Neanderthal theory.... many clues

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It IS interesting how many people DO focus on skin color. That is only the most OBVIOUS difference between the races. Take a pure black, color their skin like a caucasion, and they STILL won't look caucasion. They won't look asian either!

So skin pigment is NOT the only difference.

Caucasions don't have a LACK of pigment. It is a different kind. I'm not even really sure if blacks have that kind of pigment. Of course, the darkest white can never be anywhere near to the darkness of the darkest black, and probably not even near the darkness of the lightest pure black, but the skin CAN definitely get darker. Of course, ironically, many red heads, perhaps all, have a pigment that isn't really stable, and tend to get more freckles.

Autistics are not "lone-wolfs". This is totally incorrect. For instance, look at my recent blog-analysis of the friend and romance issues that I've run in Aspie-quiz (http://blog.rdos.net). The conclusion is clear. Partner obsession is the main player. Related to this are non-monogamous issues, preferently making "friends" with the opposite gender, dislike for strangers and a preference to socialize in small, familiar groups. This is not a lack of social abilities, it is a quite different social adaptation that doesn't work well in large NT-communities. It worked ok throughout most of our history. That's why we are still here.

I'd like to see any autism-researcher explain these preferences as "disruptions". It is impossible that these preferences could be "disruptions". They are social traits inherited from another species.

Wow!! !! ! Rdos, you've got me pegged, BIG TIME! Excellent blog that perfectly explains my life's relationships. In my youth, I had heard of fidelity, but I thought it was a brokerage firm in Boston. My wife and I were "shacked" for fifteen years before marriage, and we are absolutely the best of friends.

Thanks, much!

To add a couple of relevant pieces of information to this discussion:

1) Global climate was radically different between 100,000 BP to 10,000 BP versus 10,000 BP to the present. Basically we're in an interglacial period now, but for most of the past 100,000 years we had massive glaciation across much of the world. There was no Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, or water separating Alaska from Russia, etc. What effects this had on the lives of hunter-gatherer homo sapiens or Neanderthals is a hotly debated topic among archaeologists and anthropologists.

2) The surviving hunter-gatherer societies studied in modern times (Masai, for instance) tended to keep their group size to 100 to 200 people, averaging around 150. Said groups tolerated individual differences as long as the individual did no harm to the group. But if the individual was deemed irredeemably dangerous, that individual was disposed of in many cases. Whether or not these traits were common in the past is unknown.

3) There is little if any available data on the frequency of AS/ASDs in premodern societies, and none in prehistorical societies. We can speculate all we want, but it's just speculation based on assumptions that can be argued.

Finally, to take two examples I'm very familiar with (the Ainu and Japanese), neither would be considered autistic by any clinical definition. People who think of Japan in that way generally haven't been there, don't know the language or culture, and are in for quite a surprise if they go and experience the nation and its culture. This should be obvious, since generalizing about 120+ million people is clearly problematic. Japan would likely be a very hard culture to be autistic in, since tolerance for differences tends to be low, and the mentally ill tend to be hidden from sight. Whether or not this holds for other cultures would be interesting to find out.

I could tell you lots of more on this from personal experience as well. For instance, my wife wanted some of her friends to "join the group", but given societies expectations, I didn't dare. My daughter also couldn't understand why she should have only one guy at a time. I'd had to explain to her that this is how NTs work, and some guys would get upset if she had more than one guy. It certainly didn't come natural to her. Her relationships with guys are also more sorts of friendships than relationships.

I just wonder if autism researchers will ever grasp this. I mean, I had a pretty good idea of what I expected, but actually had no idea what questions to ask to prove the concept. It was not until I found a decent romantic quiz (and added my own suspicion about partner obsessions), that the results started coming. Without good understanding and personal experience, I think it is basically impossible to do any major breakthroughs in ASC research. The PhD, doctorate and professor titles will not make wonders happen. While Simon Baron-Cohen has done some good work, his questionaries clearly demonstrate that he lacks some fundamental understanding of ASCs, and thus will never ask the right questions. His stupid male-female theory won't help him either as it is fundamentally flawed.

This is another issue that I will probably blog about in the near future. The thing is, using genealogy-data and birth data in Aspie-quiz, I have more or less come to the conclusion that between 1800s and 1990s, ASC frequency have more or less remained the same. The number of children of people doing Aspie-quiz is identical between people that score high and low, and in the genealogy-data, number of children in anscestral lines are also identical.

Two points:
- Generally, people in southern parts of the world are less well off than people in the North. I guess for most people in Africa, simply staying alive is their main concern, and so they wouldn't really care about Asperger's, since they have more important things to worry about. They are also less educated in poorer parts of the world and less likely to know about Asperger's. With this in mind, there is no way that statistics can help advance your theory. It is quite possible that Asperger's occurs everywhere but is not diagnosed.
- You say Sami culture is more friendly to autistics; but to me in these aspects they sound no different from other tribal people, such as Australian Aboriginals, Southeast Asian people, Native Americans. All of those live in the south.

There is no natural rule that says people in the south should be less well off. If genetics were identical, they should actually be better of because of a more productive echo-system. Additionally, if the OoA (out-of Africa) were correct, Africans should have higher diversity and more successful diversity, and thus should outcompete northerners. They do not do any of these, which leads us to believe that "everybody" is not of African ancestry, and additionally, that additional successful diversity must have been introduced in Eurasia by interbreeding.

You are grossly stereotyping. The biggest problem with your inferences is that we find that to the extent such stereotypes have any correlation with reality, this is best explained by socialization than by some kind of genetically determined nationality.


This is just nonsense. I look white to just about anyone’s eyes, but I have Pacific Island ancestors. Many of the white people I know have Pacifician ancestry, and none of the Maori people I know do not have non Maori ancestors.

If inter breeding were not common, why would laws in the US have bothered to describe the extent of non white ancestry that rendered one legally non white?

Many of the royal families of Europe have or had (those now defunct) Jewish ancestry.

The fact is people readily inter breed with those from other cultures and with disparate ethnicity even when there are social constraints against doing so. We could expect even more such gene flow where such social constraints are not extant.

Conflicting? I suggest if 2 organisms can reproduce productive offspring together, their characteristics are not conflicting in any materially relevant (for the context of this discussion) way.

I also strongly suspect that you actually do not understand what you are criticizing in regards to the “Out of Africa” model. Ironically this is the model that posits least gene flow between disparate and locally evolving populations.

All the models of human origins as a lineage distinct from other Apes, posits that early evolution into our ancestral lines occurred in Africa. One model (often known as “Out of Africa”) posits that groups retrenched back into Africa at various times, and when they emerged back out, they replaced local populations who were by then disparate (biologically).
Most (although not all) “Out of Africa” theories do not entail inter breeding with the replaced populations.

The alternative models (usually referred to as “Multi regional” models), begin the same; early evolution into our ancestral lines occurred in Africa, however, these models posit that regional variation that was beneficial was spread throughout the wider gene pool by gene flow (inter breeding).

You are arguing against the former models because you think different groups do not inter breed, and that makes no sense unless you actually do not understand what you are arguing against.


Skin colour is depends on the amount of melanin (a pigment) distributed in the skin. The pigment itself is the same. Variation in colour is the result of variation in the amount of pigment.



Impairment in social abilities in people with clinical AS are not simply a preference for smaller group social interactions.

To my knowledge, there is a lack of any substantive basis for this fanciful claim.


Not necessarily. These are also productive regions for human parasites for instances. Further whether a group is determined to “do_better” will be determined entirely by what “doing better” is defined as .It’s actually a rather meaningless statement.

Actually Africa does have the highest level of genetic diversity, and unless you define “successful” and “out-compete” the latter part of your assertion lacks sufficient meaning to even attribute a truth value to it.

Basically, what you wrote makes NO sense.
You need to take Anthropology and Biology 101 because you seem to not understand the basic principles of either.

One important thing- You are confusing culture with race at some point, which have no correlation to each other. It has been proven many times over that as a species Homo Sapiens are genetically very similar (We are more "inbred" from a genetic bottleneck than chimps for example) and that genes that determine race is a very small percentage of one persons individuality in relation to others. There is no such thing as race except on a very superficial level. For example, all "Black" people have black skin, but there is more diversity there in terms of genes than Caucasians or Asians, meaning- if you want to talk about the reality of race beyond skin colour, there would be dozens of "races" of people who have black skin. Then there is no such thing as just a black race. It's like putting all Green foods into the vegetable category. But we have watermelon, limes, grapes, etc. that are not veggies. Skin colour is a superficial category the same as green foods.

The out of Africa theory may sound "stupid" because you lack a fundamental understanding of genetic heredity, culture, and human evolution.

Some cultures are similar due to their method of gathering food and resources in that area, not the climate itself. There is a HUGE diversity of different cultures within very similar climates. Cultures also constantly change. There is no culture that exists that has been around in the same way for hundreds of years. Culture is a constantly changing process. Just look at the diversity of language for proof.

And... the idea of a culture being "more autistic" than another is a bit of an oxymoron. A culture is about transmitting unique information socially, which is what autistics have trouble with, hence the word autism meaning "own inner world".

Neanderthals do not seem to have any autistic characteristics anyway. They are thought to have been sophisticated hunters of very large game animals for the most of their diet- which would require a considerable amount of social skills to organize. Can you imagine a bunch of Aspies who don't really understand body gesture and signals to sneak up on a huge beast and somehow bring down a 2 ton animal that could crush you in a second? I think if there was a nuclear war and we had to go back to gathering and hunting large mutated cows, Aspies would TOTALLLY SUCK at it, and would have to live off of mutated rats instead.

Whoever came up with the Neaderthal theory of Autism pulled together a lot of loosely related "facts" into a patchwork of complete nonsense. I suggest you drop this "theory" because it is a waste of brain power. Genetic studies and lack of physical proof have led most scientists to believe we never interbred anyway.

It could be that autism is the byproduct for some cognitive characteristic we developed in our evolutionary past though.

Huh?
Umm... So you are saying black people are not genetically the same because they can't compete with us, that they must be "dumber" because they never figured out how to get out of the jungle and build complex civilizations and take over Europeans? Maybe thats because they were actually quite happy where they were and didn't see any reason to hop on a boat to the treeless cold barren landscape of europe?
The Africa today is not the Africa of the past. And- Egypt is in Africa, and they were better off that europe for sure.
I suggest checking out this
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... +and+steel

GUNS GERMS AND STEEL
presents some very good ideas about why europeans were able to prosper and tropical nations could not.

Do some more research before trying to convince others of your racist views.

It is not a fanciful claim. It is a fact.



Adaptation. If they were adapted to this environment, they were adapted to the bugs and germs also. Without such adaptation, Africans would die out. It is only a fanciful claim to try to explain the failure of Africans to dominate Eurasians instead of the reverse.



No, they don't. Most of this so-called diversity is not even African. San Bushmen have no resemblence to Africans whatsoever, but rather is an immigrant group from Asia. Genetic lines in Asia were truncated by the Toba eruption. We need to study pre-Toba Asian diversity, and we need to discard immigration into Africa before starting reasoning about African diversity. Also, as I wrote in another thread, Africans lack ASC diversity.

Please leave the racist BS out of this discussion, because I won't be engaging in such discussions.



Huh? Who proved that and were? FYI, I've proved that Aspie-quiz stands above personality-tests like the Big Five and that these personality-trait dimensions are related to dimensions in Aspie-quiz rather than extra diversity. IOW, the personality aspect does not add anything new. IQ-test also add nothing new, and instead is related to Aspie and NT talents (primarily). Given that Africans lack most of the ASC diversity, I find it extremely hard to believe that they have similar diversity in personality and whatever you call "individuality".

Above all, what defines human diversity and personality actually is autistic traits, and those do not map well to races or populations, except for a lack of autistic traits in Africans.



There is more USELESS diversity in the form of random mutations with no effect. That is totally irrelevant for this discussion.



This is just as stupid as complaining that the autism-spectrum does not exist because there are no clear borders to "normality". Races are not species, and therefore does not work like you claim.



It is stupid because supporters never:
1. Consider back-imigration into Africa in the genetic models
2. Consider bottlenecks in Asia (Toba) or Europe (LGM) in the genetic models

However, the most stupid claim is that because East Africa more or less have been searched for decades for human remaints, and Asia has not, we all must be Africans because more finds are from this region. Did you notice the circularity?

It is also pretty insane to claim that since East Africans have the highest genetic diversity TODAY, this would mean our species must have emerged there. This is a really simplistic view of human migrations patterns. We even know that the arabs of today's northern Africa are not part of East African diversity because they are obviously Caucasian. Naturally, East Africa had migration in the past.



There is not that much of real diversity in cultures:
1. Every culture has the same (majority) facial expressions
2. Every culture values status, beads, and similar
3. Every culture has a pecking order and a status hierarchy.
4. Every culture primarily value peer-based friendships between members of the same gender
5. Every culture values monogamous practises

I could go on and on with "human universals" that are the same in every culture, yet do clash with Autistic preferences / abilites. You could even go through the proposed list of "human universals" claimed by evolutionary psychology experts, and it is pretty easy to find many "universals" that no longer would be universals is Autistics were included.



I think you misunderstand Autistic culture.



Aspies have considerable social skills, and above all, considerably inventive skills, which is what it takes to hunt large animals.



Easily. I could imagine a few Aspies easily putting down a big animal. Not in the way a gang of football huligans would do it, but with some style. Have you missed the traits in "Aspie hunting" totally? Clues: "do you like to make traps", "do you like to jump over things", "do you like to sneak up on animals". FYI, Neanderthals does not appear to have practised the "chasing method" for hunting but rather killed their prey at close distance.



You'd wish.

Everyone was much the same through homo Erectus time, Neanderthal split from that line 250,000 years ago, and went north into the cold and adapted.

Modern humans arise 125,000 years ago, us, and don't do much. 50,000 years ago the thrown spear and halfted axe, both good for killing humans, but not large and fast game.

This group split, some went to Europe, and became cold adapted, others went east, and reached Australia 40,000 years ago. They were a clever folk, for they crossed a hundred kilometers of open ocean to get there.

The group going north of the Black Sea had to adapt to cold, and 40,000 years ago they entered Neanderthal terratory.

Neanderthal was still Erectus, the two groups had been the same people 210,000 years before, and a change came to the people going north, a change that had to do with an understanding of time, the migrations, and other forms of complex thought. Hunter gathers suddenly became herd followers, and the Samii still are.

It was 20,000 years later when the last of the pure Neanderthal died out, and sudden climate change seems to be the cause.

The modern humans changed, Austrailians kept to the hunter gather model, but those North of the Black Sea domesticated herds and crops, both of which date to 35,000 years ago. They also did some major paintings in caves, and most likely their tents, sleds, and the patterns of their clothing. The weaving of cloth comes from that time. The first sculpture.

That they had become suddenly smart is doubtful, it is more likely they learned a whole lot of new skills from the people who had been there for a few hundred thousand years. It was a cultural change, but one that was continued, with no further development.

Erectus is known by the stabbing spear, the hand axe, and mostly by having fully round incisors. Moderns had the thrown spear, then the spear thrower, the halfted aex, and the backs of the incisors are flat to concave. Native Americans have round incisors, so the spread out of Africa started before Moderns.

Erectus was a smart person, before Moderns they had worked out the wing, which then spread with the northern and eastern groups. In Europe the throwing stick is leaf shaped, in Australia, a later development, bent.

The stabbing spear is a much better killing weapon in close quarters, closing at a run, full body weight behind it, it delivers a lot of impact and penertration that the thrown spear lacks. That type of hunting does use blinds, traps, and a knowledge of migrations, the time and path, where kills can be made quickly with short powerful moves. One person can kill a large animal if it is standing still, and hitting a run in four paces the spear is driven in deep.

Colin Renfrew points out evidence of mathematics, and writting from 35,000 years ago. As this is not found in any other line, it must be Neanderthal knowledge shared with the new people.

By 20,000 years ago there are very few Erectus, Moderns are spread through Africa. They are still a dark skinned people, but they do show both Modern dentures, and Asian traits.

Tumba was a major split in the earth, lasting for thousands of years, and the Asian line had to come back or die. There is a lot of evidence of a major migration from East India back into Africa.

Tools and teeth show that Moderns replaced Erectus throughout Africa then. As they are still dark skinned and have African traits, it was a sexual invasion rather than a war.

The other side of the Tumba line only straight black hair survived, into the Americas. Some African traits survived in the islands, Melanisians, but the mainland became all straight hair, and the Australians continued with wavey hair.

There were a lot less people back then, so slightly better ways of survival lead to sexual spreading. Moderns had that, and the thrown spear, which is better for killing humans.

Most people were adapted to the hot lands, those in the north were very few, and moved over vast areas. The only people they were likely to see were the same ones they saw yesterday. Perhaps in winter camp several groups would camp together, but it was still small. Perhaps hundreds would be the largest short term group, and twenty to fifty would follow a herd on migration.

As the north followed Reindeer, their food, the south followed rain, which produced grass for their food. They all followed the same food, so in the south groups would gather along the rain front, and social behavior was different, they had to avoid fighting, and spend time hunting.

In the north, keeping up with one herd, protecting them, with a small group that saw no others for perhaps the year, another social order formed.

Male peer relations would have been the best in the south, for the hunt or other groups. In the north protecting the mothers of the herd, eating the excess males, would have lead to protecting the females of the group, and perhaps next migration you would be sharing her tent.

The south did not protect herds, they killed anything for meat. The north lived with one herd, ate young males, old females, and protected the rest. They had to work as a small group to kill or drive off bears, lions, that would feed on the herd. For that you want a few close friends.

In the open grass of the south small groups, single hunters were at a disadvantage, but fifty could form a fence and slaughter a herd. That called for male peer groups, it also worked on lions, who would wait for scraps, and other groups who would see many hunters and leave them alone.

Add the Neanderthal skills and blood to the nothern mix, and you get very small groups linked by the females, who never had much status in the south. Ever moving, living in isolation, the camp of the women would be the center of the world. The women would see the men as their herd, to be cared for, fed, clothed, and other things.

Continue these ways for 30,000 years, and two very different models arise.

Inventor, I read both your books (almost anyway) during my four week vacation, and I'm impressed with your work. It does not all go well along with my ideas, but it was good inspiration to read your thoughts, and get them applied to daily group interactions. If I decide to update the Neanderthal theory I will certainly look at some of your material in the process. Right now I have instead decided to document my thoughts on my blog, and as much as possible leave Neanderthals out of it. Not because I think the Neanderthal theory is wrong (I'm convinced it is correct), but because it is not needed in documenting how Aspies act naturally. The theory is only needed against the professional autism-researchers that cannot imagine how Aspies can be functional.

good debate.

one thing, i not sure thats strictly true.

[/quote]And how come only caucasions have non brown eyes[quote]

you can find green or even blue eyes in almost all indo-european groups and as far as sri lanka, afghanistan and parts of africa.