Apparently we Aspies are Neanderthals... (read inside)

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It's okay.
I'm just a bit tired that every time I mention something, someone looks way into it and on-automatic they say something controversial to go with it when it'd be looking too far deep. An example would be this and white supremacy, another would be the Beauty and the Beast legend (Disney did not come up with it) and screaming bestiality. Of course, I have a lot of bad experience with this, so I'm a bit over-reactive and such.

Besides, humanity defines superiority to suit themselves anyway. Who really is anyone to define what being superior is? Humans have the superior intelligence, yes. But can we carry 200x our own weight like bumblebees can? Do we have all the immunities to every disease ever evolved like sharks do? Will we survive as long as termites and ants will? No.
Heck, personally I don't believe humans are superior to animals to begin with, so saying one race or one "type" of human is superior to the other is plain baloney to me to the point that just merely mentioning it is like mentioning a flat-earth theory when it comes to studying astronomy in the same way.

Err... If you understand what I mean.

If I really believed in the whole Neanderthal thing, I'd make the argument that since they weren't the effective-hunter type, they'd likely be the effective-farmer type. This would be even BETTER survival vs. hunting luck.

"Modern humans" would have seen rows of crops and penned animals as a juicy target for a raid. Ba$tards.

During the ice age hunting and gathering was probably more convenient.
And the theory goes mainly with the Basque, southern Britain and Ireland, which points more towards fishermen, which isn't hunting or farming persay. In fact, it takes a lot of patience and navigational skill and navigational skills are almost synonymous with math.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/program ... mary.shtml

I saw this program. Neanderthals were not dumb, they had some intelligence clearly, however the archaeology doesn't suggest that they were smarter that humans. Simply having a slightly bigger brain isn't definitive evidence. But ultimately what is considered 'smart' is open to debate anyway. The fact is they weren't capable of adapting to the changing environment in their current form and homosapiens have (so far).

The assimilation theory is an interesting one but I see it as a separate study to that of autism being related to other pre-Neolithic human groups. I believe in Neurodiversity and always will. But realistically what does a non verbal ‘lower functioning’ autistic person got to do with a Neanderthal who lived in small groups and ambush hunted, that possibly could have spoken and produced instruments and music? Even if were true that autism was caused by a medley of Sapien and Neanderthal genes, that doesn’t necessarily offer us more clues as to what causes the range of autistic traits possible, as if somehow they would present themselves in an organised fashion. There are genetic consequences for hybridisation.

No, having a larger brain is not definitive evidence, but autism involves having a large brain, and autism is associative with genius. Also, we do not have a time machine to go back in time, so we can only theorize what killed off the Neanderthals. I could say that disease killed the Neanderthals, or that it was that they had small population that was basically forced to interbreed into the Sapiens, or that they never disappeared and everyone of European descent (or more) is part Neanderthal, with some concentrations more than others and it would be as valid as "inability to adapt."
The theory of being unable to adapt theory of extinction doesn't make sense to me, because I have trouble understanding how a native could not adapt to its own habitat but a foreigner could.


Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. Also, as I've said before, the highest concentration of neanderthal remains are in the edges of the Iberian peninsula, which suggests a fishing lifestyle. Fishing and nautical navigation = lots of math.


You have to take current scientific "facts" with a grain of salt. 20 years from now they may be proven completely wrong, and they probably will. Pick up an issue of New Scientist and you'll realize that there's constant proving and disproving of theories and what have been considered facts. If this theory is true, that means that most of our knowledge about what makes us who we are, not as autistics but as a species, is wrong.

A fishing lifestyle is not consistent with the enormous physical wear that Neanderthal skeletons show. I once had to inspect the skull of a Neanderthal man who lived all the way to his forties (nearly twice the average) and he had suffered traumatic head injuries, among other things, and this is furthermore quite common among Neanderthals. Either when they weren't fishing they were beating each other over the head with clubs or they had some more interesting extracurricular activities. Their heads, by the way, were quite large not due to intelligence, probably, but more due to the fact that a large cranium has a lower surface area to volume ratio and is thus better at retaining heat.

In my physical anthropology class we made a point about the much bulkier and less innovative neanderthal tools; I'm summarizing the general sense I get from the field (sorry for the lack of citations; you are free to doubt me), so I'm pretty sure the burden of proof is in your court on the whole tool thing, Reyairia.

Anywho, Occam's razor says, on top of the paucity of accepted evidence for the hypothesis, that we accept that neither Autism is from Neanderthals nor Basques are Neanderthals. For the latter, observe 1. H. sapiens lived in Europe from ~30K y.a. 2. Non-Basque European languages are almost all Indo European 3. Indo-European dates back to 10-15k y.a. 4. There is reason to believe that the peoples of Ireland and Iberia are largely descended from the Old Europeans, but they speak an Indo European tongue, so 5. Indo European supplanted, without genetic replacement, the native languages of Western Europe 6. Basques are closely related to the Iberians and the Irish, so 7. It is more expedient to believe that Basque simply represents the last Old European language still spoken, a direct descendant of the languages first carried out of Africa and into Europe.

I'm not saying the hypothesis is beyond the pale, but it seems theoretically superfluous.

To be fair(but i agree with you)...

There were some mighty huge non carnivorous fish up until a hundred years ago.

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/giant-sturgeon.html
http://www.fishingmagic.com/news/articl ... N=4293&v=1

and I couldnt find any online pictures of them from a hundred years ago, but when we were in the frasier river area, we saw old photos of monstrous sturgeon that dwarfed most sharks.

These critters are bottom feeders.

Hmm the geography is wrong and is somewhat of a red herring (no pun intended ). The point is there is no evidence of a fishing lifestyle. It is somewhat fanciful that a Neanderthal would regally fish giant sturgeon when it is quite a feat even with modern equipment. Lest not forget that no great ape at that point had created something like a boat and were walking everywhere as shown by the archaeological demographic picture. Their tools do not suggest fishing.

There has been early fishing equipment founds for modern human such as a harpoons made from an antlers. There isn't any equivalents for Neanderthals that I'm aware of.

To get back to Reyairia's points. Fact is Neanderthals are found on many site across Europe and the middle east, much of them are inland. There is evidence they they tended to settle on the edges of forests. It is misleading to say they were in greater number around the coast of the Iberian peninsular. There have never been found on great numbers anyway, you can't use individual digs to give you the overall population. The point is these are in the latest period of Neanderthals that have be found. In this period they are *only* ever found in the the three isolated pockets of Croatia, Iberia and Crimea. Thats support the idea that there were dispersed somewhat by modern humans as the three do no interconnect.


I'm confused by this paragraph and I don't disagree either. I don't really have a theory about Neanderthals. I only stated the assimilation idea is an interesting one...and maybe you could take you own advice, perchance?

In the case of the sturgeon(and they do appear elsewhere in the world), evidence would be bones and armour plate, but its hard to say about the persistence of those; they may be soft boned, i dont know. Other evidence of fishing must be scarce with homo sapiens as well; Twine used in netting and fishing line isnt likely to persist for 25 000 years for example.

Yet its almost certain that both groups of primitive man lived near rivers. Modern towns are still situated close to rivers if possible. Until the advent of plumbing, all water had to be hauled or used at the source. Butchering of animals would be done at the source or kill point, as is done modernly. You leave the smelly mess away from camp.

There are many ways to catch fish. One is to build up a weir with rocks and to herd fish into it, or they enter naturally as they swim upstream. The end is then closed off preventing escape. The fish can then be speared at leisure. Its much the same as a one way entrance into a cage trap. Its a technique that takes a great deal of energy to set up, but thereafter its persistent with only minor repairs.

I am simply speculating and pointing out the various ways that fishing in ancient people could be overlooked.


http://moreaboutchina.blogspot.com/2007 ... vince.html

i'm going to go with wiki here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_sea_sturgeon
http://filaman.ifm-geomar.de/Summary/Sp ... hp?id=4683

So we have sturgeon in North America, Asia, Europe and Siberia. It also seems that they appear in lakes.
http://www.agmrc.org/agmrc/commodity/aq ... rofile.htm

Because they are bottom/carrion feeders, you prepare that V entrance pen on the edge of a river, so that when they swim up the V, they are trapped. upriver and connected to the V is a solid weir of river stone. Any fish you can catch, or find are killed and unused product is placed in the weir. Sturgeon(i dont just mean the big ones) swim in to eat and you harvest them. Bones fins and scales become more bait.

10 years after your group moved on, no trace would remain. the water would either wash the weir away or a sandbar would grow there.

So its just speculation, but you can see that its entirely possible. And since its a practice known to be used throughout recorded history, and its simple in concept, we can assume that its passed down from antiquity.

again, Wikipedia, but its probably safe to trust:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_weir

I think this is just a co-incidence.

Basques have mor RH Negative blood.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22934464/wi ... ?GT1=10815
Genetic mutation makes those brown eyes blue
Scientists find that blue-eyed individuals have a single, common ancestor
By Jeanna Bryner
MSNBC

Last edited by DemocraticSocialistHun on 06 May 2008, 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

You didnt leave a link.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22934464/wi ... ?GT1=10815

So how could they find the first blue eyed person? How could they determine that s/he was the first? And HOW did it make them have more babies? If someone noticed, wouldn't they suspect some malady, etc... ESPECIALLY if it was not 100%. Could you imagine how they might react?

I thought the Basques were more Cro-magnon than neanderthal so... *shrug*

Neanderthals are probably the indigenous species of Europe and where the Alpine Celts get their red hair from.

At the time I hadn't posted the required five posts. I tried to post a link in my 6th post but could not. Finally, now I can.

Possible ancestral structure in human populations
PLoS Genetics
Vincent Plagno, Jeff D. Wall

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/inf ... en.0020105
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2006/06/ar ... human.html