Aspies For Freedom

Yeah, I've heard that theory.

It would explain a couple things:

1. Why those with AS often tend to be hairier than normal, heavier-set, and larger-headed than normal.
2. Why (if that's what Neanderthal women actually look like) my conception of beauty (particulalry in relation to my apparent nose fetish) is so much different from the norm.  As I think I mentioned elsewhere, I find "beautiful" women to be hideously deformed freaks, and several of my standards for attraction are inexplicably odd.
3. The social stuff, as they mentioned
4. Some other stuff like relationship of AS to ADHD I've seen mentioned so far.

However. . .

Thought the Neanderthal theory was discredited as impossible or at leasy highly implausible.

And then there's that AS should be absent in black Africans.
Which it clearly is not.

And probably in South and East Asians too.
Which again. . . (Though it may not be too common in Indians and Pakistanis is it? at least I've never met a south Asian with AS, only seen names that clearly come from that area)

The Neanderthals, interestingly though, did not innovate really much at all.

Yeah, thought I heard something like that too, somewhere. . .

Obviously should be some, I've seen classic Autism names that are clearly Indian.

Thing that I'm curious about is why fewer blacks, and possibly others, get diagnosed.  That's gugged me for a while.

Think it's a class thing.

People of east Asian and European descent are diagnosed about equally for their comparative share of school population where I am, but the only black I know with AS is middle class, and I've met no Latinos (though one may have LFA), south Asians, nor middle Eastern students with AS.

The whites and Chinese/Japanese/Koreans at my school tend to come from above average income families, while Latinos and blacks from lower income groups, and the Middle Easterners (primarily Iranians) and South Asians I don't know about.

With less income, parents tend not to take their children to psychologists, and may because there is more delinquency in lower classes might chalk off AS symptoms to that.

It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of AS diagnosis by parent income brackets.

I envy you.
I have laser removal done to the joining of my brow in middle school, and I still have to shave there.

And I'm so hairy it's painful.
Doesn't help that my little brother comments.
Not as much as my cousin (whose father is immensely hairy), but still a pain since I always want to remove it.

Generally settle for certain parts like the hands, feet, neck, ankle, wrists, and of course face, and leave it as that, since I can't find a depillation cream that actually removes the roots.

I don't know if I agree with that - they certainly used fire for heat and cooking, they wore the furs of animals joined by sewing and knotting, we've found bodies that were buried with flowers scattered around them and in one or two cases, plaited into their hair, and just recently I read about a case where a spear straightener was found which had a recognisable shape of a deer carved into it - but it was dated well before modern humans arrived in Europe.  I would think the reason we don't see much innovation is that they were such a small population, we just haven't found much *yet* in the way of art.  Also, you have to remember that their bodies were supremely adapted to ice age life; they had physically short, heavy-set, heat-conserving bodies, and by studying the way the muscles attached to the bone, we know that though they may not have been as flexible and dexterous as us, they did have a far superior muscular strength.  Perhaps they didn't need to innovate to survive - until the ice age ended, by which time, it may have been too late to learn.

Oh, and btw, don't worry about the hairy thing - lots of girls like guys who look like guys, my husband is certainly well-covered!  :grin:
Alison (who is truly hoping you ARE a guy, or else I will be feeling rather sheepish about that last comment!)

Phew!  Glad I didn't cause offense - your email voice "sounds" male, so I'm pleased my assumption was the correct one!  

As to the other point, Neanderthals were quite a bit shorter than the modern human, with males standing about 5 foot, and females usually a few inches shorter.  They also appeared from the skeletons to have been far more "stocky" than Cro Magnons.  
Alison

My phone voice, on the other hand, does not.

If I had a dime for every time somebody called me "Ma'am" on the phone. . .

Well, I'd probably have enough for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

They usually do get it right, but very often,  they get it wrong.
Especially when the person on the other end is not a native English speaker, in which case they almost always do.

My father had an "evolution of Man" book, and on the double-page of the famous picture it showed hominids geting taller until Neanderthal, then shrinking again at HSS.

And it listed the descriptions average heights and put HN(in the book HSN)'s average height at a bit over six, compared to a bit under for HSS.

Were the first ones found much taller than normal?
Or was the book (which put humans into 4-5 "races," forget if Aborigines were seperate or not) just a bunch of pseudoscientific racial theory BS that my father unthinkingly bought up?

Well, all of the books I've read state an average height for an adult male to be around five feet.  One of my latest books on Neanderthal Humans is "Prehistoric Man", published by Exeter in the mid-90s.  On the chapter for Neanderthal physical characteristics, it says "the limb bones were rather short and stout and the general height was probably not more than 5 feet for an adult male.  In stature and build they may have resembled today's Inuit, or Eskimo, peoples."  However, there were several distinct populations of Neanderthals who flourished in geographically distinct areas.  The "Mousterians" were the so-called "Classic" Neanderthals who lived in Western Europe, but there were others in what is now the Middle East, Java, known as "Soloensis", and Africa, known as "Rhodesian Man" (and presumably a few women...)  The African skeletons were quite similar to modern humans, only the distinctive Neanderthal skulls with their swept-back craniums and heavy brow ridges differentiate them.

On reading further, I then found that early Homo Sapiens sapiens were actually very tall - comparable to modern human heights, at 6 foot for men and 5.7 or so for women.  Perhaps that's what your dad's book was showing, as humans after the last ice age seemed to get slightly smaller again until the current day, when (presumably due to the high-quality supermarket diet, or some other unexplained factor) we're again seeing our children growing beyond our wildest dreams!  I'm fairly short at 5 feet, and my teenage daughter is now taller than me, obviously heading for her father's 6.3 height!  

Alison

What is your source for the belief that that those with A.S. are hairier than average? It runs contrary to my personal experience.

I didn't think that there was a difference between Aspie and HFA?

In my early childhood I guess I was HFA.  Now it's kinda hard to say what I am, HFA, AS, maybe even mildly NT?