That’s true. I was making that same point in another thread the other day.

This time, I was just attempting to be snarky about human hubris and self importance. Guess it didn’t land right.

As far as neanderthals go, I tend to think they were smarter than early sapiens of the time both by cubic volume and encephalitic quotient (the measure of firing capacity). The third factor there we don’t really have a good idea about is number of neurons. Nonetheless.

It’s also not a given that intelligence is the top indicator of adaptability. Frankly, that seems more hubristic thinking. In the end, Sapiens survived and thrived because they adapted to agriculture. Neanderthals did not. But unknown ecological factors may have come into play as well so maybe they simply couldn’t rather than not being smart enough to try. As an example, it doesn’t matter if you’re smart enough to figure out how to make bread and beer products from wheat if you physically can’t digest it and a blight wiped out all the nut trees you used for an equivalent to get you through the winter.