Martha Gill
'People had been comparing Neanderthals to their successors, rather than their contemporaries. Which is rather like assuming I am more advanced than my parents because I know how to work an iPhone.' Photograph: Jose A Astor/Alamy
They've long been maligned as grunting, club-wielding idiots, but apparently we've got Neanderthals all wrong. Misled by their simple tools (clubs) and simple language (grunting) we have stereotyped them as primitive beings – but this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, according to recent research, Neanderthals were no less intelligent than their modern human contemporaries.
After careful study of archaeological records, scientists in the Netherlands found evidence to suggest that Neanderthals were just as advanced in culture, weaponry and hunting as our human forebears. According to those scientists, the misunderstanding came about because people had been comparing Neanderthals to their successors, who had more advanced tools, rather than their contemporaries. Which is rather like assuming I am more advanced than my parents because I know how to work an iPhone. But this doesn't make my parents any less intelligent … just obsolete and unable to function in this modern, fast-paced world.
So, what we have here is an ugly, ugly stereotype; a stereotype that needs to be quashed. As ever, the Guardian is the perfect place to start that process – and perhaps even to "rebrand" the Neanderthal. After all, when you really think about it, aren't we the real club-wielding prehistoric creatures?
Take some of our most pressing modern concerns. To pick just one example, let's look at the unpalatable truth about quinoa. All evidence suggests that Neanderthal food was both organic and locally sourced. But unlike modern man, Neanderthals were not "consciously ethical" consumers so preoccupied with "personal health, animal welfare and reducing their carbon 'foodprint'" that they drove up the price of a staple grain beyond the grasp of local Bolivians. No.
Not for them, either, the errors of cupcake fascism. They refrained from such products which, as has been pointed out, "treat their audience as children, and more specifically the children of the middle classes – perfect special snowflakes full of wide-eyed wonder and possibility" and thereby "succeed as expressions of a desire on behalf of consumers to always and for ever be children, by telling consumers not only that this is OK, but also that it is, to a real degree, possible." Which was really wise of them.
And neither were Neanderthal women held up to ridiculously high beauty standards. They were not impelled to shave their legs in order to live up to unreachable social ideals concocted by a controlling patriarchy.
And finally, Neanderthals had the skills that will really matter post-rewilding. When George Monbiot has his way and wolves, bears, bison and lynx roam Britain (sheep cast finally into the furthest pit of hell), we'll be relying on our hunting nous. Only then, as we square up to a hungry grizzly, will we know who the club-wielding idiots truly are.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/neanderthals-arent-grunting-club-wielding-idiots-stereotype
After careful study of archaeological records, scientists in the Netherlands found evidence to suggest that Neanderthals were just as advanced in culture, weaponry and hunting as our human forebears. According to those scientists, the misunderstanding came about because people had been comparing Neanderthals to their successors, who had more advanced tools, rather than their contemporaries. Which is rather like assuming I am more advanced than my parents because I know how to work an iPhone. But this doesn't make my parents any less intelligent … just obsolete and unable to function in this modern, fast-paced world.
So, what we have here is an ugly, ugly stereotype; a stereotype that needs to be quashed. As ever, the Guardian is the perfect place to start that process – and perhaps even to "rebrand" the Neanderthal. After all, when you really think about it, aren't we the real club-wielding prehistoric creatures?
Take some of our most pressing modern concerns. To pick just one example, let's look at the unpalatable truth about quinoa. All evidence suggests that Neanderthal food was both organic and locally sourced. But unlike modern man, Neanderthals were not "consciously ethical" consumers so preoccupied with "personal health, animal welfare and reducing their carbon 'foodprint'" that they drove up the price of a staple grain beyond the grasp of local Bolivians. No.
Not for them, either, the errors of cupcake fascism. They refrained from such products which, as has been pointed out, "treat their audience as children, and more specifically the children of the middle classes – perfect special snowflakes full of wide-eyed wonder and possibility" and thereby "succeed as expressions of a desire on behalf of consumers to always and for ever be children, by telling consumers not only that this is OK, but also that it is, to a real degree, possible." Which was really wise of them.
And neither were Neanderthal women held up to ridiculously high beauty standards. They were not impelled to shave their legs in order to live up to unreachable social ideals concocted by a controlling patriarchy.
And finally, Neanderthals had the skills that will really matter post-rewilding. When George Monbiot has his way and wolves, bears, bison and lynx roam Britain (sheep cast finally into the furthest pit of hell), we'll be relying on our hunting nous. Only then, as we square up to a hungry grizzly, will we know who the club-wielding idiots truly are.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/neanderthals-arent-grunting-club-wielding-idiots-stereotype
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