The following is an edited excerpt.
Another Neandertal paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Basically [it says that] the morphology of the cranium implies that Neanderthals may have allocated more of their cognitive capacity to vision and coordination, and less to social activities (because there’s not as much room for the latter). This explains how Neanderthals could have a larger cranial capacity than modern humans but be somewhat less “intelligent” than us.
The main problem I have isn’t the conclusion. It’s plausible enough. But the whole framework of understanding the difference between ourselves and Neandertals has changed in the past 10 years. In short, 10 years ago it might be defensible to assert Neandertals were another species. This is not so today.
Read the full post here: Those idiot savant Neandertals
