Did cavemen have 'busy' minds like ours?

[Deerhunter21]

Yeah, It didn't happen overnight. but some neanderthal that were separate from the others evolved to their conditions differently than the others since they had different conditions, slowly evolving into humans

[Gimlis Ghost]

This is a very old thread but being a recent addition to this board almost every thread I find of interest is a very old one.

I had intended to study Anthropology at University and even bought the necessary textbooks, but when I went to sign up I found that they had pulled the course entirely due to supposed racism of the study materials. It was more a matter of phasing than anything else, they still used terms like "Sub races" back then, though this term was not what people thought it was. It was a classification denoting various population groups who had adapted to very different environments, such as Bushmen (Negrito), Oceanic Negroes, Pygmy, Maasai, etc.

Well that is not important to the question of the Neanderthal / Human connection, mainly since those were the pre DNA mapping days. Humans did not evolve from Neanderthal, both descended from earlier Hominids as separate branches. They were close enough to that root stock that in later generations they found they could interbreed.
The shape and size of the Neanderthal brain case suggests that they had a more active imagination and problem solving ability than early Humans, but they lacked advanced communication skills.

Interbreeding of Neanderthal and early Humans resulted in a vast improvement of the Human mind . Those Human hybrids now had more imagination and problem solving ability coupled with greater dexterity and ability to communicate complicated ideas.

I could go on but it would tread to close to subjects forbidden on this board.

[Digital Caveman]

I don't know if this adds to anything on the subject, but the classic definition of a human is a rational animal, so perhaps what people mean when they say human is actually homo sapien. 

To the question in the subject line, I think our fast paced world is very recent, people even a few hundred years ago seemed much more present to the moment than they are today.

[Gimlis Ghost]

I don't know if this adds to anything on the subject, but the classic definition of a human is a rational animal, so perhaps what people mean when they say human is actually homo sapien. 

To the question in the subject line, I think our fast paced world is very recent, people even a few hundred years ago seemed much more present to the moment than they are today.

I think communication skills are a major factor in the perceived superior state of modern rational thought processes. Nomenclature is vital to development of improvements of existing technology, since if one can not clearly express his thoughts on any subject there can be no meeting of the minds. The old saying "two heads are better than one" is very often true.

Boards like this are good illustrations of this. Members come here to discuss ways of doing things and to learn how others solved the problems they ran into.

It occurred to me that in ancient times a hunter may have wished to create a more efficient bow and remembered how when a friend tried to repair a cracked limb with animal glue and sinew how that limb became stiffer and had to be re-tillered. After some discussion with his friend he decided to try applying sinew wraps to both limbs and saw some improvement. Then figured out that sinew could be applied lengthwise to the back only and saw even more improvement. News spread by word of mouth and soon everyone in his tribe was doing it and coming up with tweaks of their own.

Probably a key phrase would be "you know if you tried this it might ...etc."

If the mind isn't stimulated it atrophies.