c b wrote:
>
> Chris Doss
>
> Awesome: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8448660.stm
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Why are Neanderthals often pictured as male ?
>
> Some anthropologists claim that Neanderthals had bigger brains than
> homo sapiens sapiens. (smile)
>
I'm not sure what the (smile) is for; brain size is not the only measure of intelligence, and is no measure at all as to the organization of that intelligence. For that we have to depend on the archaeological record, which is hard to interpret. The Neandethals, incidentally, are not an 'ancestor' of humans: they belong on a different twig of the homo twig. There is the evidence of one grave dug up in Iraq about 70 years ago that at least sometimes they supported disabled individuals who would have been unable to care for themselves but nevertheless had a normal life span (whatever that was).
Carrol