“Neanderthals didn’t use thrown spears as far as we know”
Argument ab silentio. Given the limited surviving Neanderthal evidence, what are you going to do when the first evidence of Neanderthal spear thrower use turns up?
I’ll stipulate that the evidence for humans having and using spear throwers. But the other half rests on absence of evidence, “so far” and that “so far” is always the kicker.
And the danger is that, since we “know” that only humans, not Neanderthals, used thrown spears, henceforth all evidence of thrown spears automatically gets ascribed to humans, as in the case at hand.
But what if, just by chance, some Neanderthals did use thrown spears but we just haven’t, so far, stumbled on any evidence? After all, of all the Neanderthals that ever lived and all the early homines sapientes that ever lived, what percentage of their bones have we now seen and examined? A relatively tiny sample, I think.
If we were doing contemporary sociology, we’d say, “not a very good sample size to predicate huge generalizations on.”
But since it’s purportedly 50,000 years ago and we are not likely ever to have a decent sample size, we still go ahead and make sweeping generalizations.
I’d have no problem with this if people just identified it as what it is, wild speculation based on slivers of evidence.
But then the research grant money might not flow as freely.