Around 30,000 years ago, extremely detailed, realistic art emerged in cave paintings. Believe it or not, there are many scholars out there who believe this occurred because the artists were autistic.

Lead author of the paper, Professor Penny Spikins from the Department of Archaelogy at the University of York, said: “Detail focus is what determines whether you can draw realistically; you need it in order to be a talented realistic artist. This trait is found very commonly in people with autism and rarely occurs in people without it.”

Which itself raises some interesting issues regarding the history of art and the proliferation of realism during periods such as the Renaissance.
A related article also suggests that human societies really took off only after they learned to tolerate the presence of people who thought and behaved differently. Oddly, we seem to be losing that trait even as we are gaining…