Re: paleonet Neanderthals were not stupid, just a bit anti-social

[John Jackson <strangetruther@xxxxxxxxx>]

I thought that was what most people thought for years.
 I can't remember if Douglas Adams wrote his story of
hairdressers and middle-men before the evidence was
available, but I think he could have been influenced. 
I've sometimes wondered what it is about humans that
made them the travelling salespersons and fashion
slaves we are.  I'm sure I'm not like that.  ?

For anyone interested in The Symbolic Species who
hasn't the time to read it, I spent one summer writing
a condensed version of it.  Please feel free to make
that pointless endeavour worthwhile:

http://www.geocities.com/strangetruther/symbspecsmenu.html

Cheers,

JJ



--- Joe Cooper <joe0727@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Neanderthals were not stupid, just a bit anti-social
> IAN JOHNSTON
>  SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT 
> "CRUDE, boorish and slow- witted" - even
> dictionaries give Neanderthals a
> hard time. But our prehistoric cousins were in
> reality just as smart as we
> are and did not die out as a result of a lack of
> brain power, according to
> a new archaeological study. 
> 
> Until now, the leading theory of why the
> Neanderthals disappeared has been
> that a lack of intelligence meant they were less
> efficient hunters. 
> 
> But a team of US archaeologists believe they met
> their evolutionary end
> because of a failure to maintain social links with
> other groups, unlike
> modern humans, who travelled widely, making the
> friends who would help them
> during hard times. 
> 
> Working in the Caucasus region of modern-day
> Georgia, the scientists
> discovered evidence of highly skilled hunting
> behaviour by the Neanderthals
> that required an understanding of yearly animal
> migration patterns and the
> planning of traps to catch them. 
> 
> But they also found there was a crucial difference
> between Neanderthals and
> homo sapiens. The Neanderthals tended to be
> anti-social, staying in small
> hunter-gatherer groups, while the sapiens were
> "routinely" travelling
> distances of 60 miles and meeting other groups. 
> 
> This meant that if an area became hunted out or a
> more powerful rival took
> over, the Neanderthals had no-one to turn to while
> the modern humans did. 
> 
> Dr Dan Adler, of Connecticut University, who led the
> study, which appeared
> in the journal Current Anthropology, said: "Any
> individual Neanderthal, I
> don't imagine, knew more than 20, 30 or 50 people.
> That's by virtue of the
> fact they didn't get around as much. Maybe they
> didn't want to. Modern
> humans seem to get around a lot. They were routinely
> covering distances of
> at least 100km. 
> 
> "If you find yourself in an area where the resources
> just aren't there any
> more - it's a bad season or you have killed all the
> game - you need to move
> into another territory where other people are. If
> you don't know them the
> chances are they are not going to like that. Modern
> humans would have known
> these people." 
> 
> Neanderthals seem to have had little interest in
> their appearance, compared
> to modern humans, a sign that group identity was not
> something they
> considered to be important. 
> 
> "We have no indication that Neanderthals really paid
> much attention to who
> other people were and they didn't try to signal to
> other people who they
> were," Dr Adler said. 
> 
> "Modern humans were obsessed with this. They were
> spending a lot of time
> and energy on how they looked. They cared more about
> how they looked and
> were more style conscious." 
> 
> However, this lack of fashion sense should not
> reflect badly on their
> intelligence, Dr Adler said. 
> 
> "It's fairly clear that Neanderthals were pretty
> smart. They could hunt
> just as well [as modern humans] and they had expert
> knowledge about the
> environment," he said. 
> 
> "Put you and a Neanderthal in the woods and the
> latter would probably
> survive a lot longer. 
> 
> "It's within the social realm where modern humans
> have an advantage. I
> think they knew more people and lived a richer life
> in terms of cultural
> contact than the Neanderthals did. But they were
> both smart."
> 
> Related topic
> 
> 
> 
> Joe Cooper
> joe0727@earthlink.net
> Why Wait?  Move to EarthLink.
> 
> 
> 
> 


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