The neanderthals... we killed them all

[Markbnj]

Not terribly interesting review of what sounds like an interesting book that I haven't read.

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/blame-the-dog/

The author of the reviewed book makes the case that we teamed up with canines and that gave us a hunting advantage, which we used to eradicate the neanderthals. It's an interesting idea, although the reviewer gets all mopey over her refusal to call it a genocide, which is just stupid.

But it did get me thinking about the neanderthals and why they aren't still here. They were strong, intelligent, had complex family and social structures, created art, buried their dead. In other words, they had crossed the line from animals to having a lot of the same advantages that we humans have. What could kill _all_ of them, and not kill us too? Seems like it either had to be us, or some disease that hit them and not us.

 

[schmuckley]

So much speculation..so little grounded in fact.

 

[Howard]

Aleisn

 

[DCal430]

This ignores the newly discovered Denisovans and what role they played. We know that modern human, neandrethals, and denisovans all interbreeded.

 

[thedarkwolf]

I just watched Quest for Fire and I'm pretty sure Ron Perlman is still around.

 

[preslove]

And we fucked the women, too. We have a bit of Neanderthal genome in ours....

 

[mmntech]

Caucasian and Mongoloid people exhibit about 3-8% Neanderthal DNA, which adds support to the breeding out hypothesis. Sub-Saharan Africans don't have those DNA markers. Which makes sense considering Neanderthals didn't venture that far south.

There's also a theory that a shift in climate may have led to their extinction. Neanderthals needed more calories than humans do. Which I suppose would support the hunting hypothesis. If humans developed a more efficient way to hunt during a shortage period, it would have led to less food other homo species. Calling that genocide though is silly. You can't project modern day politics onto people who lived tens of thousands of years ago. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a particular race or ethnic group. Humans back then lacked the required large and complex societies to pull that off.

 

[Zeze]

Not terribly interesting review of what sounds like an interesting book that I haven't read.

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/blame-the-dog/

The author of the reviewed book makes the case that we teamed up with canines and that gave us a hunting advantage, which we used to eradicate the neanderthals. It's an interesting idea, although the reviewer gets all mopey over her refusal to call it a genocide, which is just stupid.

But it did get me thinking about the neanderthals and why they aren't still here. They were strong, intelligent, had complex family and social structures, created art, buried their dead. In other words, they had crossed the line from animals to having a lot of the same advantages that we humans have. What could kill _all_ of them, and not kill us too? Seems like it either had to be us, or some disease that hit them and not us.

They were the next smartest thing after modern human but they were still pretty dumb by our standards I believe. I heard a piece on NPR. I believe they....

* Didn't have a spoken language beyond animalistic calls and growls.

* Didn't form societies- no towns or anything to that effect. They were nuclear families. This meant they all easily died from hunger, natural disasters, etc. There was minimal buffer for safety.

 

[schmuckley]

You know what? I'm going out on a limb here and saying they never even existed

People have been people since the creation of the earth.
Be glad I can't find that Youtube link to the live people that look like "Neanderthals"
It's just another race.
Look like "Neanderthals" but speak and live in a tribal society.

 

[DCal430]

They were the next smartest thing after modern human but they were still pretty dumb by our standards I believe. I heard a piece on NPR. I believe they....

* Didn't have a spoken language beyond animalistic calls and growls.

* Didn't form societies- no towns or anything to that effect. They were nuclear families. This meant they all easily died from hunger, natural disasters, etc. There was minimal buffer for safety.

Those are myths which have been disproven.

Neanderthals were more than capable of speech, the idea they could only make animalistic calls was based on incorrectly constructed hyoid bone. There is no proof they were any less intelligent, or any less social than humans of the same period. These are all myths that have been debunked.

 

[Mai72]

But...

what about jeebus and god?

 

[Markbnj]

There's also a theory that a shift in climate may have led to their extinction. Neanderthals needed more calories than humans do. Which I suppose would support the hunting hypothesis. If humans developed a more efficient way to hunt during a shortage period, it would have led to less food other homo species.

Less food, yes, leading to a decline in population. But not no food, and not zero population. That's the striking thing, isn't it? When I was growing up we viewed the neanderthal as little more than animals that walked upright. But as others here have pointed out we now know that was not the case. They were pretty highly developed. The things mentioned here - social structure, the creation of art, the probability that they had language, the burying of their dead - all put them much closer to us than to animals on the sentience scale, and yet they are all gone. What causes a complete die off of a hominid species close enough to us that interbreeding is possible? Did we just absorb them? Or did we fear them so much that we hunted them down and killed them all? I don't think that's a completely far-fetched notion. But in any case, I have no idea and I doubt anyone else does, either. I just find it interesting that the first upright walking, sentient species on the planet is gone.

 

[BoomerD]

I'm NOT so sure we actually killed them all...I personally think a few slipped through...

 

[Tsavo]

Neanderthals are still alive and well. Go to any NFL game, Nascar race, or Wal-Mart to see proof.

 

[cbrunny]

I thought we knew this already?

 

[Braznor]

One day the same will happen to all the posters on AT.

None will mourn the death of the species called Homo AT'ers and it will be a good thing too.

 

[jagec]

You know what? I'm going out on a limb here and saying they never even existed

People have been people since the creation of the earth.
Be glad I can't find that Youtube link to the live people that look like "Neanderthals"
It's just another race.
Look like "Neanderthals" but speak and live in a tribal society.

Holy crap, that's amazing! And these people have the same DNA as the ones we find in Neanderthal bones, which differs from modern humans?

After all, you wouldn't bring it up if you didn't have better evidence than "they kinda look like Neanderthals, based on the computer animations I've seen on the Discovery channel". Right?

 

[edro]

We all know God created man in his likeness.

 

[XMan]

Anyone ever read Orion by Ben Bova?

 

[Jaskalas]

I think of it as one human tribe eliminating another. The harsher northern environment was likely a factor, but ultimately it was a combination of all sorts of things.

We're simply the ones who could adapt best.

 

[mammador]

if we did, so what?

OK. So all homo sapiens everywhere, until we get extinct, or move from Earth, or evolve into some other species, must feel "guilt" at what our distant ancestors did?

Isn't this like "white Americans are evil cos they enslaved black people centuries ago, and all of them have to pay today!!" but on a macro scale?

 

[mammador]

and to answer the question:

- We were/are migatory. So after we initially entered Europe, perhaps we came in waves, and outnumbered them. There's no evidence the Neanderthals were migratory, at least not to the degree we were/are.

- Neanderthals' capabilities were not as complex as ours. OK, to be fair, this is a moot point. So there is no evidence they had our tool-making abilities.

And well, even though we were behaviourally modern at the tmie, and may have some proto-philosophy, i doubt we back then gave a shit about humanitarianism or universal welfare. may sound cold, but i strongly suspect it was the reality. even today, with human rights treaties and the like, many of us now do not.

 

[mammador]

This ignores the newly discovered Denisovans and what role they played. We know that modern human, neandrethals, and denisovans all interbreeded.

were the Denisovans are separate species?

 

[mammador]

You know what? I'm going out on a limb here and saying they never even existed

People have been people since the creation of the earth.
Be glad I can't find that Youtube link to the live people that look like "Neanderthals"
It's just another race.
Look like "Neanderthals" but speak and live in a tribal society.

inclusive of skull shape? bone structure? muscle patterns?

 

[KeithP]

So much speculation..so little grounded in fact.

Welcome to modern science.

-KeithP