IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/auu/wpaper/005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Neanderthal Enigma: A New Theoretical Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Graeme Donald Snooks

Abstract

The limited material evidence relating to Neanderthal culture has enabled scholars to give free rein to their imaginations in reconstructing the mind and society of this extinct branch of Homo. Despite their remarkable success, the Neanderthals are often characterised as being incapable of symbolic thought, language, and action. Sociobiologists have even suggested that the Neanderthal mind was structurally different to that of modern humans. To provide a realist perspective on the “Neanderthal enigma”, a new general dynamic theory is presented and applied to the available evidence. This new theoretical approach shows that, despite possessing distinct mitochondrial DNA, Neanderthal minds and society were little different to those of modern humans, and that our ultimate success was far from inevitable.

Suggested Citation

  • Graeme Donald Snooks, 2008. "The Neanderthal Enigma: A New Theoretical Approach," GDSC Working Papers 005, Institute of Global Dynamic Systems.
    • Handle: RePEc:auu:wpaper:005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.google.com/site/institutegds/home/workingpapers/WP005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wesley A. Niewoehner & Aaron Bergstrom & Derrick Eichele & Melissa Zuroff & Jeffrey T. Clark, 2003. "Manual dexterity in Neanderthals," Nature, Nature, vol. 422(6930), pages 395-395, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      Neanderthal extinction; dynamic-strategy theory; evolution; symbolic thought; language; complex systems;
      All these keywords.

      JEL classification:

      • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
      • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
      • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
      • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
      • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:auu:wpaper:005. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Drew Treasure (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eganuau.html .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.