations.

[Host 2]

Or, like, if you see them, don't dismiss them. Right. So she gave me this really basic example from her work, kind of where she was looking through a cave and she found some bones, and she sent them out to be carbon dated. And when they came back, they were younger than she expected them to be. And she said that she could have just dismissed it, right? She could have said, that's not possible. There must have been contamination at the lab or something like, forget about these bones. But instead, she kind of zeroed in on these surprising dates and ended up realizing that her initial assumptions about who had lived in this cave and when they'd lived there just hadn't been right. And so this is a really small example, but it's part of that overall thesis she has, that one of the few ways that you can kind of check your biases is to look for pieces of evidence that don't fit with your biases and then take those pieces of evidence seriously.

[Host 1]

Interesting. I mean, that does feel. I gotta say, it feels like easier said than done.

[Host 2]

I mean, if I were gonna make a GEICO commercial for science, it would be science. So difficult. Perhaps even a Neanderthal, despite all of its, you know, potential sophistication and intelligence, might have difficulty doing it.

[Host 1]

Oh my God.

[Host 2]

And that's why I don't work in advertising. Paige Madison is a science writer who wrote a journal article on this topic, and she's writing an upcoming book on human origins. This episode was produced by Me Bird Pinkerton. It was edited by Meredith Hodnot with help from Jorge Just Mera also runs the show. Noam Hassenfeld writes the music. Christian Ayala does our mixing and our sound design. Melissa Hirsch check the facts. Julia Longoria is the fact that glass frogs can have transparent skin. And as always, we are grateful to Brian Resnik for co creating the show. This was our first ever Monday episode. Do you have thoughts about how it went? Do you have ideas for future Monday episodes? Write in to [e-mail] if you want to support our show and help us keep making it, please join our membership program. That'[e-mail] members vox.com members. You can also support us by leaving us a nice review or a rating or just by telling people in your life to listen. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and we will be back on Wednesday.