Neanderthals were smarter than us

Something different this week, as I will explain to you, the secrets of human pre history! `

First though...In a previous email update, I mentioned needing a damaged copy of Uzimaki, and explained why I needed a damaged one rather than just going and buying another new copy. And...not one of you ingrates stepped forward. One of two possibilities. 1-none of you have a damaged copy 2-none of you have a copy, or even heard of it until I recommended it.

For all of you in category 2...what the hell?! Do I have to show you everything? I know many of you only read one comic book and that's Arsenic Lullaby, and in normal times I'd be fine with that. However, the comic book industry, though it is slow to realize it, needs to get it's ass in gear and start getting people to read more comics. So...here's...just off the top of my head, in random order are some recommendations. All of you who think Arsenic Lullaby is a aberration and comics are just capes and tights bullsh*t, I recommend to you the following

Stray bullets is ...(for lack of a better way to describe it quickly) a white trash crime comic. It's well thought out, great characters, exciting and tense. There's collection of it, I can vouch for volume 3, as I owned it and someone borrowed it and never gave it back. So that's two recommendation when you really think about it.

Reid Flemming - Is mean and funny and does a great job of creating an abstract world full of drama and danger in delivering milk. And it's a book I would call a gold standard of comedic timing in comic book form.

Flaming Carrot- a more weird and abstract comic book would be hard to find. It's as though David Lynch tried his and at making an adventure comic. There's a whole issue where he fights giant talking hot wing. It's a comic I've owned several collections of that were borrowed and kept by the borrowers.

NOW THEN...

I assume that all of you, at one point or another, have heard theories of how the pyramids were made and stars were mapped out and all the stuff ancient humans did/knew that seem...out of scale for their knowledge base and technology. There are some real questions out there that we don't have answers to. Theories about such as ancient Alien contact, past advanced civilizations we don't know about, technology that's been lost to time

I don't buy into most of that crap because most of what seems "beyond human ability or technology of the time" really isn't that complicated. Once you figure out how to make rope, you've won the ball game as far as measuring, leverage, ect. And there's plenty of videos out there of guys drilling holes into and cutting and polishing giant stones with no more technology than ropes, sand and sticks.

The one achievement that does vex me the most was the mapping of the stars, and the progress of stars. In my mind, the problem comes down to, given the short lifespan of a human, and given there was no telescopes or standard means of measurement, how would they notice this? How could they pass along knowledge to the next generation, for them to continue mapping the cycles that are longer than one lifespan? I don't think humans did. No...no, I don't think aliens came down and told them. I think the Neanderthals did it, I think the Neanderthals were smarter than early man. A lot smarter. And I think it is very likely that they are the one's who charted the stars and the movement of the stars in the sky. And I'll explain why, I think my case is rather convincing, and it is based on objective evidence.

I'll first tell you why they went extinct and modern humans took over. It's very complicated...are you ready? Here it is...human beings are better looking, the end. You go to a bar or a nightclub, everyone there is looking to sleep with someone as attractive as possible, regardless as to how ugly they themselves might be. Humans and Neanderthals co existed for about 6000 years, that is plenty of time for ugly Neanderthals to breed themselves right out of existence via sleeping with good looking humans. You''ll find that most questions have very simple answers, as long as you are looking for an answer and not trying to write a thesis that makes you look like a genius. Ugly individuals don't get laid if there is an attractive individual as an option. That goes for humans, cro magnons, Neanderthals...hell, ask the peacock with the crappiest feathers how his Saturday night was.

Now, let's get back to the intelligence of the Neanderthal. More and more evidence is coming to light showing that they were not at all dumb brutes. There is evidence of them performing basic surgery, including amputation. They found a dead Neanderthal from 50,000 years ago, that had his arm amputated...and not only survived but lived for a rather long time (years) afterword. Let's think about what that implies. That implies the understanding of the need for the surgery, the possibility of it, the knowledge of how to do it, the tools needed (including at the very least a tourniquet...i.e rope), and the understanding of post surgery care. That seems pretty f*cking amazing for 50,000 years ago. It seems amazing, BECAUSE we have been under the assumption that they were dumb brutes. We have plenty of evidence to the contrary now.

Anyone here can justifiably ask "what the f*ck do you know about archeology and bio archeology?!" and I can reply "not a lot but more than you'd assume I do" BUT...I can say this with all confidence- I know a hell of a lot more about the process of making art, than an archeologist. And in regards to the evidence that is art and not bones, I would tell them to "hold my beer" while I look at some of their cave paintings...

The HOW specifically is what's never talked about...and I don't meant with what kind of stick and what kind of dyes.

First off, that is not an amateur. Could you do that? From memory, with no reference picture? That is as good a "sketch" as anyone now would do. Anatomically correct, a level of detail higher than needed to simply to get the point across. Decisions were made on which details are important and which are not. (Horns, hoofs, male or female could be considered vital, but the shading and different colored hair on the same animal are details for the sake of artistry) And it's on a cave/rock wall, with a stick. I couldn't do that...not on the first try.( and that point is going to become an important).

Impressive but not blowing your mind? How about this one....

Seems like a bit of a mess, but get a load of this, one of the people who was researching it used an actual torch for light and realized that with the flickering of the flame THE F*CKING IMAGES MOVED...LIKE OLD SCHOOL ANIMATION. They figured out how to create optical illusions. Have a different opinion on the brainpower of the Neanderthals yet?

Then there is this pic, for scale...

The size of that...we're now talking about needing to build scaffolding to stand on, for the express purpose of making an image. And more than a bit of artisitic planning and size scaling. As well as needing several torches and whatever fuel the torches use (animal fat, pre-dried wood, ect) Remember the scaffolding? He'd need help cutting that wood to size, fabricating it, moving it. He'd probably need help gathering the minerals or whatever else he used to make that much paint. Most importantly, he'd need to eat. Meaning the other Neanderthals would have to be on board with him getting food he hadn't hunted or gathered himself. and/or not steal what he saved up. This was to some extent a group effort and that ain't going to happen unless the group is confident and excited for him to do it based on what they had previously seen him do. And, again based on my own extensive experience in analyzing illustrations across the board, this cave wall art was all done by one person. Those strokes of lines are all by the same hand, to me they are as obvious and as a signature.

Which brings me to another point, via my own expertise, these were not first drafts. That Neanderthal did not wander up to that cave wall with a stick and just go to town having never attempted to draw an animal. Meaning the others had seen him draw before. In the dirt...maybe. But more likely, given what else we've seen they were capable of, onto some other transportable medium. Peeled tree bark, or animal skins maybe. There's a lot of things they could have been drawing on, that deteriorate into dust after a few thousand years and ain't in the cave when the British museum rolls in 20,000 years later. But it existed or those cave paintings would not, period. There's a reason all this is important to understand. One, it suggests they had the ability to recognize one of them having more ability in a certain area than the rest of them...beyond wolves fighting for roles via physical challenge. He was picked from the group to do it, or got the group to combine their efforts to help him.

Something important to note that is missing, which is evidence that they were drawing on things that did not survive the passage of time. Porn. Where's the porn? As far back as you can go in homosapien history there's nudies. Nude statues, phallic symbols carved into walls, or sculpted into dolls. It's everywhere. There's even pornographic graffiti on Roman walls. So, they made porn...as sure as you and I are breathing in and out, there where Neanderthals drawing boobies. But not on the community cave walls. They made it on something more discreet that wasn't in constant view of the entire community. Which belies a culture with some semblance of decorum. That is fairly important, when you are trying to suss out the level of intellect and culture they might have had.

And the fact that none of the rest of them later vandalized it nor tried to contribute their own paint covered stick efforts to it, also implies an amount of decorum and culture and self awareness beyond how strong or fast one might be.

Back to not having reference pictures. It's possible he practiced drawing animals they killed that were lying around, or even had some dragged into the cave. But there is another possibility which will explain them being able to map out the stars. Humans are primates, Neanderthals are primates, and chimpanzees are primates. While we know about us, there is a lot about the Neanderthals we don't know, BUT there is a lot about chimpanzees we DO know. and we know that their visual memory is off the charts compared to ours.

They've done a lot of cognitive of tests on chimps. Like showing them a screen shot of random numbers for one second and seeing if they can reproduce it with a touchscreen of numbers...they can, like magic.

Here's the high points of the studies-Eidetic Memory: Chimpanzees have been observed to possess eidetic memory, a rare ability in humans, where they can recall visual information with exceptional accuracy and detail. (Matsuzawa et al., 2001)Pattern Recognition: Chimpanzees can quickly recognize and recall complex patterns, such as numerical sequences, with remarkable speed and accuracy. (Matsuzawa et al., 2001)Visual Working Memory: Chimpanzees demonstrate superior visual working memory, allowing them to hold and manipulate visual information in their minds for a longer period than humans. (Inoue & Matsuzawa, 2007) It's possible (I would say likely) that Neanderthals also had this ability and it either didn't stick when they bread with humans or our level of skill in such areas eroded along the way as we needed such skills less and less. There's a lot of cave man sh*t you just stop using once you have metallurgy, farming and civilization. The Neanderthals though...could be they were at the level of chimps or even higher, in visual recall. If that was the case, it would explain how one can, over the course of a single lifetime, notice the movements of the stars to the point you not only notice the pattern but all the patterns. Handy knowledge to have on an animal skin or something you can take with you if you are going out on a trip in search of better hunting land, or other groups of Neanderthals...and you don't have compass yet. NOW...here's an early homosapien painting.

Compared to the Neanderthal painting...this looks like sh*t.

This was done on the first try, by whoever decided to rub the ashes onto the stick, any one of you with no practice could do this as well or better. And it is relatively small and requires no ladder/scaffolding, or even a large rock to stand on. No extensive amount of time was put in that would limit time needed to find food. No group effort or consensus was needed. So, who pray tell, do you think was smarter and more advanced? and who pray tell, having no math, units of measurement, or telescope to aid them, do you think charted the stars? Neanderthals or humans? In order to chart the stars at all you have to notice they are moving in the sky...i.e. notice and give importance to details...

Neanderthals went away 20-30,000 years ago (that's the current assumption) after the last of it's line knocked up that lone human at the stone age bar at 2am. and homosapiens (or the combo thereof) basically stay stagnant at their level of tools, knowledge, lifestyle until...just before the bronze age. And what comes with the bronze age...farming civilizations that divided up tasks, and that means needing ownership of land and that means...wars. Why didn't neanderthals have the wheel or why didn't they make this or do that? maybe they did and we haven't found it because all evidence has disintegrated, also maybe they didn't have...enough aggression/ambition. Maybe they, apart from when taking care of basic needs for survival i.e. hunting, were calm and docile. Smart does not always equal giant leaps in technology, actually usually it doesn't.

Ironically, sometimes stupid advances things faster than smart. Someone smart and able to figure out how to kill food fast so they can go back to working on mapping the stars and creating murals may not advance his civilization as fast as someone stupidly staring into a fire pit so long that he notices one of the "rocks" (iron) is melting. and having noticed it, and being aggressive, made into into a weapon. .NOW AS A SIDE NOTE to the conspiracy theorists at or beyond the level I am at, who believe there have been many civilizations in the past that were wiped off the face of the earth by one force or another, that managed to pass some knowledge along. That could very well be, but who says those civilizations were homo sapiens? The tangible evidence in front of us is that we were dumber and only became smarter via breeding with Neanderthals and the rise of conflict. 30,000 years ago Neanderthals were engaging in complex group projects, for no other purpose than to make something visually pleasing...which goes right along with them procreating themselves right out of existence by doing the bulk of their f*kcing with hotter but dumber homosapiens.

There does seem to be a lack of curiosity involved in archeology that some go so far as to deem "covering things up". But the "why" they'd cover anything up is always a question. Like what actual social unrest could occur if it Atlantis was discovered and they had electricity, or whatever. Perhaps it is PERSONAL unease with the possibilities that is hindering putting two and two together. Because the evidence leads to the conclusion that the Neanderthals have cognitive abilities beyond that of early man and all we as a species brought to the table was being good looking and angry. Not something you'd want to try get grant to prove, or broadcast it if you did.

You can email me the invitation to claim my noble prize or just hand it to me in Chicago at C2E2 in April.

Always, my homepage is here- https://arseniclullabies.com/

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