The neanderthals... we killed them all

[norseamd]

I agree totally with your assumption, but it hinges on the validity of the art and memorialization. There's recent evidence (see above post) that neanderthal was extinct from Iberia well over 40,000 years ago, which calls into question their availability to create hatch marks 39k years ago in Gorham’s Cave. Both dates, Iberia and the Mezmaiskaya Cave site have been redated to get this number.

Read this guy for some valid scientific study and research on hominids.

http://johnhawks.net/

 

[norseamd]

http://www.unz.com/gnxp/

 

[norseamd]

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/

 

[stormkroe]

....yeah, there wouldn't be much loving. The volunteering would be to agree to donate a fertilized embryo as a vessel for a recovered, and likely highly-synthesized neanderthal DNA template or some such.

The real loving would occur in a 60mm plastic dish, between an embryo and microinjection capillary prick.

Hey, is that a microinjection capillary prick, or are you just happy to see me? Don't underestimate our userbase's needs

Apparently we have a very nice monolithic strand now, vs the blended one from a few years ago. Also, there's always those youtube people. We could get a nice F1 right away, have a F2 in 18/19 years.

 

[DCal430]

I agree totally with your assumption, but it hinges on the validity of the art and memorialization. There's recent evidence (see above post) that neanderthal was extinct from Iberia well over 40,000 years ago, which calls into question their availability to create hatch marks 39k years ago in Gorham’s Cave. Both dates, Iberia and the Mezmaiskaya Cave site have been redated to get this number.
The burial thing is quite intriguing, if it holds up to similar scrutiny, that's a huge finding.
The only way to put this to bed (no pun intended) is for an ATOTer to volunteer for jurasic park style lovin'* and bring one back to life.

*I haven't seen that movie in a long time, might be remembering it wrong.

First of all there isn't any evidence that they went extinct well over 40,000 years ago in Iberia, and there is no evidence of modern humans in Iberia any where near 40,000 years ago.

You are the one making all of these claims without posting any proof at all. Where is your proof. Show me proof of your claim of their low intelligence.

 

[DCal430]

Links about neanderthals intelligence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/01/neanderthal-intelligence-modern-humans_n_5242765.html

http://www.colorado.edu/news/releas...-inferior-modern-humans-says-cu-boulder-study

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...rthals-were-too-smart-for-their-own-good.html

The idea some are posting has been debunked.

 

[norseamd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nol5UFnU9c

 

[Leyawiin]

Took the National Geographic Geno 2.0 Project DNA test last year. I'm 5.6% Neanderthal (which is pretty high). That's almost as much as the 1/16 needed to be on some Native American tribal rolls.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Why should this be a surprise when we so eagerly kill our own?

 

[William Gaatjes]

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.

I always like to think Neanderthals and homo sapiens mixed. You will have a best chance to find (genetic) descendants in (east and north mostly) Europe, Russia, Mongolia, and north part of Asia. Of course, since people have been traveling, you can find descendants everywhere but those place should have the highest incidence.

 

[Geekbabe]

Their tools didn't progress over a period of 100,000 years. How intelligent could they have been?

Judging from how bad the internet explorer browser is we could one day be saying the same thing about the humans working at Microsoft

 

[feralkid]

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

And their men did "our" women as well.

Good times.

 

[destrekor]

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.

Also, language would have been exceptionally primitive back then for all hominids. It wasn't like humans were talking with advanced grammar while other species were more primal... the nature of language at that time was very primal but orders of magnitude higher than other primates.

And also, all of this is more specifically speech. Early advanced speech may not have occurred at that time, at least not above very basic sounds. Song was likely a primary ritualistic communication.

Language, however, does include drawing and other approaches to written communication of ideas. It has been proven that the Neanderthals had cave drawings, which is equal to all communication we have discovered from any hominid from that time period. Runes to express ideas would have been the first to evolve in written language, which is exactly what our language lineage demonstrates with the earliest recorded alphabets. But of course speech did evolve prior to formal written language.

 

[Muse]

Took the National Geographic Geno 2.0 Project DNA test last year. I'm 5.6% Neanderthal (which is pretty high). That's almost as much as the 1/16 needed to be on some Native American tribal rolls.

Do your knuckles scrape the ground? JK

 

[Muse]

Also, language would have been exceptionally primitive back then for all hominids.

You, me fuck.

Me hungry.

Gimme some.

Back off or I'll rip your head off.

Help!!!

 

[William Gaatjes]

It could be simpler as well. While interbreeding saved some Neanderthal genes, they may have been susceptible to a disease that would only make homo sapiens sick but not kill them.
Just think of the Inca and the disease (smallpox) Spanish troops brought and decimated the Inca Indians in South America.
It is not unlikely that the Neanderthals died of as a distinct group because of a disease. But because of the interbreeding with homo sapiens their genes can still be found.
The offspring of both could have been protected against this specific disease because it has homo sapiens DNA as well.

 

[destrekor]

It could be simpler as well. While interbreeding saved some Neanderthal genes, they may have been susceptible to a disease that would only make homo sapiens sick but not kill them.
Just think of the Inca and the disease (smallpox) Spanish troops brought and decimated the Inca Indians in South America.
It is not unlikely that the Neanderthals died of as a distinct group because of a disease. But because of the interbreeding with homo sapiens their genes can still be found.
The offspring of both could have been protected against this specific disease because it has homo sapiens DNA as well.

Yup, humans could have easily introduced a disease into their population that was only a minor inconvenience for humans. Heck, it could have been pretty bad for both but simply worse for the Neanderthals.

We were genetically compatible so that introduces a wide range of possible communicable diseases that would effect each species different. Something as simple as influenza that is somewhat strong in one species can jump and become far worse in the new host. Or SIV becoming HIV. For all we know it could have been exactly that, SIV, and that particular strain was in the humans but was not virulent until it landed in a more susceptible species. Only two strains of SIV are known to infect humans as HIV-1 and HIV-2, perhaps there was another one in our distant past that we could host without becoming sick.

In short, it really is pointless to debate the semantics of who or what killed them. It makes the least sense for humans to have truly brought about their death, because we had relations with them we likely would have helped them during rough times.
It is possible, however, that while the two had mated, it perhaps was not a mutual lust sort of thing (i.e. primal rape), and in general they had warred with one another. That is befitting of the common heritage of the species.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

Lets clear this up first. Are Neanderthals a subspecies of Homo Sapiens(aka homo sapian Neanderthal) or are they entirely a separate species? if the former, then it is very likely they interbreed with homo sapiens sapiens and mixed genetic. If so, they arent actually extinct.

 

[norseamd]

Lets clear this up first. Are Neanderthals a subspecies of Homo Sapiens(aka homo sapian Neanderthal) or are they entirely a separate species? if the former, then it is very likely they interbreed with homo sapiens sapiens and mixed genetic. If so, they arent actually extinct.

Taxonomy is not as concrete nor as subject to due diligence as you might want.

 

[William Gaatjes]

More news about Neanderthals mixing with Denisovans and homo sapiens.

What always seems to be forgotten is that in instinct we are tribal. We all are. That is why humans even today form groups. If you do think you are not like that, well rest assured. You just have not found your "tribe" yet.

But kidding aside, As can be seen in more primitive cultures and from history, people form tribes, go to war or make agreements and exchanging food and usually daughters. If we extend that thought to interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denosivans with early humans from Africa.
It makes sense.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016...ne-over-simplistic-models-of-human-evolution/

You've probably heard the story about how Neanderthals were living in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, when suddenly a bunch of Homo sapiens came pouring out of Africa about 70 thousand years ago. Thirty thousand years later, pretty much all the Neanderthals were dead. Many anthropologists believe that Homo sapiens killed off our large-browed cousins in a quest to dominate the Eurasian continent. But over the past 10 years, that view has changed radically thanks to new techniques for sequencing ancient DNA.

Now, two new studies make it even less likely that modern humans killed off the Neanderthals. Instead, we interbred with them at least three separate times, and our ancestors were likely sharing tools with them half a million years ago.
A mysterious common ancestor

Writing in Nature, a team of scientists recount how they carefully sequenced the DNA from a mysterious group of 430-thousand-year-old humans found in Sima de los Huesos, a cavern in Spain's Atapuerca mountains. Thanks to careful preservation of the remains, they were able to extract both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, allowing them to analyze genetic contributions from the group's mothers and fathers. What they discovered has upended the classic story of how Neanderthals got to Europe, and when. The Sima hominins are clearly early Neanderthals, living in Spain far earlier than expected.

Further Reading
Humans started having sex with Neanderthals over 100,000 years ago

Paleolithic sexytimes reveal that Homo sapiens made it out of Africa earlier than we thought.
Previously, scientists believed the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans was Homo heidelbergensis, an early human who lived about 700 to 200 thousand years ago. But the Sima hominins reveal that humans and Neanderthals must have diverged between 550 thousand and 765 thousand years ago, a timeframe that eliminates H. heidelbergensis as a possible progenitor. Paleoanthropologist Maria Martinón-Torres told Nature News that the common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived about 900 to 700 thousand years ago. One possibility is Homo antecessor, whose 900-thousand-year-old remains have been found in Spain.

Making things more confusing, the Sima humans have mitochondrial DNA that appears to be from Denisovans, another group of early humans that settled in Europe hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans did. Writing in Nature News, Ewan Callaway explains that Matthias Meyer, an author on the new study, "now favors the hypothesis that an as yet unknown species from Africa migrated to Eurasia and bred with Neanderthals, replacing the mitochondrial DNA lineages. (Supporting this idea, stone-tool technologies spread from Africa to Eurasia around half a million years ago, and again 250,000 years ago)." In other words, these early humans leaving Africa weren't killing Neanderthals; they were sharing tools and families with them.
More Neanderthal sex than ever

Further Reading
Computer simulation fills in the blanks of Neanderthal extinction

Even tiny groups of humans would have had the tech to out-compete Neanderthals.
Meyer's findings fit nicely with other recent studies, which show that even when modern humans left Africa, they weren't killing their distant human cousins. Instead, they had children with Neanderthals and Denisovans, in several distinct events. If the meeting between humans and Neanderthals had been genocidal, it's unlikely we would see patterns that show Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA enter the modern human genome multiple times. A paper that has just come out in Science explains how modern human DNA contains clear evidence that our ancestors got busy with Neanderthals and Denisovans at least three different times in the past 100 thousand years.

The researchers analyzed DNA taken from 1,523 people spread across the globe, looking for traces of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA sequences. What they found was that different populations of people had distinct, different collections of DNA from Neanderthals. They write:

Collectively, these data suggest Neanderthal admixture occurred at least three distinct times in modern human history. Although most South Asian populations show shared histories of archaic admixture, we find significant evidence of differential Neanderthal admixture between some European and East Asian populations.

In other words, modern humans didn't sweep out of Africa, killing everything in their paths. They settled down with the locals, many different times. Evolutionary biologist Carles Laleuza-Fox, who was not involved in the study, told The New York Times' Carl Zimmer, "This is yet another genetic nail in the coffin of our over-simplistic models of human evolution." These papers also testify to how long different groups of humans have been intermingling, sharing ideas and hearths. Even though humans are notorious for hating and killing strangers, there's no denying that migration is written into our DNA, as well as a history of embracing people who are different.

http://www.nature.com/articles/natu...5oxeuSTdVP5&tracking_referrer=arstechnica.com

 

[norseamd]

Paleolithic sexytimes reveal that Homo sapiens made it out of Africa earlier than we thought.

A paper that has just come out in Science explains how modern human DNA contains clear evidence that our ancestors got busy with Neanderthals and Denisovans at least three different times in the past 100 thousand years.

https://youtu.be/mJCGxzTLXCs?t=56m20s

 

[Markbnj]

I'd find it harder to believe that we didn't interbreed. If they cloned a neanderthal woman today there are modern guys who would mate with her in a heartbeat.

It's also pretty clear that we outsmarted and out-competed them. I suspect they became like subject tribes, where we'd be all like "Let us use your women and we won't kill you with spears while you throw rocks and swing your wooden clubs," and they were all like "Ok, makes sense." And then it became a tradition for bachelor humans to go to the neanderthal camp for one last fling before settling down.

Anyway, what was the OP about again?

 

[William Gaatjes]

Well, the researchers will come up with something interesting maybe. Mitochondrial dna is only passed along by mothers. If they can ever trace the linage back, they might find that neanderthal daughters were givan away. But they would need a linage with a born daughter every generation. And intact dna from a female Neanderthal.

 

[destrekor]

Paleolithic sexytimes

:awe:

I love Arstechnica. They have terrific coverage on all topics, and get plenty of exclusive scoops. I loved reading their gravity wave articles. They were cited rather often by other media for that topic.

They have great writing but still manage to inject a little of a kind of nerd-bro culture that helps keep it fresh and appealing. It's a nearly perfect technology-focused site that maintains a broad base of covered subject matter. Great editing and writing, a great style of writing that injects more life than some general technical-type media... it's like some of the livelier examples of newspaper writing, but catered to a more intellectual, diverse, and curious crowd.

I hadn't read them for a long time, never having paid much attention, but as I've followed them now for a few months, they keep me glued. I'm disappointed I haven't been following them for years at this point.

I just wish they had slightly more in-depth technical coverage of key pieces of technology, similar to Anandtech's approach, while also maintaining their own style. But then again, perhaps it is best they specialize in their own way of doing things, and let other players focus on the in-depth spec analyses.

I'd love Anandtech to adopt PSU reviews in a style similar to JonnyGuru though. That should be doable, and should happen.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Yeah, i love arstechnica too. And their normal website is also usable on smartphones. A plain but proper and good navigatable website without flashriddled ads. Their mobile optimized website is also great.