Neanderthals Were As Smart As Us

[indigobusiness]

Neanderthals were a lot more intelligent than they looked
By Roger Dobson
06 January 2002


Neanderthals were not dumb, lumbering idiots after all. New evidence suggests that they had considerable technical and intellectual skills, as well as ingenuity, to put them on a par with modern humans.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp
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mirrored here:


Neanderthals Were As Smart As Us
09-Jan-2002


New research reveals that Neanderthals, who first appeared around 230,000 to 300,000 years ago, were not dumb, but had the technical and intellectual skills to put them on an equal basis with modern humans. They were capable of making sophisticated tools using a kind of prehistoric superglue that had to be made at a precise temperature.
“This finding demonstrates that the Neanderthals must have possessed a high degree of technical and manual abilities, comparable to those of modern Homo sapiens,” says Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “It would further show that the behavior gap between us and Neanderthals is narrower than we thought. Some may say there isn’t a gap.” The new finding means that Neanderthals did not disappear because they were inferior to our ancestors.

The research centers on a new analysis of two samples of blackish-brown pitch discovered in a lignite open-mining pit in the foothills of the Harz mountains in Germany. Their geological location suggests they are more than 80,000 years old. One of the pitch pieces bears the print of a finger and there are also imprints of a flint stone tool and wood, suggesting that the pitch acted as glue, to attach a wooden shaft to a flint stone blade.

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.........Neanderthal........

“Today, comparable pitches can easily be produced with modern technical methods, like airtight laboratory flasks and temperature control facilities,” say the researchers. “However, any attempt at simulating the conditions of the Neanderthal period and at producing these birch pitches without any of these modern facilities will soon be met with many difficulties. This implies that the Neanderthals did not come across these pitches by accident but must have produced them with intent. Conscious action is, however, always a clear sign of considerable technical capabilities. The pitch finds demonstrate that the Neanderthals must have possessed a high degree of technical and manual abilities, comparable to those of modern Homo sapiens.”

Stringer says, “They are not the shambling half-wits they were sometimes portrayed as. It is potentially a very important find. It implies quite high technical ability. They also buried their dead. All this does make it more of a problem to explain why we are here and not them.”

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=1143

[Goldeneye]

1. Thanks for posting this.

I'm in Anthropology right now and last week we were discussing neanderthals and their relationship to modern humans. Some evidence indicates that they may have even been a subspecies of homo sapians. (This may not be news at all...but I know next to nothing about Anthropology other than what I've learned in the last 3 weeks of class.) I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this.

[indigobusiness]

4. There a number of threads here

along this line. Just dig back a page or two in this forum and you will find many links.

If you are just starting, you are in for some fascinating study.

Neanderhals are a distinctly different species. The evidence for this is interesting and worth pursuing.

[ret5hd]

2. maybe the bush family exterminated them...

for their pitch fields.

[CindyDale]

3. Well, IMO, all life is intelligent in its own way

It's just our egocentricism that makes us think we are so superior. We may be smart at some things, but not at others.

One of my dogs always says she could do absolutely anything I do if she only had thumbs. :-)

[indigobusiness]

5. Tell your dog

she can already follow a scent trail better than all of us put together.

[vpigrad]

6. And most of us here thought they were all stupid...

after watching the antics of our idiot neanderthal president.

[NickofTime]

7. Still With Us?

They're all Republicans now! They couldn't make because they didn't believe in cooperating with others, just like Karl Rove.

[Solon]

8. Remember its not always the most intelligent...

species that wins out in the evolutionary race, it could simply have been that we were more agressive, or bred faster that eventually wiped them out.

[smirkymonkey]

9. And much, much smarter than our Pretzeldent!

More refined too. :evilgrin: