 Originally Posted by MoonSylver
I've heard it theorized that one reason may be that even though there weren't the stereotypical "cave man" as far as intelligence goes that one thing their brains may not have been wired for like the cro-mag's was imagination.
The idea being that imagination is a survival trait that we adapted. It allows one to "improvise, adapt, & overcome". It's planning & strategic, long term thinking.
The example they gave was large bird egg shells that had been made into water storage vessels & buried in the ground. To do that requires one to imagine a future in which you might NOT have access to water & to creatively come up with the idea to fabricate a storage container & stash it for later, the kind of thinking it was suggested that the neanderthals might not have been capable of.
For them, it's suggested it was the here & now, you did things they way you'd always done them, & that was it. So supposedly in the face of rapidly changing weather, food, resources, etc they just couldn't change with it based on this.
Like I said, you know a lot more about this stuff than me, but if I got it right, it's an interesting thought. That all of this creativity & imagination, the ability to wonder & puzzle & ponder which at many times can be as much of a curse & a torment as a blessing, could have been a mere evolutionary survival trait, the very one that allowed us to thrive & flourish where the others failed.
i've heard that theory as well and i think it holds a lot of water. neanderthals were very close to modern humans (they share between 99.5 and 99.8% of our DNA) and while they had speech and higher thought (neanderthals were the first hominids to bury their dead and show some sort of reverence/memory for the dead and that alone suggests some serious higher brain activity), they lacked in the ability to improvise on the spot.
the one problem with that theory is that there is evidence that neanderthals were imitating the cro-magnons. after the arrival of modern humans in western europe, there is a change in neanderthal behaviors. they seem to have been watching and mimicking what they saw modern humans doing ;remember modern humans and neanderthals shared europe for over 15,000 years. in some ways, the imitation makes perfect sense when you consider the awe the neanderthals must've held for cro-magnons, humans who regularly grew to be over 6ft 3 or 4 in height when the neanderthals were like 5 ft 3.
if i had a time machine and a universal translator my first stop would be about 40,000 years when neanderthals and cro-magnons (i hate calling them that since they were fully modern homo sapiens, but it makes it easier for reference sake) first came into contact. i bet the neanderthal reaction was something akin to "holy fuck! look at the size of them."
language is another thing that makes me think. while i am a historian, my wife is a philologist. a philologist is an expert on language, its comparative nature and the way grammar works in language. we are both of the opinion that certain words, common and similar to all indo-european languages, were probably present in the language that the cro-magnons spoke. chief among them would be the words - mother, father, one, ten, in, and on. they wouldn't sound like the english words but after a bit of listening, you'd get it. sort of like if you compare english "father" with latin "pater", german "vater", norwegian "far" or english "mother" with latin "mater", german "mutter" and norwegian "mor." the relationship would become obvious.
this all leads me back to something i said earlier: if you ever get a chance to participate in DNA study, do it. i've been around and among academics for many years now and that's how i ended giving up some DNA. i've had both my celluar DNA, which you inherit from both parents and mitochondrial DNA sequenced as parts of larger studies. funny the things you can discover. while my cellular DNA, from both parents, had every marker on it that i was descended and/or from the british isles, my mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from your mother (and therefore allows family relationships to be charted over immense periods of time) indicates, nay screamed out "italian" when it was sequenced. i shared a common ancestor with one other person in the study 1,500 -2,000 years ago (he/she remains anonymous as is his/her right but whoever he/she is lives in the north of england, where my family came from before emigrating to america). i was disappointed when the other person choose to remain under the radar because for whatever strange reason, i'd love to meet them. i'd be willing to bet a large amount of money that if the mitochondrial DNA of the 100 or so most active members on this board were sequenced, common female ancestors would start showing up relatively soon, time wise. maybe 1,000-2,000 years apart, hell might even be sooner.
though 2,000 years is nothing. mitochondrial DNA studies have established links, common female ancestors, among people as far back as 35,000 years.
this all reminds of something else i've pondered over many a bowl in my life: we are the sum total of everyone who has come before us. the cro-magnons we've been discussing, if you are from europe you are carrying part of them with you in your DNA. every single direct ancestor back to your great times whatever grandparent is present inside you in some way and is still alive. since i have children, i find that a somewhat comforting thought...
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