Do you think Neanderthals were autistic?

Question

They seem to have been peaceful people, intelligent but with no drive for innovation, they lived the same ritualistic lifestyle for tens of thousands of years.

Answer 1

There is a theory that autism is caused by Neanderthal genes.

"Supporters of this theory draw parallels between the symptoms of autism and deduced behaviors of Neanderthals: dispraxia (lack of hand-eye coordination) compared to absence of Neanderthal throwing weapons; seasonal affected disorder (SAD) may indicate Neanderthals hibernated; autistic children typically have a slightly larger brain; and difficulty in learning a language. They also note that autism is more common among people of European descent, who would be expected to have more Neanderthal genes "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A21606040

Searching the internet on this topic I found no studies or documentation that wasn't circumstantial. A large number of the search hits were discussion boards and most referred to the site listed below.

Much of the information is charts and discussion of numerous disorders. What I took from it was the frequent "Neanderthals probably" and "Neanderthals might" have done something followed by a link to autism.

Bottom line: Lots of supposition but nothing with DNA studies. As autism and it's variations are still of unknown cause the theory seems doubtful in it's premise.

Answer 2

How do you know all this? Have you spent some time with some Neanderthal tribes?

Answer 3

Temple Grandin has Asperger's, a form of autism, and is an innovative developer of livestock pens(see the site below). Autism is not a lack of innovation, but a lack of social skills, especially face and gesture reading or the ability to guess what others are thinking and feeling. Since life for Neanderthals was environmentally challenging, they needed all the help they could get from others. Autism would have seriously limited their ability to survive in harsh circumstances. So, no, they were not autistic.

Answer 4

That is actually an interesting and intelligent hypothesis. I know that dna evidence is starting to show a partial Neanderthal ancestry for those of European descent. Autism is passed from parents to children usually and it would interest me to know the breakdown of which ethnic groups have shown the greatest tendency towards Autism. I also know that Autism can be contracted through a negative reaction to certain childhood vaccines. As most African nations do not have the money or medical supplies to vaccinate their children it would seem likely to me that the majority of Autism cases within those of African descent would be those living in Europe or North America where vaccines are mandated and where the chances of intermarriage are increased. (I am not trying to be racist here so don't get your knickers in a twist.) I am of European descent and likely have Asbergers syndrome although I was never diagnosed as a child. (That in itself is why you don't send your kids to religious schools.) It would make sense that Autism is a possible holdover from Neanderthal ancestry and why the Neanderthals were unable to make the adjustments necessary to create their own civilisations.

Answer 5

They don't seem to have ben any different to modern humans in lifestyle right up until about 40k ago, when we started to displace them.

Autism is causeed by a mix of problems, the number one cause of the recent increase got nailed down as 'older fathers' a few years ago. Since the average Neanderthal was dead in his thirties, autism probably wasn't an issue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/531387...

Gluten is also an aggravating factor in autism, but Neanderthals never ate wheat (and neither did modern humans, until about 20k ago).

Answer 6

Nobody can say for sure if they were left brain or right brain thinkers, but they can say for sure that there brains were larger than ours are, this doesn't mean they were more intelligent, just that there head was bigger. The size of the brain doesn't necessarily mean they had an evolutionary advantage over our cro-magnon ancestors, i highly doubt they were autistic in any way whatsoever.

Answer 7

Uh, no. You're reaching here, I'm afraid.

WE didn't change for long stretches.

You don't know that they had any of the characteristics of autistics -- "ritualistic lifestyle"? You don't at allknow whether they had problems with breaks in routine, in fact they couldn't have survived so long if that were true.

No drive for innovation? I don't know that that's at all fair, either.

Sorry. No cigar.

Interesting question, though.

There's no reason to doubt they were highly social.