Neanderthals among us?

[alan]

Ok, cue the late night comics. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04423.html

[Ben]

Interesting article, Alan.
Thanks for posting!

Ben

[alan]

So who is your favorite Neanderthal? I'll start it off by voting for Dick Cheney,

[retrofuturist]

The Glaswegian Neds



I had the misfortune once to be in Barrowlands on the night after an Old Firm game...

[Ben]

How did I know this was the direction the thread was going to go??
And there I was holding back from saying...
Yet another article I'll have to hide from my wife!

In answer to your question, my (un)favourite people are Kevin Rudd (Australian PM) and David Bartlett (Premier of Tasmania). However, I think it would be insulting to Neanderthals if I referred to those two bottom-feeders as such.
kind regards

Ben

[alan]

How about those who still argue against evolution? I say DNA test them all!

[Kim OHara]

Ok, cue the late night comics. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04423.html

So Clan of the Cave Bear isn't fiction after all?
How come Jean Auel missed out on proper recognition?

Kim

[Kare]

In fact, I've been fascinated by the Neandertals for a long time. They were tough guys, surviving under difficult conditions for much longer than modern man has been around. I'm proud to count them among my ancestors.

[Pannapetar]

This is big news considering the long debate whether neanderthalensis and modern humans interbred. The popular idea that Neanderthals were somehow less intelligent or less developed than modern humans has no scientific justification whatsoever. Hence, any jokes about Neanderthal DNA are firmly based on ignorance.

It has been suggested that the extinction of the Neanderthals was most likely due to the overwhelming aggressive behaviour of Cro-Magnon. The main support for this idea comes from the fact that the disappearance of the Neanderthals coincides with the migration of modern humans into Europe. Well, I've always found this hypothesis somewhat unlikely. Wiping out an entire species with flintstones and sharpened sticks? A stone age genocide? The Cro-Magnon must have been very thorough indeed! Of course, we might never know for sure, but now that we have established that the two subspecies interbred, this seems even more unlikely. I think it is more probable that the Cro-Magnon brought diseases against which the Neanderthals had no defences.

By the way, I grew up about 50 km away from the Neander valley, and I recall the trips with my parents to the Neanderthal museum located at the site, which I always enjoyed. I guess they have to reprint some of the plaques now, considering the newly gained knowledge.

Cheers, Thomas

[Kim OHara]

Wiping out an entire species with flintstones and sharpened sticks? A stone age genocide?

Hi, Thomas,
Homo sap definitely did wipe out whole other species with fire and stone-age tools and weapons. People arrived in North America, and the mammoths died out; people arrived in Australia, and all the marsupial megafauna died out; people arrived in New Zealand and the moas died out. It wasn't always just a case of hunting them to extinction - sometimes we changed the environment, especially by fire. For more, see Tim Flannery's The Future Eaters.
Whether or not early homo sap did physically kill off the neanderthals, you can't really say it wasn't possible for them to do it.

Personally, I think things were messier than any single explanation suggests. I'm sure there was some fighting between the groups and some interbreeding. I expect there was a lot more out-competing for game and for territory. Look at the way waves of migrants spreading through Europe from the East pushed earlier, less sophisticated, tribes into the far West; ditto the Aryans spreading into India and pushing earlier tribes into the South. I can't see why the process should have been much different between the Neanderthals and modern humans.

Kim

[Pannapetar]

Homo sap definitely did wipe out whole other species with fire and stone-age tools and weapons.

Yes, certainly, I am aware of these cases. Humans have indeed wiped out entire species and it hasn't stopped. Sadly, we are right in the middle of a mass extinction event for which we are the cause. However, when comparing neanderthalensis with, for example the moa, then we are comparing apples and oranges. The adaptive capacity of humans to predatory attacks by far exceeds that of any other known species. It is highly unlikely that neanderthalensis was as defenceless, as for example the Dinornithidae or the mammoth.

Whether or not early homo sap did physically kill off the neanderthals, you can't really say it wasn't possible for them to do it.

Well, I did not. I just said that it is unlikely compared to other possibilities such as diseases and/or being pushed out of their habitat.

Cheers, Thomas