[CliffordK (OP)]

Were Neanderthals poor small game hunters?

I just read an interesting article today suggesting that may have been well adapted to hunting large game such as mammoths, but they may not have been good small game hunters.

Thus, the extinction of large game 30,000 years ago in several areas also led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. 

Humans, on the other hand were able to hunt large and small game.  Perhaps our competition also hurt the large game hunting.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

See the National Geographic article here.

[Don_1]

This also worth considering: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21759233

The two don't seem to back up each other. The larger eye would suggest that neanderthals would have been better able to spot small prey than Homo Sapiens and though neanderthals may not have had the brain power, hunger would have spurred then on to take whatever was available.

Of course it could be that they just weren't up to the job, but I can't see them turning away from a meal just because it wasn't big enough.

[CliffordK (OP)]

No, I can imagine they'd eat just about anything they could get their hands on.  But, it may take different skills to catch small game than to catch large game.  And one would have to catch a lot of the little critters.

Still, any supply of game meat can be overwhelmed given a large enough population. 

Perhaps the development of agriculture saved the homo sapiens, while other hominids were entirely dependent on game and naturally collected herbs.  A loss of major game species could have had a devastating effect on a potentially predominately hunter-gatherer species.