Neandertals and the Black Swan

Abstract

Neandertals have long been considered remarkably different from modern humans, to the point that most con-sider them a species apart from us. Yet, recent research shows they had many of the same cultural features used to define modernity, such as art and personal ornaments, and, while morphologically different, their behavior be-comes more modern-like with each passing year. We now know they also interbred with moderns and their east-ern relatives, the Denisovans. In many respects these recent discoveries were unanticipated and represent what Taleb calls black swans. A survey of assertions about Neandertals and the subsequent discoveries overturning them should be a lesson for paleoanthropologists when thinking and hypothesizing about their Neandertal cousins.