Was autistic-ness a prehistoric advantage?

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I'm thinking about the prevalence of autism among males and I'm thinking there's no way that these traits could be an evolutionary accident if they are so prevalent, so I'm thinking they must've had some kind of historic value in society.

I was thinking about the sensory symptoms and I wondered...

Sensitivity to light - Does that mean they are better able to see predators at night?

Sensitivity to sound - Does that mean they are better able to hear predators rustling around?

Hyperfocusing - Does this make them better able to focus on physical tasks that were necessary for prehistoric society and so they tended to be more productive than the people who preferred to gab away? Now, I realize that the "social climbers" were able to outmaneuver the more autistic people when the complexity of society allowed for a certain percentage of society to be idle while everyone else toiled away to support the idle few (I.e., think royalty and nobility), but those who were task focused provided the backbone for society.

So, was it more of a prehistoric advantage in the days of old?

Please rate this thread's far-fetchedness on a scale of 1-10.

It's pretty far-fetched.

No one even knows the real ration of male:female instances of autism. The rest of it, well... No, it's no more plausible than it was with ADHD.

If you want to read a scholarly paper on it, though, rdos (of the Aspie Quiz) wrote a paper on his theory that autism is derived from the mingling of neanderthal and human DNA.

Social structure that can adapt is probably better for the early survival of a relatively weak species like humans.

you have just stumbled on the neanderthal theory, which has the same questions you asked, and tries to explain them from an evolutionary standpoint; you might want to look at it, it's a good read imo: http://www.rdos.net

Surely autism is a relatively new trait in our species?

I doubt it. Community has always been our biggest strength.

It's not far fetched at all. Unpopular, yes.

Minority abilities when they are not disabling, which is to say when they don't create disfunction in every environment, are potentially highly valued. Inflexibility and lack of TOM, however, could get you thrown out of the cave.

Acute sensitivity can have practicle value.
The wired in ability to see and remember patterns and anomalies is very valuable, especially when you add dynamic reasoning, (the ability to predict outcomes), which can turns novel combinations (creativity) into something workable.

No need to drag Neanderthals into this, unless you want to.

I haven't read on the Neanderthal theory, but the idea of it sounds a lot like some ideas I've tossed around in my head.

It should be noted, however, that those originating from Sub-sahara Africa did not breed with Neandertha

It's my theory that Aspergers was not only a prehistoric advantage, but pretty much a historical advantage. Think of it this way, your "obsession" level could determine if you were literate or not.

That depends on what you mean by advantage. There have always been the outliers who have value to the community but are considered to be essentially outsiders, ie, the hermits, the monks, wisemen and women, shamans, and so on. These folks--at least the ones in these roles by inclination rather than tradition--are generally very focused on what they do, and not sociable at all. I'm not saying they are autistic, but it might be an advantage in these roles.

Hunter gathere people usually live in groups of about 30 people; attending that we are talking about several ages strata and both gender, it is very probably that the number of people of the same age and gender where you socialize is about 4-5, a number where I think that many autistic will feel comfortable..

When I get better at programming, I want to do an autistic vs. neurotypical simulation of a free-for-all chess game similar to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFIw8JSPrCw

but where every piece is its own king (meaning that it won't die if its king dies, it can choose to screw over its king to survive in the end)

In the video, an arrogant neurotypical player gets killed in a 3 vs 1 situation simply because the other players don't like his attitude, and don't want him to win. The other 3 are a bit more friendly people, and more likely to help each other in situations where it benefits them both.
On the other hand, autistic players get teamed a lot also, because of their inability to realize who to team with: sometimes will instinctively capture a piece that is trying to team rather than be a threat, or won't go after the guy with the most pieces, when that is the most logical thing to do.

In the program/simulation I want to write, I'll be experimenting with different teaming styles using autistic vs. neurotypical traits, where each piece is its own army.... program the autistic pieces to evaluate best moves based on their own survival, and program neurotypical pieces to make logical assumptions that other pieces will team with them.

I don't know how accurate it is but most of my knowledge about neanderthals is from reading "Clan of the Cave Bear". I liked that series of books. At least the first 4. I didn't like the last 2 that much.