The reason I brought this topic up, actually, is because I am ever astonished by the mentality of researchers who work on the presumption that ancient humans must have been stupid until they lived in cities - and even then, without mod cons, ancients in cities cannot have lived a particularly intelligent life.
Neanderthals have had a hard time of it ever since Victorian era mockery, but this mindset of assuming stupidity carries through into the ancient world.
One of the key successes of humanity has always been its great resourcefulness. How astonishing that we treat the past as if this trait is simply and only a modern phenomenon.