adapted for less demanding social environments?
I find it difficult to believe that ancient populations, whether nomadic or settled should be assumed as less demanding of skills for social interaction. They lacked today's essential distractions like Wii, Angry Birds, etc. and had to work together simply to survive. Granted, the skittishness of some people with ADHD might allow them to more readily detect and kill prey, thus preserving that competitive advantage in our genome, I can't think of any competitive advantage in the case of autistic children. It's not as if ancient populations enjoyed the readily available/dependable resources that we enjoy today, which would (in theory) allow them to ignore shortcomings, real or imagined for an autistic child. Don't blame it on Neanderthals.
