In the beginning...reverse evolution.

[alexjrgreen]

The observable brain/body mass of the mice is irrelevant as they are pan-dimensional creatures.

Frankie and Benjy send their regards...

[alexjrgreen]

Proven that they had language? What? Because they had the physical ability? Yeah right, that's also a crap statement. This site is horrible.

They had the same FOXP2 "language gene" as modern humans, too, so it's very likely they could talk.

I offered the site as a place to start. If it left you wanting more, well and good.

, I'm already familiar with that stuff. It leads to fun speculation. I was wondering if anyone had any real evidence.

*edit: conjecture is interesting if supported well enough. If you can point me to some peer-reviewed academic articles on the subject, I'd love to take a look at them.

Google Scholar links for Neanderthal

[TallDave]

increases lung capacity and improves muscle efficiency

Exactly, which is why I think that higher muscle mass does not mean less brain power.

Bigger muscles require more nerves to control them, which adds brain mass but not IQ. Whales have much bigger brains than we do, but they're mostly taken up controlling their enormous bodies.

The oxygen from the lungs is limited. Big muscles, however efficient, still use lots of oxygen. Which means there's less to go round...

Yep, the brain uses huge amounts of energy.

What's interesting is that Neanderthals were almost exclusively carnivorous, perhaps even obligate carnivores. Makes you wonder if they died out from being too good at hunting.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... =pmcentrez

We know they were considerably stronger and heavier. Maybe we survived by running away from them.

I give 50/50 odds someone reassembles their DNA within 50 years to create the ultimate NFL linebacker.

They had the same FOXP2 "language gene" as modern humans, too, so it's very likely they could talk

We also know they had the hyoid bone and similar hypoglossal canal., so it does seem very likely.

[Skipjack]

According to this article Neanderthals lacked the quantal vovles moder humans use. How they got to that conclusion I dont know.
Here is the article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 154426.htm

Now that does not say anything about their intelligence. It just means that their language capabilities were more limited.

[MirariNefas]

Physical evidence is sketchy. The ability to make sounds can have many advantages besides complex communication. The FOXP2 evidence is the best, yet a single gene is never enough to establish the presence of a trait. Try that anywhere else, and you won't get published.

By the way, skuttlebutt among the evolutionary biologists is that the Neanderthal genome data isn't reliable. Turns out, the Neanderthals had a suspicious genetic commonality with members of the lab working on it.

Here's a news article mentioning it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/scien ... rthal.html

An earlier analysis of Neanderthal DNA by Dr. Pääbo proved to have had 10 percent human contamination, he said, but in the new draft genome, he has taken pains to measure the degree of human contamination and finds it is below 3 percent, he said.

Great. Only up to 3% now. Great lab technique guys.

[MirariNefas]

Proven that they had language? What? Because they had the physical ability? Yeah right, that's also a crap statement. This site is horrible.

They had the same FOXP2 "language gene" as modern humans, too, so it's very likely they could talk.

I offered the site as a place to start. If it left you wanting more, well and good.

, I'm already familiar with that stuff. It leads to fun speculation. I was wondering if anyone had any real evidence.

*edit: conjecture is interesting if supported well enough. If you can point me to some peer-reviewed academic articles on the subject, I'd love to take a look at them.

Google Scholar links for Neanderthal

Thanks, you're really helpful. I see that you know a great deal about this subject, and can only be coaxed into commenting when you have something meaningful to share.

*edit: Well, surprise surprise, google scholar isn't showing me anything substantial indicating they were smarter than us. Could it be that people just like having things in black and white? A few articles on a few possibilities, and that's enough for dreamers the world over.

[MirariNefas]

Here's a good one:
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/inf ... en.0030175

Also, here's a great quote from the genuis who got his DNA in the neanderthal genome (okay, okay, it was probably one of his grad students; he probably never stepped foot in the lab) from:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ome_2.html

"Although there are many genes involved in language," Pääbo said, "there's no reason to say that they couldn't articulate the way that we do."

So that's what we have from him. Notice he doesn't say, "They could talk."

[alexjrgreen]

"Although there are many genes involved in language," Pääbo said, "there's no reason to say that they couldn't articulate the way that we do."

So that's what we have from him. Notice he doesn't say, "They could talk."

Nothing in the skeletal evidence or the DNA evidence suggests that they couldn't talk. That's not proof that they could talk, but the evidence so far is all one way.

[alexjrgreen]

An update:

Monkey calls give clues to language origins

Professor Zuberbueler said: "Campbell's monkeys and humans separated from a common ancestor about 30 million years ago.
"This set of papers shows that in terms of the call morphology, there seem to be ancestral traits floating around the primate lineage that haven't been known before."