I think not, Homo Sapiens just starves better, Neanderthal superior athleticism came at a huge calorie cost, so when preys became rarer Neanderthal starved faster than Sapiens.
Did neanderthals have this capacity? I don't know. But if their psychology did not facilitate large scale collaboration, a violent human tribe killing a bunch of them now and again would explain some part why they disappeared.
I'm not saying a human tribe hunted them - just that a violent human tribe would attack all hominids around them.
And if the Neanderthals did not have this capacity for mass violence, in time these conflicts would dwindle their numbers.
That we know of. They might completely have complex language using different mediums (infra sounds, vibrations, movements, smells, etc.).
Now, from what I've learned/read about their behaviours, I have no doubt on the depth of their lives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition#Elephant_so...
And I wouldn't call that "some sort of language". That's language. Species-specific. Not "human" language.
Even language that another species can grasp more or less perfectly. You can get that with minimal observation of dogs, cats, even birds. And obviously, animals read us as well.
Now, the complexity of an other species language may be partially out of reach because we do not have the same senses, abilities, history, memories.
So they might even engage in activities we cannot grasp or identify (and reciprocally) but for great patience, observation, study, understanding, and luck.
Kind of makes me think if we ever were to encounter extraterrestrial intelligence we might have trouble identifying them as intelligent, or, have trouble communicating with them, because we have trouble identifying and communicating with the terrestrial intelligence that surrounds us and is abundant.
Where No Wolf Has Gone Before.
This happened in a remarkably short period of time, and the running theory is that early dogs with more expressiveness were better cared for and received by human societies than similar dogs that were less expressive.
I agree that there may be a lot happening in this world we're unable to perceive, and then your whole argument can be summarized as "anything is possible, we don't really know for sure".
Which I now see is why scientists insist on sticking to things that can be measured, proven and quantified. Anything else is drifting into the territory of religion, superstition and imagination. Humans have been known to worship certain animals as supreme gods after all.
No. Science is a mean to an end, not an end in itself. And intuition, an open mind, imagination help a lot, without drifting into superstition.
Read some history, you'll find out that a lot of scientific (and engineering) discoveries were triggered by imagination servicing some more rational/rigorous practices.
I don't think that's what they mean when they say imagination: imagining things we can not imagine. And science starts with real imagination, then move on to practical, measurable applications.
See what i mean about pointless philosophical arguments?
Now, clearly humans have been able to adapt our intelligence to uses far beyond the behaviours it evolved to support. Our ancestors 50,000 years ago had more or less the same brains we do. Nevertheless their behaviours were highly complex. They broadly did what we do, crating art, manufacturing artefacts from multiple processed materials, ornamentation, social rituals such as burials. We just take those behaviours a lot further.
To argue that whales might have sophisticated intellectual capabilities, you’d need to show what behaviours they exhibit that require them. Otherwise that intelligence would serve no evolutionary purpose and might actually be a survival disadvantage. See the cognitive trade off hypothesis.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Cognitive-Tradeoff-hypothe...
But fascinatingly, those neurons aren't evenly distributed, and in fact humans have far more neurons in the cerebral cortex than elephants. Their extra neuron count is almost all in the cerebellum. Primates are skewed towards the forebrain, but elephants are far more cerebellum-heavy than e.g. rodents, which implies that a lot of their extra brainpower is being 'spent' on operating their larger bodies.
By forebrain neuron count, humans are beaten only by pilot whales - and all of the other close contenders are also cetaceans. No one quite seems to know why pilot whales have twice the neocortical neurons humans do, but it's still the number that tracks best with observed intelligence.
http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/the-paradox-of-the-elep...
You know how they say that insult “smooth brain”
We have more neuron surface area and thats how we pack a punch in intelligence ive heard...
Neuron count in the cerebral cortex seems to predict intelligence better than total neuron count (e.g. putting humans ahead of elephants, and chimps ahead of giraffes), with only one odd case (pilot whales) beating humans. So if we lost overall capacity but retained most or all of our cerebral cortex size, the change might be explained.
(Full disclosure: a quick look says most primate brains are right near 26% cerebral cortex, while humans are around 18%. It's possible intermediate hominids were even lower, but without knowing why the difference exists I can hardly assert that.)
When the cold hit they ran out of options and resources quicker, they simply didn't have the required knowledge of how to survive.
Then why didn't the smart and strong Neanderthal males mate with the sexy Sapiens females?
In practice I don't think we have the sort of baseline sample it would take to work out which mitochondrial genes are neanderthal-derived. I suppose it might be possible to rebuild that list by looking at high-admixture populations and seeing where their mitochondrial DNA differs, then use that aggregate to compare an individual's mDNA to their DNA and see if it's is "more Neanderthal" (i.e. female line) or "more Sapiens" (i.e. male line)?
But realistically, I'm betting the answer is "admixture happened a bunch of times in a row, with different hominid groups in different places, even if there was a gender skew it's a mess that's impossible to discern".
That is, sperm have just one mitochondrion, and they almost always dump it as part of fertilization.
But not always, so there is nonzero male contribution of mitochondrial genes.
(Plot- the smartest people stop reproducing, only lower rings of society have kids. An average guy wakes up hundreds of years in the future and is a genius)