I got the impression they hadn't been surprised by the question per se, but that a Neanderthal knew the word "spectrology.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Analog Science Fiction and Fact]

Your contributions to spectrology embrace methods for the determination of the length of waves in a more exact manner than those hitherto known.    From Wordnik.com.  [Nobel Prize in Physics 1907 - Presentation Speech] Reference

Sciences has awarded you this year the Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition of the methods which you have discovered for insuring exactness in measurements, and also of the investigations in spectrology which you have carried out in connection therewith.    From Wordnik.com.  [Nobel Prize in Physics 1907 - Presentation Speech] Reference

Where they first acquired their infernal education — whether from the works of the ancient Theurgists — the demonology of the Egyptians — the belomancy, or divination by arrows of the Scythians — the spectrology of the.    From Wordnik.com.  [A History of New York] Reference

Wouldn't ... spectrology be more the right field? ".    From Wordnik.com.  [Analog Science Fiction and Fact]

Dynamite and rough on June-bugs were possible, why was it not likely that some as yet unknown person had turned his attention to spectrology, and evolved something in the nature of rough on ghosts, spectremelinite, or something else of an effective nature, I asked myself.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others] Reference