The Neanderthal Legacy by Paul Mellars

If you really want just the FACTS about Neanderthals, this is the book to read. Yes, it can be excruciatingly detailed in examining everything that is so far known about these extinct hominids, (I had no idea that you could write hundreds of pages about how rocks are chipped!) but those details can be very revealing if considered rationally and prudently as Mellars does. There are plenty of maps, illustrations and graphs to support the text and the wrap-up at the end is conservative yet expressive. As Mellars writes:

"Perhaps the most intriguing and enigmatic aspects of the Middle Paleolithic period is how and why it came to an end, after a period of around 200,000 years of remarkable stability. From the preceding chapters it has emerged that while there were significant shifts in the precise morphology and technology of stone tool production, subsistence patterns, site distributions etc. at different stages of the Middle Paleolithic, very few if any of these seem to reflect any radical reorganization or restructuring of technological, economic or social patterns. Most of the documented changes appear to be more cyclical than directional in character... none of these changes at present suggests more than a reshuffling of basic cultural and behavioural patterns which, in one form or another, can be traced back into the time range of the penultimate glaciation. ...

"The dramatic break in this pattern of behavioural stability occurs at the time of the classic Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition, dated in most regions of Europe at around 35-40,000 BP."

And then he asks the most important question in all of archaeology and paleontology: What is the precise character of the behavioural change and to what extent was this due to a major dispersal of new human populations. The corollary question is, of course: why should we encounter this particular combination of biological and behavioural change at this specific point in the archaeological sequence? It was, after all, a time when large parts of Europe were still in the grip of an Ice Age.

The only way to fully know how extraordinary the new type of human being was/is, is to study carefully the old types, and that is what this book does so well. You will be left in no doubt whatsoever that Neanderthals are NOT our ancestors though, indeed, there may have been some extremely limited genetic mixing as some recent DNA studies show. It may be significant to note that the mtDNA does not show mixing, so whatever infusion of Neanderthal genetics into modern human lines was probably a Neanderthal raping a homo sapiens woman. A careful consideration of the characteristics of Neanderthals - what little can be discerned, but mainly their lack of creativity over 200,000 years or more of existence - along with the very small percentage of dna mixing, may give clues to certain personality pathologies among modern humans, such as psychopathy. One has only to imagine the mixture of the non-creative, almost parasitic Neanderthal personality with the dynamic, creative, Cro-Magnon to get an image of the aggressive, dominating psychopath that is devoid of creativity, has no ability to conceive of time and space, and functions totally opportunistically. Perhaps that is the real “Neanderthal Legacy”? Just speculating.

I will note that, as is the habit of most academics, there is quite a bit of jargon that is specific to the field and if you are not a specialist, this may be a bit of a barrier to understanding. Just keep a notebook handy and jot down some of the terms and their definitions as they appear and you'll be fine. The main confusing elements have to do with terms used for dating, so it can help to pay close attention to chapter 2 and continuously refer to the graph on page 10. If you are persistent, by the time you are finished, you'll be tossing off jargon with the best of them!

The book is a bit pricey and tedious for the lay-reader, but, as noted, if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, this one does it best. Alternatively, you could read Ian Tattersall's and Jeffrey Schwartz's "Extinct Humans" or Paul Jordan's "Neanderthal." But for the fullest picture of this fascinating period in the Earth's history, I would recommend all three and more.

Thanks for the review, Laura, and I've requested it :)

Have a look at these items:

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/neanderthal-hormones-strong-arms.html

http://news.discovery.com/human/neanderthal-human-interbreed-dna.html

http://news.discovery.com/human/human-diversity-bottlenecks.html

After reading Stan Gooch's book about Neanderthals (and Colin Wilson's), I think we are seeing the origins of the "essential psychopath" which was created by the combination of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon genetics. The mtDNA shows no mixing, but the nuclear dna shows mixing and the figure is between 1 and 4 percent, which just happens to be the same figure given for essential psychopathy by Lobaczewski and others.

Thought I would toss in my review of Gooch's book here for comparison and discussion:


Stan Gooch's "Cities of Dreams"

Writing a review of this book is like trying to untie the Gordian knot so, let me make my stroke here at the beginning: it is the work of a very twisted mind and should only be read with the actual data to hand so that every claim or assumption can be cross-checked with what is actually known or only conjectured. I have to say that after I read numerous totally outrageous assumptions that are directly contradicted by known paleontological facts, I was tempted to just toss the book aside. But I was motivated to read it because it figures large in a recent work of Colin Wilson's which I had just finished and I was curious to see what was so compelling in this book that Wilson would be taken in by it since he is normally a very rational thinker.

Gooch does say quite a few things that a person searching for the Truth about our history and not satisfied with the obvious narrow-mindedness of mainstream scholarly research will readily agree with, and his style is certainly engaging; he romps through the topics. But there is value to academic research if you know how to handle it, and Gooch does not give much evidence of having delved all that deeply into the actual dirt and gravel reports - his bibliography is pretty slim pickin's from the academic perspective and pretty heavily loaded with alternative viewpoints. That's dangerous because many alternative writers, like journalists, not being experts in the field, very often misunderstand and misrepresent the data. I will agree with him that very often, mainstream academia has an agenda and isn't very open-minded, but the same can be true for alternative research, deliberately or by default.

Gooch begins with the premise that Neanderthalers (in various editions around the planet, not strictly the classic Neanderthal type in Europe) were something of a noble savage that had: "evolved a culture of the mind (a) not only of a very high order indeed (for as I often say, whereas we build cities of stone, Neanderthal built cities of dreams) but also (b) of a strangeness that is very had for us to imagine or, even having imagined, to come to terms with (since we have, after all, experience of only one kind of human mind - our own)."

Then, along came evil, un-creative, murderous Cro-Magnon and it was like the Imperialistic British in their colonization all over the planet, wiping out the natives though also breeding with them and absorbing their culture and their genes.

Neanderthal was a Moon worshipper, a nocturnal creature who preferred group sex and cannibalism (but that's okay because he was such a great guy), and Cro-Magnon man was a Sun worshipper, a mighty hunter, and hated women. The proof is that Cro-Magnon went in for permanent pair-bonding instead of sexual rapaciousness, and didn't grovel before the Spider goddess who used him sexually and then ate him.

Gaaaah! Creepy! There are passages in this book where one gets the very distinct impression that the author wants a menstruating woman dressed in black leather to shove her booted foot in his face and scream "you worm!" and he would feel SO rewarded that he had been a "good boy."

Gooch is certain that modern man is a hybrid product of interbreeding between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon. Well, he is partly correct according to the latest DNA evidence. The DNA shows that homo sapiens sapiens man is unlikely to have ever mated with any Neanderthal woman because the mtDNA of Neanderthal and homo sapiens sapiens is so far apart as to go back almost to the separation from the apes. But there IS evidence of nuclear Neanderthal DNA in some Europeans living today which would be the result of homo sapiens sapiens women being raped by Neanderthal males. That puts a whole different perspective on things.

What Gooch describes as Neanderthal is very close to the description of psychopathy and that may very well be at the root of one of society's pressing problem: psychopathy may be a consequence of interbreeding between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal. The dull-witted, un-creative, animal-like (sexually depraved and cannibalistic) Neanderthal, mixed with a genetic strain of superior intellect, creativity, and certain instinctual urges, could have made a very deadly mixture. Unfortunately, when Cro Magnon women had been raped by Neanderthal, their natural, instinctive care for their infants would have induced them to protect the half-breed children with the resulting spread of psychopathy genes in the modern population. It's interesting that the Neanderthal DNA is said to exist in the modern European population at about the same rate as genetic psychopaths.

Anyway, Gooch is actually a pretty bright guy and asks a lot of interesting questions that really do need to be answered and not shoved under the rug, but again and again he demonstrates his ignorance of the facts and data. He makes a big deal about the red ochre mines of South Africa without a shred of data to attribute them to Neanderthal. He basically creates an entire Neanderthal "religion" from a single bone with a bit of red ochere traces found in the cracks!

He talks about Neanderthal as a "nomadic species" when the data says otherwise. At the end, his chapter on red ochre leaves one wondering "what?" because he basically established nothing, said nothing of significance, proved nothing, and didn't even fulfill his own mandate of coming up with a good reason for why ancient man was so interested in red ochre and why he used it as he did.

He states that "until 30,000 BP Neanderthal (homo sapiens neanderthalensis) is the only modern man on Earth. That is not correct. There are a number of acknowledged finds of homo sapiens sapiens that go back at least 100,000 years and some recent finds that are even older. So, right there, all the things that Gooch attributes to Neanderthal could very well have been produced by homo-sapiens sapiens and most likely, were.

Gooch - and others - would be well-served by reading the works of Victor Clube and Bill Napier: Cosmic Serpent: A Catastrophist View of Earth History, Richard Firestone, Allen West, Simon Warwick-Smith: The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization, Mike Baillie: Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters with Comets, The Celtic Gods: Comets in Irish Mythology, New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection, E. P. Grondine: Man and Impact in the Americas, Heinrich Koch: The Diluvian Impact: The Great Flood Catastrophe 10,000 Years Ago As The Consequence Of A Comet's Impact, and others dealing with the issues of cyclical cometary catastrophes for clues to understanding the anomalies that have been, up to now, incomprehensible in a uniformitarian world-view. Nearly everything that Gooch explains as the result of the traumatic destruction of Neanderthal by Cro-Magnon man is better understood in the context of global environmental stresses. The lack of material archaeological evidence for many things can be understood along with the tiny bits and pieces of evidence that have survived.

Well, I wanted this to be short so I'm just going to say that this is as silly a book as I've ever read - and I read it with the latest Neanderthal research to hand to cross-check every claim - and I don't think that anybody ought to waste their money on it. Gooch is not a consistent thinker - he often contradicts himself in a single paragraph - and his logic is not even as good as that of a 10 year old. If he likes something, he claims it for Neanderthal - Cro-Magnon turned it around - and if he doesn't like it and it has persisted through time, then it was so strong that Cro-Magnon couldn't subvert it!

Gooch has a very poor sense of psychological situation and reality in relation to his topic and this leads him to superimpose erroneous, pejorative interpretations on many things that are easily understood if the complexity of the situation is taken into account. He tends to see the issues at hand in a rather doctrinaire and simplistic manner. He definitely evidences a certain contempt for moral, spiritual, truly HUMAN behavior, and seeks, through his "jolly romp" style to impose a dystopian conceptual world view on human groups. His oversimplified reasoning, based on the most easily available data, and devoid of psychological color, warps literally everything he turns his mind to. He clearly experiences a basic contempt for human nature at its best and longs for a "leftist world" where his dreams of sexual dominatrixes around every corner can be reality.

Uggggh.

In looking over the links about different hormonal profile, from what I know about androgens and behavior as well as neural development, high amounts of androgen would include more aggression but also fixed/stereotyped behavioral patterns in response to certain stimuli. During development, as the behavior patterns are being learned and the underlying neural structure to support it is laid down/strengthened etc, estrogen would be higher and androgens lower. However, it is the increase in androgens that signals crystallization of a given pattern of behavior. We can reasonably infer that the neural circuit representative of the behavior pattern is crystallized as well. Thus the individual become less flexible in its ability to learn new components of the behavior compared to those that have multiple pathways for responding to a given stimulus. Fixed patters....some take the high road, others low road and still others can take either/or depending on context.

In essence, a high androgenic individual is not as good at adapting to changing stimuli and the crystallized behavior pattern is performed in robot like intensity and frequency. Impose rapid environmental changes and those less likely to adapt will die out but not before passing on some of those genes to those who are more adaptable. So these dudes probably were not only aggressive but had a stereotyped pattern of responses to their environment, that most likely involved violence, aggression and manipulation. Stereotyped behaviors would increase with environmental pressure. And since many stereotyped behaviors are often liked with reproductive behavior, rape of the Cro-Magnon women as you suggest would fit. Sounds like a psychopath to me.

Aggression, manipulation and the like sounds like the leaders of a little country whose response to everything is so predictable it is not even funny.


What is interesting about these reports you linked is that it looks to me like a multiple origins of humanity rather than the out of africa theory. Those on the Eurasian continent were in a position geographically to mate with neanderthals, thus you would most likely find psychopathy in those populations. Well, the higher frequency of violent psychopaths in caucasian males would fit, but the Cs also talk about the low frequency of psychopathy in Asians. Yet, they would also have hada higher probability of mating with neanderthals compared to say sub-Sarahan Africans. Certainly we know there are psychopaths in Africa as well. So, that must be coming from another spontaneous mutation or could be accounted for by population bottlenecks or mixing with say near eastern groups that had the neanderthal genes. The alternative is that the psychopathy mutation arose in separate populations multiple times but this particular one coming from neanderthals is a unique strain... "essential" as you pointed out. Not unusual, and what I think is most likely the case. It would account for the variation in type and degree of psychopathy in different populations, i.e- essential vs schizoid vs borderline may really be a matter of degree of neanderthal genes inherited or presence/absence of those genes.


The other thing is how to explain this androgenic difference that may be a marker for something about psychopathy in terms of the female line? One way to do so is that it may be like hair which one of the articles hinted at. Sex steroid hormones also regulate hair growth/loss (I think it is the androgen DHT). It is the mother's genes that determines male pattern baldness. Testosterone is a precursor for DHT, it is also the precursor to estrogen too. So its a matter of having the right enzyme for converting it from testosterone to estrogens and it is the mother that is passing on these androgen genes or the genes for enzymes and other proteins that influence their function. Which would again fit your hypotheses.

Interesting too that they show stronger right arm thus left hemisphere dominance.........calculating eh? It is almost as if the strong armed monotheistic thunder god of the neanderthal's descendants was a representation of the single hemisphere dominant neural circuitry of the ancestors. but that's a whole other conversation. Women tend to have more bilateral hemispheric functioning, BTW.
Interesting thing about these neanderthal with their dominant left hemisphere is that it is the right hemisphere in humans that is involved in processing facial expressions of emotions. This is particularly true in males-they need that right dominance in visual processing in order to be able to read and understand others emotional state as well as their own. most people may have a slight dominance in one hemisphere or another but it is flexible. However in individuals that are abnormally more dominant in a given hemisphere, say left like the neanderthal, it may be near impossible to do. Guess neanderthals and possibly a good 4 percent of those with the genes may not have been too keen on how others felt about things.... and neither are psychopaths.

Brainwave

Laura said:

After reading Stan Gooch's book about Neanderthals (and Colin Wilson's), I think we are seeing the origins of the "essential psychopath" which was created by the combination of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon genetics. The mtDNA shows no mixing, but the nuclear dna shows mixing and the figure is between 1 and 4 percent, which just happens to be the same figure given for essential psychopathy by Lobaczewski and others.

Click to expand...

When you say "created by the combination of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon genetics", are you considering that the mixing of these species is what created the mutation or just what tipped the latent gene into expression? And if the mutation already existed - in a recessive sense - through the Neanderthal gene pool, perhaps radiation from cometary bodies affected the Neanderthal population? (I pulled the cometary bombardment idea from the Statement of Principles, quoted below.)

I'm wondering what the ultimate origin of the psychopath gene might be. And, is the origin different for the different types of psychopathy? It sounds like there was one psychopath variant in the beginning, which could be essential psychopathy. And from there, due to a myriad of circumstances, the gene mutated into other types. Many of which we see today.

Statement of Principles said:

5.1. On the Origin of Psychopathy
We recognize that the Paleolithic civilization which produced such great works of art, and showed evidence of global communication and interaction, existed peacefully for approximately 20,000 years. In contrast to this period, we recognize that the origins of psychopathy may be found in the cometary bombardment of earth approximately 13,000 years ago, which resulted in several global changes and mass extinctions (see Sources, R. Firestone et al.) as well as the advent of violence. Just as the Tunguska event of 1908 produced lasting genetic mutations among the local population, we recognize that the bombardment in prehistory may have resulted in a recessive genetic mutation that affected many human individuals, spreading invisibly through human populations until a critical mass carrying the unexpressed mutation allowed for its full expression in their offspring. These epigenetic changes, as well as generations of interbreeding, resulted in a radically different subspecies within existing human groups for which they were completely unprepared given the previous course of our evolution. Though still only comprising a small percentage of the human population, the disproportionate influence of psychopathy on the social structures and thought patterns of humanity may well be leading us to extinction. While this working hypothesis is conjectured as probable based on extensive historical research (see Sources, L. Knight-Jadczyk), the Fellowship recommends and supports scientific research in this area, as it is largely ignored by contemporary science.
http://paleochristianity.org/statement-of-principles/

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Nathan said:

When you say "created by the combination of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon genetics", are you considering that the mixing of these species is what created the mutation or just what tipped the latent gene into expression?

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Well, this explanation doesn't require a mutation, just the results of genetic recombination. In this case, the particular form of psychopathy would not be a mutation, rather it would be a hybrid. A hybrid is an organism that is the offspring of genetically dissimilar parents or stock.

Nathan said:

And if the mutation already existed - in a recessive sense - through the Neanderthal gene pool, perhaps radiation from cometary bodies affected the Neanderthal population? (I pulled the cometary bombardment idea from the Statement of Principles, quoted below.)

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See above. If you study all the available material on Neanderthals, you come to the idea that their basic natures - in the emotional/spiritual sense - are that of the psychopath. So, combine an emotional nature like that with the creative, active, dynamic, adventurous brain of the Cro-Magon and what do you have?

Nathan said:

I'm wondering what the ultimate origin of the psychopath gene might be. And, is the origin different for the different types of psychopathy? It sounds like there was one psychopath variant in the beginning, which could be essential psychopathy. And from there, due to a myriad of circumstances, the gene mutated into other types. Many of which we see today.

Click to expand...

I don't think there is a single "psychopath gene." If you read Barbara Oakley's book "Evil Genes", you realize that there are different systems involved in what we term psychopathic behavior. And each of these systems is controlled by different sets of genes.

Nathan said:

Statement of Principles said:

5.1. On the Origin of Psychopathy
We recognize that the Paleolithic civilization which produced such great works of art, and showed evidence of global communication and interaction, existed peacefully for approximately 20,000 years. In contrast to this period, we recognize that the origins of psychopathy may be found in the cometary bombardment of earth approximately 13,000 years ago, which resulted in several global changes and mass extinctions (see Sources, R. Firestone et al.) as well as the advent of violence. Just as the Tunguska event of 1908 produced lasting genetic mutations among the local population, we recognize that the bombardment in prehistory may have resulted in a recessive genetic mutation that affected many human individuals, spreading invisibly through human populations until a critical mass carrying the unexpressed mutation allowed for its full expression in their offspring. These epigenetic changes, as well as generations of interbreeding, resulted in a radically different subspecies within existing human groups for which they were completely unprepared given the previous course of our evolution. Though still only comprising a small percentage of the human population, the disproportionate influence of psychopathy on the social structures and thought patterns of humanity may well be leading us to extinction. While this working hypothesis is conjectured as probable based on extensive historical research (see Sources, L. Knight-Jadczyk), the Fellowship recommends and supports scientific research in this area, as it is largely ignored by contemporary science.
http://paleochristianity.org/statement-of-principles/

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We are still working on this; I'm still searching for the clues/evidence. There IS evidence for mutation collected in "The Diluvian Impact" and "Man and Impact in the Americas" in the form of legends of mutants that began to appear after impact events. Most of these legends have to do with alterations in body size (either giants or dwarves) and raging cannibalism. The two seem to have gone together.

What also strikes me as curious is the fact that red-headed individuals are noted to have been the particular objects of sacrifice in certain South American art. It is now known from the genetic mapping that Neanderthals were red-headed and pale skinned. They also had long "bread-loaf shaped" heads with a "bun" at the back. It makes one wonder about the Ica skulls, skulls such as those of Nefertiti and her children, cranial deformation (read "Saharasia") and so on.

Ancient DNA Reveals Neandertals With Red Hair, Fair Complexions
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/318/5850/546?rss=1

Seeing red: Neanderthals more like us
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/seeing-red-neanderthals-more-like-us/2007/10/26/1192941338612.html

A few other items:

The Neanderthal had a low forehead even though it had about the same (or even slightly larger) brain volume. The frontal lobes of the brain are associated with creativity so a low forehead might means little or no creativity. It is also the frontal lobes of the brain that show problems/lack of development in psychopaths.

Two Neanderthals tested had type O blood. I haven't found a mention of the rh factor, but I believe it was O positive otherwise, it would have been noted. It is not known if other Neanderthals that may be tested genetically will or will not have the same, but it is very likely.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16386-neanderthals-might-have-made-good-blood-donors.html

Neanderthal Genome "First Draft" Unveiled
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090212-neanderthal-genome.html

The human and Neanderthal family trees split off from each other around 450,000 years ago, after which there was little or no mixing between the two species.

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Neanderthals 'distinct from us'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7886477.stm?lss

They focused on a gene implicated in brain development - microcephalin-1 - which shows significant variation among present day humans.

It has been suggested that a particular variant of the gene, found commonly in Europeans, was contributed by Neanderthals.

But the Croatian Neanderthal fossils harboured an ancestral form of the microcephalin-1 gene, which today is also found among Africans.

Overall, it seems that Neanderthals have contributed, at most, a "very limited" fraction of the variation found in contemporary human populations, said Prof Paabo.

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Just to toss it in the pot:

* 28 separate studies showed that Chimpanzees have the blood types A and minimal O, but never B.
* 8 separate studies showed that Gorillas have the blood types B and minimal O, but never A.
* There is NO blood type AB in either of the above
(Jakob Schmitt, Immunbiologische Untersuchungen bei Primaten; S. Karger, New York and Basel, 1968).

The same holds true for the MN blood type, which is a different blood antigen. Man is both M and N or the combined MN blood type whereas the Chimpanzees and Gorillas react exclusively to these types. (According to Schmitt, the reactions of Chimpanzees are 00.16 to Anti-M human mucous and 10.00 to Anti-N, whereas the figures for Gorillas are exactly the reverse, with 10.00 to Anti-M and 00.64 to Anti-N).

As noted by Lars Beckman (A Contribution to the Physical Anthropology and Population Genetics of Sweden: Lund, 1959, p. 21):

The Early European race is characterized by a high per cent of Rh-negatives, a very low B-frequency and a relatively high A2 frequency... probably some connection with postglacial Cro-Magnon Man.... The Asiatic race is characterized by a high frequency of A1 and B and a low frequency of Rh-negatives...

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Homo erectus, a precursor to man - never found in Europe - was right-handed, as were the Neanderthals. There have been claims that the ancient Cro-Magnon cave painters of Europe were almost certainly left-handed. (See Philip Van Doren Stern, Prehistoric Europe which I haven't read yet, but would like to know what his evidence is.)

This last, of course, really crushes Stan Gooch's theories because he was certain that Neanderthals were left-handed. We know that they were strongly right-handed, but I don't really know yet about Cro-Magnon. I suspect they were right-handed too and Stern is wrong, but will need to dig further to find out.

Laura said:

If you study all the available material on Neanderthals, you come to the idea that their basic natures - in the emotional/spiritual sense - are that of the psychopath.

[snip]

The Neanderthal had a low forehead even though it had about the same (or even slightly larger) brain volume. The frontal lobes of the brain are associated with creativity so a low forehead might means little or no creativity. It is also the frontal lobes of the brain that show problems/lack of development in psychopaths.

Click to expand...

Laura said:

A careful consideration of the characteristics of Neanderthals - what little can be discerned, but mainly their lack of creativity over 200,000 years or more of existence - along with the very small percentage of dna mixing, may give clues to certain personality pathologies among modern humans, such as psychopathy. One has only to imagine the mixture of the non-creative, almost parasitic Neanderthal personality with the dynamic, creative, Cro-Magnon to get an image of the aggressive, dominating psychopath that is devoid of creativity, has no ability to conceive of time and space, and functions totally opportunistically. Perhaps that is the real “Neanderthal Legacy”? Just speculating.

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Reading from your posts, that Neanderthals are non-creative, almost parasitic and essentially psychopathic, I'm wondering what their society may have looked like and how they managed to exist for 200,000 years. Yes, it's a short time for a sub-species, but still, looking at the mess that just a few percents of psychopaths brought about in our society today, I can't imagine a society consisting entirely of psychopaths. It boggles the mind.

Bobo08 said:

Reading from your posts, that Neanderthals are non-creative, almost parasitic and essentially psychopathic, I'm wondering what their society may have looked like and how they managed to exist for 200,000 years. Yes, it's a short time for a sub-species, but still, looking at the mess that just a few percents of psychopaths brought about in our society today, I can't imagine a society consisting entirely of psychopaths. It boggles the mind.

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That's why you might want to read the archaeological studies about them. It was a pretty brutal existence, populations were very low throughout that time, and no progress at all was made for 200 to 300 K years. That's a pretty sad statement.

And then, beings came along that were capable of being ensouled, and who knows what they might have done without interference...

Bobo08 said:

Reading from your posts, that Neanderthals are non-creative, almost parasitic and essentially psychopathic, I'm wondering what their society may have looked like and how they managed to exist for 200,000 years. Yes, it's a short time for a sub-species, but still, looking at the mess that just a few percents of psychopaths brought about in our society today, I can't imagine a society consisting entirely of psychopaths. It boggles the mind.

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If you mean that, based on this thread's discussion, you imagine the Neanderthals themselves to be the evil and ruthless psychopaths constantly at each other's throats, then may be indeed it's not very accurate. As you said, they did exist for 200,000 years, and while they practiced anti-social things like cannibalism, they also took care of their young and buried their dead in collective rituals, throwing flowers on their graves, so they did have some social fabric and continuity.

But if you picture a uniform society of basically boring, uncreative people who have poor understanding of how others feel, whose energies are all invested in daily survival, and who live in small isolated groups -- such species can exist for a long time as long as any change in conditions is within their reaction capabilities, just look at the animal world.

fwiw

Ups Laura did it again :)
I've been fascinated (even had some weird neanderthal dreams full of violence) with this subject every since you mentioned it in Auch,
I think you are on to something big time. it looks to me like your hypothesis may be the begining of better understanding of the sticky situation humanity is in at present.

It is not easy to find images of reconstructed appearance of the Neanderthals to be able to judge their physiognomy, here are some


and here is the red haired dude that was sitting next to us ;)


here are some links - just in case you haven't come across them as yet
_http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/710

One model for modern human origins suggests that all present-day humans trace all their ancestry back to a small African population that expanded and replaced archaic forms of humans without admixture. Our analysis of the Neandertal genome may not be compatible with this view because Neandertals are on average closer to individuals in Eurasia than to individuals in Africa. Furthermore, individuals in Eurasia today carry regions in their genome that are closely related to those in Neandertals and distant from other present-day humans. The data suggest that between 1 and 4% of the genomes of people in Eurasia are derived from Neandertals. Thus, while the Neandertal genome presents a challenge to the simplest version of an "out-of-Africa" model for modern human origins, it continues to support the view that the vast majority of genetic variants that exist at appreciable frequencies outside Africa came from Africa with the spread of anatomically modern humans.

A striking observation is that Neandertals are as closely related to a Chinese and Papuan individual as to a French individual, even though morphologically recognizable Neandertals exist only in the fossil record of Europe and western Asia. Thus, the gene flow between Neandertals and modern humans that we detect most likely occurred before the divergence of Europeans, East Asians, and Papuans. This may be explained by mixing of early modern humans ancestral to present-day non-Africans with Neandertals in the Middle East before their expansion into Eurasia. Such a scenario is compatible with the archaeological record, which shows that modern humans appeared in the Middle East before 100,000 years ago whereas the Neandertals existed in the same region after this time, probably until 50,000 years ago

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are there any viable data on prevalence of the psychopathy amongst African populations?

_http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html?_r=1

In his and Dr. Reich’s view, Neanderthals interbred only with non-Africans, the people who left Africa, which would mean that non-Africans drew from a second gene pool not available to Africans.

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also I found this very amusing
_http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/august97/0277.html

The Jews are Neanderthals. Advanced in this decade by heretic
anthropologist Stan Gooch, who has also argued that the original,
full-blooded Neanderthals were telepathic. The thesis was taken up last
year by Canadian Michael Bradley in his incoherent book Chosen People
Iceman Inheritance, which identifies the origins of white racial evil in
prehistoric psychosexual tensions of some sort. Chosen People is an
extension of his ideas: Biblical evidence that Jews are Neanderthals
includes the Esau incident (Esau is hairy, remember?). The reason Jews
have an injunction against portraying God is that Neanderthals cannot
draw. However, Bradley adduces evidence that they were quite good with
numbers and were overly sentimental about their mothers. Interestingly,
Bradley also believes that modern European Jews are Khazars, which means
he must argue not only that biblical Hebrews were Neanderthals, but that
so were Khazars. He actually does so. News that Neanderthals have
little in common with modern humankind should be welcome to admirers of
Bradley's work. Among his blurbists, by the way, is Dr. Leonard
Jeffries, of New York's City College.

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Laura said:

A few other items:

The Neanderthal had a low forehead even though it had about the same (or even slightly larger) brain volume. The frontal lobes of the brain are associated with creativity so a low forehead might means little or no creativity. It is also the frontal lobes of the brain that show problems/lack of development in psychopaths.

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This reminded me of frontal characteropathy, something that Lobaczewski said in Ponerology about Stalin:

Ponerology said:

Comparative considerations also led the author to conclude that Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, also known as Stalin, should be included in the list of this particular ponerogenic characteropathy, which developed against the backdrop of perinatal damage to his brain's prefrontal fields. Literature and news about him abounds in indications: brutal, charismatic snake-charming; issuing of irrevocable decisions; inhuman ruthlessness, pathologic revengefulness directed at anyone who got in his way; and egotistical belief in his own genius on the part of a person whose mind was in fact average. This state explains as well his psychological dependence on a psychopath like Beria. Some photographs reveal the typical deformation of his forehead which appears in people who suffered very early damage to the areas mentioned above.

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I had a look to his photographs, and the only thing that striked my attention is that it looked like it had a small forehead to me:

Hildegarda said:

... they also took care of their young and buried their dead in a collective rituals, throwing flowers on their graves, so they did have some social fabric and continuity.

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Actually, the reports of collective rituals of burial and throwing flower on graves may have been exaggerated. Mellars devotes some time to that topic and it seems pretty clear that Neanderthals really had no "beliefs" or rituals.

The "taking care of the elderly and infirm" actually only occurred in a very late context.

Hildegarda said:

But if you picture a uniform society of basically boring, uncreative people who have poor understanding of how others feel and whose energies are all invested in daily survival, and who live in small isolated groups -- such species can exist for a long time as long as any change in conditions is within their reaction capabilities, just look at the animal world.

fwiw

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Exactly. When you finish reading the exhaustively (and exhausting, I can assure you!) detailed examination of the sites and technology, you come away realizing that what you have just read is pretty much like reading about the living sites of tribes of chimpanzees.

Nathan said:

If the Neanderthals were used as vehicles for souls, then it can't be "a society consisting entirely of psychopaths".

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Wrong conclusion. You don't know how what kind, how many, where or when any "souls were put into Neanderthal bodies for incubation." For all you know, it was a dozen instances very late in a 300KY history.