NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/bio/4811

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-07 | 2.7 KB

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From: [e-mail] (William Calvin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Brain Size. Modern vs Neanderthal
Date: 7 Jan 1993 17:45:29 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
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[e-mail] writes:

>Brainsize..If I remember correctl Neanderthal man had a larger brain cc than
>modern man on the adverage. Itsnot how big, its how you use it.. Neanderthal
>seemsed to be more peaceful or less vicious as modern humans..
>Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth [e-mail]


1.  Neanderthals had bigger brains but also bigger bodies; their
brain/body ratio was smaller than ours.

2.  Neanderthals more peaceful?  Not likely.  Here is an excerpt from my
book THE ASCENT OF MIND (1990; the data mostly comes from Erik Trinkhaus):

      ...But the Neandertals lived with much more stress,
probably due to episodes of starvation diets; you can see
evidence of disrupted growth in their teeth.  Certainly, they died
far earlier; only 8 percent of adults made it past 35 years of age,
compared to about 50 percent in aboriginal populations.  A
possible reason:  three out of four adults that lived past 25 years
of age had some evidence of healed bone fractures, compared to
perhaps one in four in modern aboriginal populations.  Trauma
that quickly killed the individual isn't counted, as it is difficult
to tell fresh breaks from postmortem breakage; only partially
healed fractures are distinctive enough to count with confidence,
so the percentage is undoubtedly even higher.  And, of course,
infant and child mortality meant that many didn't even make it
into adulthood at all, to be counted by such statistics.
      That so few Neandertal adults survived to 35 years, and
that so many of them were maimed by injuries, suggests a life
full of hazards not faced by the groups to which we compare
them.  Perhaps their methods of hunting involved getting too
close to the angry animal.  Perhaps they hunted only deer and
the like rather than a wide range of species (and so were hurt by
their bad years).  Perhaps there was bloody rivalry between
different bands of Neandertals for hunting territories.  Conflict
with early modern Homo sapiens, the invariable focus of popular
discussion, is unlikely to explain very much of the Neandertal's
short, brutal lives, as most would live their lives without ever
seeing the other version of Homo sapiens.


    William H. Calvin   [e-mail]
    University of Washington  NJ-15
    Seattle, Washington 98195 FAX:[phone]