[nocut12]

One thing that points to a big difference is art. There's some claimed Neanderthal cave art, but we're talking about things like pigment circles and lines -- nothing on the level of the modern human paintings at Chauvet or Lascaux.

There's enough evidence to convince me that Neanderthals decorated things and probably could think symbolically, but I to me, based on the evidence we have at least, it's pretty clear that modern humans went about this stuff differently.

I don't know if I think this really means "less intelligent," but I think this does point to some fundamental differences in how they thought. And who knows, maybe we'll find some beautiful Neanderthal cave art that disproves this. Our ideas about Neanderthals have changed a lot over the last few years after all.

[duopixel]

The earliest Homo Sapiens remains are from ~200kya while the earliest (crude) Homo Sapiens paintings are from ~75kya. Lascaux, Chauvet, Altamira et al are ~20kya.