I watched a program last night on the ABC about Neanderthals. I've read a few books on the enigma of why they disappeared - especially since they were physically better evolved that Homo Sapiens to live in the colder conditions in Europe.
Basically there are two camps on this one. Most think that Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa and when they reached Europe, killed off Neanderthal man. There is another line of thought that they were assimilated into one species - us - by interbreeding.
There is some DNA research being undertaken at the moment to try and shed some light on the mystery. Interested to know if anyone has any thoughts on this.

the assimilation theory seems most likely to me at least it would explain some of my inlaws :-)

Well said Examinator, we agree for once, about your inlaws.

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and mine.

Thanks for the giggle.

Poirot, I think that it is almost definitely both a case of Homo sapiens killing off or displacing Homo neanderthalensis AND interbreeding with them.

Back in those brutish days, it would have been highly unlikely that they could have coexisted in harmony. As we have witnessed with suppressed and displaced indigenous peoples around the world, there is always a degree of interbreeding. But in the modern world, many suppressed peoples survive and are fostered to some extent by their invaders, whereas in prehistoric times the stronger people would have just continued to displace the weaker until they were gone, with the absorption of their genes to a small extent.

whereas in prehistoric times the stronger people would have just continued to displace the weaker until they were gone, with the absorption of their genes to a small extent.

So perhaps this is why we have such a population problem, both present, and looming, as today, we care for the 'homeless druggies', we care for many people who can't afford to eat or rent a house, yet they gamble every cent away. Often this is welfare money as many simply won't work.

Now I am not one to be 'squashing the weak', as genuine cases deserve our support, however, I see little gain in supporting those who refuse to help themselves.

As Ludwig says, Perhaps only the strongest of the Neanderthals survived to interbread with Homo Sapiens, while the weak were discarded and left to fend for themselves and, eventually died out.

Lets face it, I seriously doubt that anyone not pulling their weight back then would have been supported.

Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here for us.

The more we discover about Neanderthals, the more we realise how highly intelligent they were.

In an outright battle, given Neanderthal strength, physique and intelligence, my money would be on the Neanderthals to win. Therefore assimilation is the most likely explanation, also explains some people's physical appearance - hirsute bodies, squat stocky build etc.

Given that 'Neanderthals' were generally thought to be the same species as us, but a different subspecies (i.e. H. sapiens neanderthalensis as opposed to H. sapiens sapiens), it's most likely that they were vanquished and assimilated into our species over time.

While it's tempting to attribute various regressive phenotypical and cultural traits to the persistence of 'Neanderthal' DNA in the human genome, my opinion as a former anthropologist is that the environment is more likely responsible. Everybody likes a good 'caveman' story though.

A fascinating subject.

It is mesmerising speculating about the Neanderthals last days; marooned on the French Mediterranean coast or Gibraltar, deserted by the deer , bison & mammoth who'd followed the retreating ice north. Did they simply turn inwards disoriented & disillusioned and melt away like the ice they’d known so well,or did they interbreed with Cro-Magnon and became a little part of all of us.

Reading the evolution of hominids one repeatedly comes upon principle “B superseded A because B’s brain capacity was bigger and therefore B was (presumably) more intelligent, more able.” And so it follows, bigger brain carriers supersede smaller all the way up the tree.Then BANG! we hit an anomaly—Neanderthal.They had a bigger brain than their successor.

So we speculate : those with a bigger brains are not necessarily smartest , perhaps it’s more to do with the wiring of the brain.
We use present day examples. Those with the biggest brains are not always the smartest, so therefore…

But Neanderthal showed great mental depth, they buried their dead with elaborate ceremony ; flowers and ochres.They made fine tools and delicate bone flutes and shell necklaces.

Resorting to present day examples, again – the smartest don’t always prevail.The smartest ( judged by education/career outcomes) often have less children.If Neanderthal had less offspring they would be more vulnerable to natural disasters & diseases.
And what if the Neanderthal’s (perhaps superior) intelligence was paired with less aggressiveness –they could still have lost out.
Or perhaps, they interbreed with Cro-Magnon, which might explain some of the variation shown in modern psyches.

But it’s all speculation.


However, when I sit by the sea and hear talk that the waters are rising , the ice retreating and the days getting hotter, a ripple of déjà overtakes me ,some where a little part of me has experienced this all before…

Severin makes a good point that Neanderthal man was not necessarily less intelligent than Homo Sapiens.
I think that assimilation and displacement are likely, as Ludwig says.
There is evidence that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens coexisted for long periods of time. There are also similarities and subtle differences in their use of tools. A major theory is that because Homo Sapiens has a highly developed symbolic mind, he was able to be much more successful as a social being. These social skills enabled a greater degree of cooperation among members of his group and also assisted his relations with outsiders who were of the same species. This symbolic behaviour is evidenced in cave paintings and decorative jewelery and also in ritual burial. There is scant evidence to date of the same level of symbolic behaviour in Neanderthal man.

Thanks for the enlightenment, Horus.
The shell necklaces and bone flutes and evidence of elaborate burial rituals do give food for thought.
Perhaps when all is said and done, Neanderthal man just didn't have the same ability to manipulate as Homo Sapiens - this is one of the prime hallmarks of our species.

From the studies I read that discussed the different brain and body types of Neanderthal man and early Homo Sapiens, I tend to believe that Neanderthal man was probably not as bright as Homo Sapiens and thus did not develop as many coping mechanisms as the latter group did.

While Neanderthals were able to feed, clothe and shelter their people, Homo Sapiens maybe went on to be more efficient with planning ahead for hard times.
I don't believe there was any full scale integration, but maybe the occasional taking of females by the dominant groups of the day.

I guess we will never know the full story though.
I wonder which group Adam and Eve were founders of?
Any thoughts on that Runner?

I commend the site at Wikipedia as a highly informative source for the layperson and others interested in this subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

This page was last modified on 25 February 2010 at 03:27.

One could hardly expect a source more up to date than this one.

Attendance to the above site obviates the human proclivity for idle speculation and revelations of how fragmentary our knowledge can be.

I don't suppose many of our ladies on here want to admit it, but we all know what happened to the neanderthal. It was their women.

You see, those promiscuous little tarts were attracted to the prettier Homo Sapiens, & kept running off with them.

The neanderthals started a crash cloning program, but they ran out of breeding pairs, before it was perfected.

If you doubt the truth of this, just go for a wander around any of our institutions of higher learning. If you fail to see the expression of neanderthal genes in these places, you must have your eyes shut.

I get it, Hasbeen - you're saying that it was a similar scenario to when the American servicemen turned up in Britain during the Second World War - Homo Sapiens turned up with a never-ending supply of stockings and chocolate, and the Neanderthal men just couldn't compete.

C.J.
Interesting that you pointed out that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal man were thee same species. There is a lot of literature about what happened when Homo Sapiens reached Europe but considering the two sub-species were so closely related, I wonder where Neanderthal man originated. Seems strange to think that the two developed along such similar lines and yet were separated by such distance.

It would have taken a strong will for a Neanderthal to resist the temptations of homo sapien Raquel Welch. Assimilation seems most likely. :)

Yes, that sort of thing Poirot.

Pelican, I'm quite sure that any Homo Sapien cave man, who had a Raquel Welch in his cave, would have put more than a little effort into "protecting" her from the advances of overly friendly neanderthals. No, it had to be the women running off.

Although, perhaps you have hit on the reason for the neanderthal disappearance. I don't think they were quite as advanced as the polynesians who developed a system allowing "wife raids" to be conducted without loss of face, or life, [almost].

Hasbeen,
Actually I'm not that sure that Raquel Welch would have been so alluring to the Neanderthals.
You are assuming (projecting) our/your sujective perspective of beauty on them.
(careful old fella, sex has caused the demise of extraordinary number of old men)

One only needs to look at choices in the Highlands of PNG or some of the coastal tribes that tattooed the most 'attractive' excessively.
It seem that their preference 'most desirable was often for the most functional. Strong able to carry the burdens dig fields able to find foods like fungi, edible tubers etc. (perhaps CJ can add more information)

Wife raids were often to bring in new blood more children. More wives children higher status (quantity not quality).
The ancient Greeks court women painted their faces white with bright red lips (yetch).

A very common pattern throughout the world in history and anthropology is men going on raids, killing neighbouring men and abducting their women.

Steven Pinker in "How the Mind Works" says this:
"Access to women is the limiting factor on males' reproductive success. Having two wives can double a man's children, three wives can triple it, and so on. For a man who is not at death's door, no other resource has as much impact on evolutionary fitness [ie tendency of genes to replicate]. The most common spoils of tribal warfare are women. Raiders kill the men, abduct the nubile women, gang-rape them, and allocate them as wives. Chagnon discovered that Yanomamo men who had killed an enemy had three times as many wives and three times as many children as those who had not. Most young men who had killed were married; most young men who had never killed were not...."

Pinker quotes Numbers; "Moses said.... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him [ie to ensure you're not getting some other man's child]. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves".

Or how about this charmer from Deuteronomy: "... thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword [smite, smite]: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle and all that is in the city... shalt thou take unto thyself."

Deuteronomy again: [After you have killed all her family and abducted her] "let her bewail her father and her mother a full month [very charitable] and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife."

I imagine there was a fair bit of this stuff going on back when the Neanderthals disappeared.

Ah yes, but what a way to go. Pity that cardiac treatment tends to have the opposite effect to viagra.

Yes I've seen many of the highland ladies, & prefer the coastal folk, who often have a little polynesian infusian.

Wife raids were always due to lack of marriage partners, & become so stylised, it became a tradition. My yacht was used for one of the last. They don't make boats capable of ocean voyages today. They did still have the navigtion skills, & we found our destination, using their sailing directions.

We had to sail 700 miles, to make a 450 mile trip, but it was totally fail safe. We could colour pick up a lagoon, reflected in the clouds fron 35 miles out, & probably a lot further, if we'd had more experience.

With this one, the spilling of blood was dropped, in favour of a large sing sing.

I watched the programme too. It was such a pity that like so many documentaries these days the production dubbing suite has to create so much background noise, bangs, crashes, whines, thunderous noises that totally detract from the dialogue that is often drowned out by all this cacophony.....all in the name of trying to make it dramatic I suppose.
In spite of the interesting subject, I had to switch it off. Does anyone else have the same problem ?

Is it possible that some Neanderthals survived their 'extinction'?

I've always noticed how our own Aborigines are different from us in more than just skin colour. Their bodily and facial features and proportions are not the same as ours. As is their walking gait.

Could it be that some Neanderthal people migrated all the way here some 40-50 thousand years ago and survived?

As we and they are sub-species of the same human race, that would explain how we can interbreed.

Austin Powerless,
That is absurd and preposterous. Even for you!
I suggest you think it through.

I think you will find them in the current federal opposition

examinator, I did think it through. Did you? Or are you just reacting because it's not 'PC'?

Anyway, it's just a theory based on my own admittedly limited observations. I may be right, I may be wrong. If someone came up with rock solid proof to the opposite, I would abandon it.

1. In ancient Hamurabbi records there is mention of conflicts between men of the middle East and the North. They had distinctive differences as mentioned.

2. The Bible in Gen 6: 1 - 4 mentions giant men [nephilim] in the Earth. It also mentions the sons of Adam having sex with the daughters of men. The offspring is mentioned as having higher physical and intellectual skills. The descendents of Adam lived in the Middle East.

3. I have a theory that if you look at the desert areas on the earth they could have been inhabited at one time prior to a high level radiation exposure which severly burnt everything including the skin of survivors and shortened the life span of man. It has been discovered that protein found in the skin that protects us from sun burn also shortens our life span. Early man may have had fur and as a result of exposure to radiation affected the gene. In some cases men have high levels of body hair indicating a gene present.

Philo the following article will shed some light on how homo-sapiens superseded Neanderthal man and became the dominant animal species on this planet.

Early Humans Used Brain-Power, Innovation and Teamwork to Dominate the Planet

...David Despain

... As a species of seeming feeble, naked apes, we humans are unlikely candidates for power in a natural world where dominant adaptations can boil down to speed, agility, jaws and claws. Why we rose to rule, while our hominin relatives died out, has long been a curiosity for scientists.

The study of our human nature encompasses a variety of fields ranging from anthropology, primatology, cognitive science and psychology to paleontology, archaeology, evolutionary biology and genetics.

Representatives of each of these disciplines gathered February 19-22 at a workshop, "Origins of Human Uniqueness and Behavioral Modernity," staged by Arizona State University's Origins Project to discuss recent advances in their respective fields.

Led by ASU professors anthropologist Kim Hill and paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean...the panel of scientists agreed to adopt a working definition that human uniqueness is the "underlying capacity to produce complexity," and to think of behavioral modernity as "the expression" of those capacities.

The expression of capacities, Hill and Marean said, can be summed up, namely, as exceptional cognition, culture and cooperation. Each of the three C's was a topic of focus for the scientists. One of their goals at the conference was to pinpoint specific markers of these expressions, and then use them to identify the emergence of humans within the paleoanthropological record.

Cognition
The beginning of human cognition, for example, is the result of the development of a larger brain, which can be represented by artifacts—stone tools, weapons—or productions that signify greater abilities for thinking and innovation, said archaeologist and paleoanthropologist John Shea of Stony Brook University.

(Further).. although the adaptation of a larger brain may separate humans from their primate relatives, it also came at a cost of increased fuel requirements. A human brain uses at least 20 percent of an individual's resting metabolism, said Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

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Evidence of early humans' use of fire could be used to mark how they overcame their energy needs, said primatologist and biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham of Harvard University. Heat helps free up energy by softening foods, denaturing their proteins and breaking down toxins, Wrangham proposed, which is why cooking may explain human brain size as well as small canine teeth and small guts in comparison to other primates.

By the same token, evidence of coastal adaptation can also mark human activity and a strategy for meeting the brain's growing energy needs. Archaeological excavations along the coastline of South Africa, Marean suggested, show that early humans obtained energy-dense foods by adopting a diet of shellfish, which afforded strong nutritional benefits for the brain.

Culture
Accordingly, the researchers discussed how an oversized brain led to culture, a product of thinking and social learning facilitated by language, creativity and innovation. The passing on of knowledge from generation to generation is metaphorically referred to as a cultural "ratchet effect," which creates greater complexity of culture over time.

In the wild, a lone human would not be able to survive without culture, explained evolutionary theorist Rob Boyd of University of California, Los Angeles. "Think about what is necessary to live in Alaska," he said. "You’d need a kayak, a harpoon, a float to not sink. Nobody invents a kayak. People learn the proper way to make a kayak from others."

Additionally, Boyd said culture gives humans a survival advantage that is beyond the capacity of other animals. "Typical apes live in a particular habitat. We can make the changes on timescales that are very fast," he said.

According to Shea, who specializes in ancient use of complex projectile weapons, "it's easy to imagine how complex projectile technology may have led humans to gain a broad and resilient human ecological niche."

Cooperation
Whether demonstrated by situations of hunting, foraging, child rearing or migrating, humans with culture, in pursuit of shared goals, had much to gain through cooperation. Cooperating humans would lead to greater survival, greater reproduction and colonization.

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After all, other primates cooperate, said anthropologist Joan Silk of the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in reproductive strategies of old-world monkeys. Communal breeding, for example, reduces stress on bonnet macaques creating greater reproductive success.

Developmental psychologist Felix Warneken of Harvard University added that the social skills of human children include the capacity to look beyond shared intentionality (monkey see, monkey do) at an early age. They show an understanding of others' beliefs, exhibiting a "theory of mind,"which inspires cooperation.

Describing how field work with the !Kung people of southern Africa gave her insight into cooperation first hand, Polly Wiessner of University of Utah said hunter-gatherers used gifts as mnemonic devices across human groups and used personal adornment as an advertisement of marriage or social status.

Sequence of causal and timing factors
According to Hill, who has studied hunter-gatherers in South America for nearly 30 years, whether by shell beads, other kinds of gifts or through female transfer, the traits of cognition, culture and cooperation would eventually lead to specializations and government.

Stephen Shennan, a professor of archaeology at University College London, explained that as population size increases, culture increases exponentially: greater contact between human groups leads to much more copying of creative innovations.

Ultimately, the exponential cultural ratchet effect is demonstrated by humans' domination of the world today, said Hill and Marean, who collected proposals from the gathered researchers for a possible flowchart and eventual timeline. The proposals will be posted to a group Web site for further discussion.

In closing the workshop, Hill said, "Only by working together are we able to fully account for the emergence and timing of unique features of Homo sapiens and how humans, evolved through natural processes, resulted in a spectacular anomaly among living species."

Taken from:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=humans-brain-power-origins

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Please read the previous posts carefully Philo. I am only trying to help you - not dictate to you.

Severin,
Actually the article is merely a think session and has nothing I have not read before. Most of human development contained in Genesis 4.

Philo, your mention of Middle-Eastern conflict with people from the north reminds me of the Norse myths of Frost Giants, the Jötnar.
Could be the same thing with the Neanderthals coming into conflict with the northward-expanding Germanic tribes.
Both peoples were able to interbreed.

Austin powerless,
Reacting to your comment not being PC? That is a desperate diversionary tactic. You comment was simply fanciful and contrary to known migration patterns/science,the human genome project not to mention the probability given the ice age.
You and I both know it is a logical improbability to prove rock solid a negative.

You really need to read a bit more.

Philo

Genesis was written by men who thought the earth was the centre of the universe AND flat!

It is one thing to be ignorant but it is unforgivable to remain so in light of confirmed knowledge.

Everything in the article I went to the trouble of posting for you is based on fossils, artefacts, human migration patterns and many years of consideration. What part of "The study of our human nature encompasses a variety of fields ranging from anthropology, primatology, cognitive science and psychology to paleontology, archaeology, evolutionary biology and genetics." did you not understand?

I have no difficulty in understanding why you would choose to believe in a supreme deity - the universe is awesome - beyond human cognition, it may always remain an enigma. But to deliberately ignore concrete evidence, is appalling. You are as much an embarrassment to other thinking Christians as Runner is.

Severin,
Parts of Genesis were written 5,000 years ago when man may have believed the Earth was the centre of the universe. It is unlikely you can accept anything recorded in ancient history, which happens to describe ancient culture. I assume you believe in Hamurabbi? What he had to say in his day may have shed some light on events 4,000 years ago. Most archeology of the ancient Middle Eastern past has been excavated by archeologists who are Jews, Christian or Muslim who accept the record of the Torah as history, and it is upon its text they establish their digs and their conclusions.

I noted you called me ignorant!

examinator, don't get your knickers in a twist. All I did was put forward a theory based on my own observations. As already stated, if I see solid evidence otherwise, I would drop the theory.

"Known migration patterns' are not accurate enough to dispute what I put forward, as scattered fossil evidence will not confirm exact racial/sub-species types, especially when the older the evidence, the less diverse the racial characteristics are.

Also, the human genome project would probably show no difference in both sub-species as, if we're so close genetically to primates, how much closer would we be to another human species.

What would you suggest I read for 'a bit more'?