Editing Openai/69177fbb-14c4-800f-bc57-ccb5a1d88c95 (section)

==== - Neanderthals were not “primitive cavemen.” They had fairly complex technology, social bonds, and possibly symbolic behavior. ====
* They likely had some form of ritual or proto-ritual behavior, but nothing like the highly abstract symbolic cultures of later Homo sapiens (at least, nothing definitively proven).
* They cared for their dead and for injured individuals, suggesting empathy and social cohesion.
* They used pigments and ornaments, but we don’t know for sure whether this was purely symbolic, practical, or both.
* Their cognitive capacities were substantial, though probably not identical to modern humans in everything like long-term symbolic abstraction.

===== - Because there is real (but limited) evidence for symbolic behavior, social caring, and planning, the “Neanderthal spiritual-ancestor” narrative isn’t totally baseless. =====
* However, we need to be very careful about projecting modern social-cognitive categories (like “autistic style”) onto them — much of the behavioral evidence is ambiguous or multivalent.
* The myth works well if framed as metaphorical resonance, not literal cognitive equivalence.

If you like, I can map the plausibility of each “autistic-style” trait (e.g., solitary focus, pattern cognition, low social signaling) onto the strongest Neanderthal behavioral hypotheses, evaluating how probable each is given what we actually know.

Do you want me to do that?