So what happened to the Neanderthals anyway?

[Queasy]

Tastes like chicken?

The mysterious disappearance of Neanderthals about 30,000 years ago has baffled scientists for centuries.

But now, according to a leading fossil expert, it seems the race may have met a rather grisly end. They were eaten by our ancestors, the modern humans.

The basis for the claim is the markings on a Neanderthal jawbone found in Les Rois, south-west France during a study conducted by the Journal of Anthropological Sciences.

The cuts to the bone are similar to those left on those of deer and other animals butchered by humans in the Stone Age. It is believed that the flesh was eaten by humans and the teeth used to make a necklace.

Leader of the research team, Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, said: 'Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them.

'For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place.'

Mr Rozzi believes the jawbone provides evidence that Neanderthals were attacked and sometimes killed by humans, who then brought their bodies back to caves to eat or used their teeth and skulls as trophies.

Neanderthals lived across Europe around 300,000 years ago. They managed to survive several ice ages before dying out around 30,000 years ago, around the same time as human beings arrived on the continent from Africa.

They had a jutting nose set in a large face with massive brow ridges and no chin.

One theory for the Neanderthals disappearance is that they couldn't compete with humans, who had better brains and more sophisticated tools, for scarce resources such as food.

Other scientists believe they were more susceptible to the impact of climate change.

The controversial cannibalism claim is sure to divide opinion within the science community.

Francesco d'Errico, of the Institute of Prehistory in Bordeaux, disagrees with the theory. He said: 'One set of cut marks does not make a complete case for cannibalism.'

He added that humans could have found the bone and used its teeth as a necklace.

Professor Christ Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London, said: 'This is a very important investigation.

'We do need more evidence, but this could indicate modern humans and Neanderthals were living in the same area of Europe at the same time, that they were interacting, and that some of these interactions may have been hostile.

'This does not prove we systematically eradicated the Neanderthals or that we regularly ate their flesh.

'But it does add to the evidence that competition from modern humans probably contributed to Neanderthal extinction.'

 

[Udgnim]

makes sense actually

 

[Eli]

It wouldn't surprise me. We would have just seen them as another animal back then, similar to us but less sophisticated. They would have been seen as competition, and if you're hungry, you're hungry.

 

[So]

Ah yes, the daily mail, the most respected peer reviewed journal among the austere halls of science.

 

[Jeff7]

I will dismember youuuuu.
Will youuuuu dismember me?
Don't let your thigh pass my eye.
Eat both of your mammaries.

 

[Blackjack200]

Cannibalism? How could it be cannibalism if the neanderthals weren't human? I've always suspected that the early humans absolutely throttled anything with intelligence approaching their own. Seems to make sense from an evolutionary perspective.

 

[MovingTarget]

So, two cannibals are eating a clown. One of them turns to the other and says, does this taste funny to you?

 

[IGBT]

Red hair may be the legacy of Neanderthal man. Oxford University scientists think the ginger gene, which is responsible for red hair, fair skin and freckles, could be up to 100,000 years old. They say their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man, who lived in Europe for 260,000 years before the ancestors of modern man arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.

Research leader Dr. Rosalind Harding said: "It is certainly possible that red hair comes from the Neanderthals." The Neanderthals are generally thought to have been a less intelligent species than modern man, Homo sapiens. They were taller and stockier, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads. They had a basic, guttural vocabulary of about 70 words, probably at the level of today's two-year-old, and they never developed a full language, art or culture.

They settled in Europe about 300,000 years ago, but 40,000 years ago, a wave of immigrants - our forefathers, Cro-Magnon Man - emerged from Africa and the two species co-existed for 10,000 years. Dr Harding's research - presented at a London conference of the Human Genome Organization during the week - suggests the two species interbred for the ginger gene to survive. Dr Harding said redheads should not be offended by being to the primitive Neanderthals. "If it's possible that we had ancestry from Neanderthals, then it says that Neanderthals were more similar to us than we previously thought," she said.

Scientists at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, at Oxford University, compared the human ginger gene with the equivalent in chimpanzees. They found 16 differences, or mutations, between the two genes. Since an early version of the gene developed in chimps roughly 10 million years ago, the scientists estimated there has been one mutation every 625,000 years. They used a computer to calculate how long it must have taken for the mutation responsible for the ginger hair to have passed down through the generations and become so common among Western people.

They concluded the mutation was older than 50,000 years and could be as old as 100,000 years. Some scientists believe Neanderthals were ultra-humans - able to adapt to extremes of climate and surviving for 272,000 years. But they became extinct about 28,000 years ago, outwitted for territory and food by the more socially advanced Cro-Magnons.

END OF REPORT

WEBMASTERS COMMENT:
After receiving numerous abusive emails (obviously from red haired people) I would ask that you "don't shoot the messenger" This site is designed to promote discussion, and if you don't agree with what is presented, send your vitriole to the original researchers. Complain to the scientists at Oxford University.......



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