Brain Scans Reveal a Surprise About Neanderthal Intelligence
By Carly Cassella
Published on April 28, 2026.
A study by an international team of anthropologists has found that while Neanderthals went extinct due to our brains, modern humans were more intelligent. The researchers compared brain scans from two populations in the US and China to show that regional volume differences in modern humans are greater than those between Neanderthal and us. The volume differences that separate Neanderthal from modern human brains are extremely small. If these differences are considered cognitively and evolutionarily relevant, they would also need to be considered as neuroanatomical differences between modern human populations. However, cognitive ability is only weakly associated with modern humans. The study was published in PNAS.
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