Thursday, June 26, 2008

Neandertals Were Smarter than Most People Think

Science Daily has an article chronicling the excavations at Pulborough, in West Sussex, which shed light on the life ways of Britain's late surviving Neandertals. Archaeologist Matthew Pope is quoted as saying:

The impression they give is of a population in complete command of both landscape and natural raw materials with a flourishing technology - not a people on the edge of extinction.

Neandertals have always gotten a bum rap in the press and popular opinion, but in point of fact, they were as intelligent as we are. Let's face it, when your tundra line starts at Vienna, you got problems. This occupation is during the interstadial between the early Würm and the late Würm glaciation, when areas of Britain opened up for re-occupation. They closed up again around 32 thousand years ago.

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