Recent Smithsonian thoughts on the Neanderthals…

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

…or miscellaneous speculations on “…if Neanderthals were so smart, why did they go extinct?”

Jacques Cinq-Mars

Smithsonian Magazine, June 2003

Rethinking Neanderthals

Research suggests the so-called brutes fashioned tools, buried their dead, maybe cared for the sick and even conversed. But why, if they were so smart, did they disappear?

BurialIn rolling farm country 280 miles southwest of Paris, Bruno Maureille, an anthropologist at the University of Bordeaux, oversees the excavation of a site called Les Pradelles, where for three decades researchers have been uncovering, fleck by fleck, the remains of humanity's most notorious relatives, the Neanderthals.

Studded with fossilized reindeer bones and other relics, the site, Maureille tells Smithsonian contributor Joe Alper, was probably a butchery where Neanderthals processed the results of what appear to have been very successful hunts. That finding alone is significant, because paleo-anthropologists have long viewed Neanderthals as too dull and too clumsy to use efficient tools, never mind organize a hunt and divvy up the game. But this site, along with others across Europe and in Asia, is helping overturn the familiar conception of Neanderthals as dumb brutes. Recent studies suggest they were imaginative enough to carve artful objects and perhaps clever enough to invent a language.

The full text can be read at http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/toccurrent.shtml

[lagarvelho]

Jacques and all:

Um, I tried to access the pdf version of this story.  Unfortunately, I just got referred to the Smithsonian homepage. . . .
Anne G

[lagarvelho]

Jacques and all:

Sorry, I was mistaken about not being able to access the article.  I just had to scroll down to the bottom of the home page where they had a link to "other stories" and click on that, and then scroll down to the appropriate article and click on *that*.  Looks interesting.  Must read in a couple of hours.
Anne G

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

…or miscellaneous speculations on “…if Neanderthals were so smart, why did they go extinct?”

Jacques Cinq-Mars

Smithsonian Magazine, June 2003

Rethinking Neanderthals

Research suggests the so-called brutes fashioned tools, buried their dead, maybe cared for the sick and even conversed. But why, if they were so smart, did they disappear?

BurialIn rolling farm country 280 miles southwest of Paris, Bruno Maureille, an anthropologist at the University of Bordeaux, oversees the excavation of a site called Les Pradelles, where for three decades researchers have been uncovering, fleck by fleck, the remains of humanity's most notorious relatives, the Neanderthals.

Studded with fossilized reindeer bones and other relics, the site, Maureille tells Smithsonian contributor Joe Alper, was probably a butchery where Neanderthals processed the results of what appear to have been very successful hunts. That finding alone is significant, because paleo-anthropologists have long viewed Neanderthals as too dull and too clumsy to use efficient tools, never mind organize a hunt and divvy up the game. But this site, along with others across Europe and in Asia, is helping overturn the familiar conception of Neanderthals as dumb brutes. Recent studies suggest they were imaginative enough to carve artful objects and perhaps clever enough to invent a language.

A PDF version of the full text can be read with, hopefulluy, an approriate correction, at:
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/toccurrent.shtml