The brain of Neanderthal Man

Neanderthal man: what do those two words conjure up in you? For many it will be a picture of brutish stupidity. The common image of Neanderthal Man is of a dull-witted race trudging to extinction out of their own inability to cope. Yet, is this so? Was Neanderthal Man our inferior?

Let us look at some data. A typical modern human has a brain size of about 1,300 cubic centimetres. So, Neanderthal Man, being "brutish and stupid" is going to have a smaller one...right? Wrong. From a table of brain size and race that I have seen, Neanderthal man is listed at 1,700 cubic centimetres - a full 400 cubic centimetres larger than the brains of modern men.

Now, brain size has been correlated with intelligence, in many studies (I will post about this on another occasion) - but there is another factor to take into account: brain size to body ratio. A Neanderthal was stronger and more robust than a modern human - about a quarter heavier or so - and muscular with it. Taking this larger size into account still gives Neanderthal Man an advantage over us - for the ratio of 1,700 to 1,300 is about 1.30 - which is larger than the 1.25 scaling for body mass. By this measure Neanderthal Man should still have been smarter than us.

I find it curious that there has been such a tendency to denigrate the Neanderthal man. Just as in marketing, in evolution I am sure that it is not always the case, that the best "product" wins. Apple lost out to Windows - even though for a long time, it was a better product. Betamax lost out to VHS - when it, too, had been a better product. No doubt it is quite possible that a superior human could have lost out to an inferior one, for various reasons.

No-one disputes that they were stronger than us. Perhaps they were smarter too. Certainly, their brain size is suggestive of a significant intelligence, of some kind. There is other evidence, too, that they were not as stupid as people have made them out to be. They managed to move into and populate areas of Europe that had defeated their immediate ancestors, Homo Heidelbergensis, establishing themselves in Central and Eastern Europe. They also show evidence of developing new stone working techniques over time, showing a gradual accumulation of technological skill. These last two statements are supported by a paper by Dr Terry Hopkinson of the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, of the University of Leicester, published in the journal Antiquity.

Some researchers rather oddly argue away the Neanderthal's superiority in brain size by saying that modern human brains are more "efficient". They state that we have advantages in circuitry and brain organization. I find this funny. It is funny because they cannot possibly have any evidence of these statements - they are just supposition - and constitute self-justifying argumentation. We will never have a Neanderthal brain to dissect to study its circuitry. We will never be able to MRI a Neanderthal brain to study its organization. We can only succumb to the temptation to make up a story to say why modern man must be superior to our extinct counterpart. Maybe we are not superior, maybe we were just lucky (or better at warfare...) Whether or not we are superior to Neanderthal Man, the fact remains that Neanderthal Man was not the stupid brute he is made out to be. The archaelogical evidence suggests an adaptable, technologically skilled, very "human" race, which just happens to have died out for reasons that may never be entirely clear.

I, for one, would like to meet a Neanderthal man and have a talk. It would be good to meet someone so different from the Homo Sapiens one normally talks to. He (or she) is likely to think in quite a different way - and that would be refreshing. The one thing that would really surprise me, however, would be finding that they were, in fact, stupid and brutish. I have rather a different expectation.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

On "All-rounders" and specialists

Some gifted children are good at everything. They shine at whatever they attempt. Others seem handcrafted by some divine power, for one task and one task alone - a gift so narrow it has but a single name. Why is this so?

Well, one need only begin to think about what it means to be gifted. Each gift must be supported by a neural network. It would seem a fair proposal that those who have a greater gift must have a greater number of or complexity of neurons supporting that greater gift. There lies the problem. Each gift we possess competes with every other gift for space in our brains. Each operation of our very complex bodies is co-ordinated in some manner or degree by a part of our brain. Some of these brain functions are non-negotiable basic life support functions. They cannot be given up for another purpose. Therefore, after all the brain space is allotted, one could conclude that the space available for the cultivation of gifts may be more limited than one might suppose. Each gift is reflected in allotted brain space. A range of gifts would require a range of allotments. At some point, these gifts would begin to compete with each other for space - unless they have overlapping functions that might allow dual use of space in some way.

So how is it that some people have many gifts - and others have but one? (Not forgetting that many people appear to have no distinctive gift at all.) It could all be down to brain size and the distribution of brain space among gifts. Some people have larger brains than others. My own family, for instance, contains many people with fairly large heads - and so, presumably larger than usual brains. There is, in fact, a known positive correlation between brain size and IQ (which I could rediscover and post another time). Yet, that is not the whole story. Perhaps a great gift - a truly great gift - may require too much of the available brain space to support and so might compromise other areas of intellectual function to accommodate it - unless, of course, the brain were unusually large and able to make accommodation for all demands. However, it is clear, in the case in which a great gift exists in a brain that does not have enough space to accommodate any or many other gifts, that there would have to be compromises in other areas. Thus, there would arise people who are outstanding in some respects - truly great - but somewhat more limited in others, simply because of inadequate mental resources to cope with all demands.

The reasoning, so far, has been my own. The question is: can we observe such people in the world? Are there people of great gift who are limited in other ways? Without having to name anyone in particular, we all have the sense that this is so - from having met people who partially or wholly represent this phenomenon. We all know of a mathematically gifted person who was hopeless with anything literary - or the literary type who was hopeless mathematically. Indeed, this type of one sided person seems to be more common in my childhood memories of school than the "all-rounder". I was an all-rounder - and remain so - but there were few of us in my school, very few.

Why do I post on this? Well, a searcher arrived on my site today with the search: "Training children to be all-rounders". I have stated my reasoning above so that I might observe, now, that training a child to be an all-rounder - who isn't naturally one, by dint of the possession of a plenitude of neural resources - may involve compromises. It is possible that, in becoming an all-rounder, they might end up less good at the one thing they would have been really good at, if they had been left alone. The brain's resources are logically limited, after all. Perhaps it is better to let the inclinations of the child guide his or her education. Deep down, every child knows if they are a naturally endowed "all-rounder" or whether it is better for them to dig a single deep furrow, at which they might shine above all others.

Just as I don't believe that any gifted child can be a genius at any one thing, I don't believe that any gifted child can be an all-rounder, either. The capacities that lead to these results are, I believe, from what I have observed in the world around me, essentially innate. The "training" that this searcher sought should always, therefore, be directed to nurture whatever is natural in that child. Careful observation of the child should be enough to determine whether they naturally lean to specialization or generalization. The issue should definitely not be forced. From my argument above, it may even cause a variety of harm to do so: for the brain might be forced to make compromises in the distribution of resources which are not, ultimately, beneficial.

Best wishes, all, on raising your children as they are meant to be raised: according to their individual needs.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)