“We don’t know that their compassion is exactly the same thing that early humans had. But at the broadest level, in the connection to others, the ability to extend ourselves beyond our own skin, Neanderthals would have shared that,” said archaeologist Penny Spikins of the University of York.

Wired.com talked to Spikins, co-author of The Prehistory of Compassion, about the feelings of humanity’s closest non-living relative.

Wired.com: What do you think Neanderthals felt?

Penny Spikins:: We see compassion in our nearest living relatives, chimpanzees. They can see what others are feeling, and do something about it.

We can be pretty sure that Neanderthals could also feel the distress of someone else, and want to make it better in the moment. But beyond that, we have examples of Neanderthals looking after each other. That means they could not only feel someone’s distress, but think through how they wanted to help. We’re not saying that Neanderthal compassion was just like ours, but in some important ways, they had it.

Wired.com: What’s the evidence?

Spikins:: We look in the archaeological record for evidence of individuals who were sick, and not able to care for themselves. We see that in early Homo, and by the time we get to Neanderthals, that kind of record becomes much more extensive.

Take the “Old Man of Shanidar.” He had had degenerative deformities in the base of his legs, would have had difficulty walking, and had a crushing injury to his cranium, so he was probably blind in his left eye. The bones show those injuries occurred when he was adolescent, and he lived to 40. He was probably looked after for 25 to 30 years, which implies that it wasn’t just one person looking after him, but several.

Most of our Neanderthal skeletons show some evidence of having been looked after for their injuries. And in the age of Neanderthals, you also start to see evidence of deliberate burials and funerary rites. That means a shared feeling.

Wired.com:Evolutionary biologists sometimes frame collaborative behaviors as a strategy for propagating genes, and compassion as an adaptation for fostering collaboration. It can feel very reductionist.

Spikins: From an evolutionary standpoint, collaboration works, and we’re deeply collaborative as a species. It was a key part of our success, and would have an emotional motivation behind it. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that compassion can be humbling, or inspiring. There are good evolutionary reasons for compassion, but that doesn’t make it less.

Wired.com: Compassion seems to begin in modern humans about 120,000 years ago, but estimates of its emergence in Neanderthals are much less precise — it could have been 40,000 years ago, or 500,000. Does that mean Neanderthals could have been compassionate before we were? Could humans have learned from them?

Spikins: It’s possible that Neanderthals were more caring and cooperative than humans were at the same time. There’s just no way of knowing.

Image: Michael Hofreiter and Kurt Fiusterweier, MPG EVA.

See Also::

• Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion
• Altruism’s Bloody Roots
• Neanderthal Genome Shows Most Humans Are Cavemen
• Neanderthal Babies: Fast-Growing and Cute
• Neanderthals Not Dumb, but Made Dull Gadgets
• If Climate Didn’t Doom Neanderthals, Did Humans?

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on an ecological tipping point project.

Authors: Brandon Keim

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