Mating with Neanderthals Good for Human Health

" Do not hold your breath that there will be any study in the relative intelligence of Neanderthals and Humans. "

Some think that the Neanderthals had a higher IQ than we do today because they had a bigger brain.

I don't know about any scientific studies about it, but in the fictional Clan of the Cave Bear series, the differences in skull shape and size, relative to function, was discussed, quite simply and convincingly. The neanderthal relied on "memory", and an ever-increasing need to store, and pass on, their collective memories, thus the larger memory part of the brain.

The CPU part of the neanderthal brain, the frontal lobes, was under-developed, used simply to store and retrieve the memories, thus the sloping forehead, "Flathead", appearance.

In today's workplace, you can observe these types of differences in brain function and usage, even among a work force of supposedly all "modern" humans. Some people survive by "remembering" where stuff is hidden, what sequences of keystrokes make something happen, etc., without knowing or caring about the how and why, and keeping those secrets from "others".

"Others" survive by using the CPU processing power of their brains, developing and using documention and diagrams of complex systems, freely sharing information, analyzing and improving processes, and generally functioning like modern humans should in a modern civilization.

IMNSHO, the Flatheads are running the show in every corner of our society, and have run it into the ditch. And I'm a snotty bastard for noticing such things.

Earth's Children - Wikipedia

People

In Auel's series, two cultures vie for resources, space, and survival: the Clan, which is what Neanderthals call themselves, and the Cro-Magnon (whom Ayla, with her Clan upbringing, generally refers to as The Others). Both races are fairly different in culture, society and technology, but with some overlap: both depend on flint for their tools; both recognize the importance of fire and use it; both hunt and gather.

Physiologically, the Clan are heavier and broader but also shorter than the people of The Others. They are very slow to embrace change and to innovate, and they still chase after animals to spear them directly, whereas The Cro-Magnon are enthusiastic about innovation and have moved on to projectile spears. The Clan's tools, clothing, and household implements are similarly less refined and sometimes less effective than those of their Cro-Magnon counterparts, whose implements and other goods are more technologically sophisticated.

The Clan's reluctance to change is depicted by Auel as a function of their cognition; they are presented as dependent upon their racial-genetic memory. The average Clan child needs only be 'reminded' of a thing to know it permanently, though skilled tasks still require repetitive practice. Furthermore, the need to encode everything into a child's brain has increased the average Neanderthal head size to the point that, by the time of the first novel, women of the Clan are having trouble giving birth to their large-headed babies—a sign that their evolutionary strategy has run its course.

The "Flatheads", as "The Others" pejoratively call the Neanderthals (owing to their distinctive back-sloping foreheads), also have a far more limited vocal repertoire than The Others, and largely communicate instead via a gestural sign language, although spoken words are sometimes used to add emphasis to the gestures. Auel describes this language as being quite nuanced, especially as bodily posture, facial expression and other physical actions — in short, body language — can expedite and expand upon the basic vocabulary of the hand signals. A Cro-Magnon observing Ayla demonstrating a translation characterizes the language as dancelike and elegant.

For this reason, Clan members are highly adept at reading body language and cannot be lied to; while one can spell an untruth with one's hands, one's posture will give it away. Consequently, the idea of telling an untruth is alien to Clan culture, a fact that Ayla needs time to conceptualize and understand. However, a Clan member can "refrain from mentioning" something she would prefer other people did not know, even though residual clues would probably reveal that something was being concealed. Cultural conventions, Auel suggests, would cause other Clan members to ignore the concealment out of sheer courtesy, though, again, Ayla has trouble grasping this concept.

Finally, the wider Clan possesses not only a colloquial, everyday "localized" language, but also a more formal "ancient" or "spirit language," used to converse with ancestors and understood by every Clan member, anywhere. This language facilitates easy communication at inter-regional meetings of normally separated groups and does not the require the multilingualism that the Others must acquire. This "spirit language" has no spoken words apart from personal names, and its users generally refer to themselves in the third person.

In Auel's context, our human ancestors, The Cro-Magnon "Others," generally look upon the "Flatheads" as animals, hardly better than bears (the lack of vocal language is a primary factor in this verdict); the Clan, for their part, seem to have no strong opinions about the Others, other than considering their spoken language as babbling and a sign of their lack of intellect. Otherwise, they have concluded it is best simply to avoid the Cro-Magnon men.

Accurately or not, Auel depicts Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals as able to interbreed. (see current theory coverages: Interbreeding of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals and Multiregional origin of modern humans) The half-breed children are generally not favorably regarded by either group. As in many historical cultures, malformed Clan children are routinely subjected to exposure, while the Others may allow such children to live but prejudicially label them as 'abominations'. Such children and their experiences enter the plotline in several books of the series.

"Children of mixed spirits", as the Cro-Magnon call them, are mis-matched combinations of both Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal phenotypes physiologically as they are genetic hybrids, with some traits (like facial features) appearing blurred or distorted when compared side-by-side. Of the four half-breeds depicted (thus far) in the series, only one has had the restricted vocal range of the Clan (Rydag, from The Mammoth Hunters), and all but one has been seen using Clan sign language, the sole exception being the difficult and disconsolate self-loathing Brukeval (who is in clear psychological denial about his ancestry), in the The Shelters of Stone.

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