RE: (TFT) Skills and the poor Neanderthals

["Gadda, Charles A" <charles.a.gadda@lmco.com>]

Took the words right out of my mouth! 

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Thomas Galen Ault [SMTP:Thomas_Galen_Ault@chroma.sensor.ri.cmu.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, July 21, 1999 10:53 AM
> To:	tft@brainiac.com
> Subject:	Re: (TFT) Skills and the poor Neanderthals
> 
> A lot seems to be being made about how the ratio of a Neanderthal's
> brain-to-
> body mass ratio is similar to ours, therefore their intelligence must have
> been comparable to our own.  However, brain size (either relative
> or absolute) alone does not indicate intelligence; the nature and quality
> of the connections between neurons (e.g. how the brain is "wired") is
> much more important.  Without living specimins to disect, we are forced
> to draw conclusions from the artifacts they left behind.  On the basis of
> what we have found so far, while Neaderthal tools are equal in quality
> to early homo sapiens, the stone tools made by later homo sapiens are
> superior in quality and quantity.  Furthermore, as someone else pointed
> out,
> the Neaderthal's never seemed to have grasped the concept of ranged
> weapons
> beyond the thrown rock.  Whether this was from a linguistic deficit or
> from some other mental deficiency we can only speculate about.
> 
> Hence, the assumption made by TFT that Neaderthals have an IQ between
> 7 and 10 may be realistic.  Homo Sapiens Sapiens may have been much
> smarter
> than their Neaderthal cousins, but it might have taken them a while to
> invent superior tools.
> 
> Tom Ault
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