Thread: Human vs Neanderthal

Why did humans replace Neanderthals? Paleo diet didn't change, the climate did -- ScienceDaily

Another climate theory about extinctions. This time Neanderthals. I am very, very skeptical of these ideas. Throughout the world the record shows that, when humans move into a new area, existing macrofauna dies out. It has happened so damn many times. Yet we get well-meaning scientists theorising about climate change as the culprit.

My thesis is very simple. We know that primitive humans were ruthless hunters. We know that primitive humans engaged in inter-tribal conflict, killing each other off at a terrible rate. Why do we need to assume anything else except humans killing animals and Neanderthals?

Tribes in the Amazon and in Papua New Guines suffered, until very recently, the loss of male members of their tribes through man on man conflict to the extent of up to 20% of any male population dying this way. Our primitive ancestors in Europe 40,000 years ago would have been just the same, except the ones they were killing were Neanderthals (probably as well as other humans).

Neanderthals lived for 300,000 years in Europe. They must have experienced numerous climate change events and lived through them. Only after humans invaded their territory did they die out. To blame the climate for their extinction seems to me to be stupid.

But, then again, dear friend skeptic, in all likelihood, you've been wrong before also.

It seems that our near extinction from tobo also significantly reduced the neanderthal population, completely removing the eastern, taller, more gracile neanderthals from the archaeological record. There may have been very few western shorter, stockier more robust, neanderthals left in refuge pockets to survive the lgm(which very few did).
Remember that the last interglacial (mis 5)was warmer than this one(so far).
Granted, there are some homo-sapiens-sapiens who would kill you for your pocket change, or maybe just for fun, but they are a very small minority.
Most of us would rather fuck than kill, which , as/re homo-sapiens-neanderthalensis, seems borne out by the dna evidence.
What seems most likely, is that the few "purebred" neanderthals left after tobo were very inbred near their end, and that coupled with climate change, and competition with homo-sapiens-sapiens for resources may have led them to hide out in less and less productive environments.

long story short:
We simply do not know why the neanderthals(as a separate peoples) exited the archaeological record, and most likely never will.
To blame their demise on murderous homo-sapiens-sapiens is most likely indicative of mental illness on the part of the people who are making those claims.
Some people are so full of self loathing that they need to project that onto our entire species.

Sculptor

A few points you need to consider

1. The number of humans who will kill you for small change is, indeed, minimal in our modern society. It is called 'civilisation'. The number of people, though, who will kill you because you belong to a different tribe is very, very large, if you are a part of a primitive tribal hunter-gatherer society. We know this by anthropologists studies of such tribes. The Yanomomo of the Amazon kill other men in order to steal their women, and having two or three wives, when the earlier husbands have their throats cut is rather normal. In Papua New Guinea, natives would hide alongside trails, with a bow and arrow, ready to shoot down any man from another tribe. Killings in our distant past were not rare at all. Even Otzi, the iceman, the most famous of all ancient corpses, was found with a stone arrowhead in his back.

2. Even if the Neanderthal population was reduced by ancient volcanoes, the fossil record shows plenty still lived. They had survived various glaciations, volcanoes, climate changes etc before, and they died out soon after humans arrived. Coincidence? Hardly!

3. Rather fuck than fight? Well, if you go by anthropologist reports of modern primitives, it appears that the fucking is achieved by stealing women after killing off the men. The Maori of my country, before European influence, would attack another tribe, kill the men, and take the women as slaves. I can assure you that those female slaves did not suffer a lack of fucking! The most likely way Neanderthal DNA got into the human genome was via Neanderthal women taken as slaves.

You need to read Steven Pinkers book on the history of violence, to have your eyes opened about how damn violent primitive peoples really are. You naively assume that, because modern people are less violent, so were primitives. Wrong!!!

But, then again, we do know that homo sapiens sapiens were interbreeding with homo sapiens neanderthalensis circa 40-70kybp,(tobo circa 70kybp) and the last evidence of neanderthals found(so far) indicates that they survived until circa 24kybp.

Not exactly a "smoking gun" there.

As long as we really do not know, we can have different opinions.
(and, it would seem-----we do)

Fucking AND fighting?

This has all the hallmarks of a potentially good thread.

Actually, as I read the article, the suggestion is that a demonstrated change in aridity may have merely aided humans in replacing Neanderthals.

Moreover, this isotopic event coinciding in timing with the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans may indicate that environmental changes, such as an increase of aridity, could have helped modern humans to overcome the Neanderthals.

What I take from that is the hypothesis that modern humans were more adaptable to environmental change than were Neanderthals, giving them a competitive advantage, not that the environmental changes alone were responsible. Here, in Yukon, we have some thirteen indigenous tribes which until quite recently also fought battles over 'traditional territory' and women.

No such thing as the noble savage but I think it's unlikely that they were killed off by H. Sapiens; there would be much more evidence for it. Certain Neanderthal remains were found in Irak (Shanidar 3) with what seemed to be an injury produced by a spear thrower (H. Sapiens technology) but is there anything else to support it?

What Sapiens had was culture and good communications (trade) and perhaps that's what gave them the edge over Neanderthals. And probably a more varied diet.

As for having it off with a Neanderthal bird... Did they really do that? Yuck.

jgoti
it seems that that is exactly what happened--------and maybe human birds with neanderthal men too--------
anyone know if sapiens sapiens mitochondrial dna has been found in sapiens neanderthalensis hybrids?
.............
diets:

Some time ago, I read that there is no evidence for neanderthals fishing nor eating fish.
And then I read something disputing this------but without citing evidence.
...................
from Gibraltar site:

Chris Stringer thinks the site provides an important insight into the reasons for Neanderthal extinction.

"For years, many of us have tended to look for one single reason why Neanderthals died out - that we interbred with them, or out-competed them, or killed them off. The Gibraltar evidence fits into a picture that has been emerging in recent years of quite a complex event," he explained.

"The idea of modern humans coming in and Neanderthals dying out simply didn't happen."

One view of Neanderthal extinction has them rapidly vanishing as modern humans swept across Europe. Modern man is a suspect, but the new evidence supports an important role for climate change.

Televisual representation of a Neanderthal (BBC)
In the end, rapid climate change may have doomed the species
The Neanderthals survived in local pockets during previous Ice Ages, bouncing back when conditions improved. But the last one appears to have been characterised by several rapid and severe changes in climate which hit a peak 30,000 years ago.

These were probably more dramatic in more northerly parts of Europe, where they may have upset the balance between Neanderthals and modern humans, allowing moderns to gain the upper hand.

Gibraltar's climate was sheltered from many of these changes, but it did eventually deteriorate. Recent deep-sea core data show that temperatures dropped sharply around 24,000 years ago. This could have created drought-like conditions in the area which may also have reduced the number of prey the Neanderthals could catch.

"If you've got a shrinking Neanderthal population on the edge, it might just be enough to tip them over the edge," Professor Finlayson told BBC News.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Neanderthals' 'last rock refuge'

Originally Posted by sculptor

jgoti
it seems that that is exactly what happened--------and maybe human birds with neanderthal men too--------
anyone know if sapiens sapiens mitochondrial dna has been found in sapiens neanderthalensis hybrids?
.............
diets:

Some time ago, I read that there is no evidence for neanderthals fishing nor eating fish.
And then I read something disputing this------but without citing evidence.
...................
from Gibraltar site:

Chris Stringer thinks the site provides an important insight into the reasons for Neanderthal extinction.

"For years, many of us have tended to look for one single reason why Neanderthals died out - that we interbred with them, or out-competed them, or killed them off. The Gibraltar evidence fits into a picture that has been emerging in recent years of quite a complex event," he explained.

"The idea of modern humans coming in and Neanderthals dying out simply didn't happen."

One view of Neanderthal extinction has them rapidly vanishing as modern humans swept across Europe. Modern man is a suspect, but the new evidence supports an important role for climate change.

Televisual representation of a Neanderthal (BBC)
In the end, rapid climate change may have doomed the species
The Neanderthals survived in local pockets during previous Ice Ages, bouncing back when conditions improved. But the last one appears to have been characterised by several rapid and severe changes in climate which hit a peak 30,000 years ago.

These were probably more dramatic in more northerly parts of Europe, where they may have upset the balance between Neanderthals and modern humans, allowing moderns to gain the upper hand.

Gibraltar's climate was sheltered from many of these changes, but it did eventually deteriorate. Recent deep-sea core data show that temperatures dropped sharply around 24,000 years ago. This could have created drought-like conditions in the area which may also have reduced the number of prey the Neanderthals could catch.

"If you've got a shrinking Neanderthal population on the edge, it might just be enough to tip them over the edge," Professor Finlayson told BBC News.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Neanderthals' 'last rock refuge'

mDNA:
I think the only plausible Neanderthal hybrid was found in Cabeço das Fraguas, Portugal, and the skull was unfortunately destroyed by a bulldozer so it might have been just a bulky pre-adolescent Sapiens. The skull would have been crucial in determining what it was.

I was only joking with the "yuck-factor" - though I wouldn't even dream of doing it myself.

Diet:
It seems that certain vegetable remains found in Neanderthal teeth may have been due to eating the stomach contents of the animals they hunted (a common practice in some cultures that inhabit cold regions). A link: http://www.academia.edu/4628394/Having_the_stomach_for_it_a_contribution_to_Neande rthal_diets Sapiens, on the other hand, seemd to have feasted on all they could grab.

As for Gibraltar (nowadays it's inhabited by people who will assure you, in a thick Andalusian accent, they are actually British), the fact that it's an island makes it a perfect place for a dying species to hold out a bit longer (24,000 BP). I've never heard this being put forth anywhere but it could easily explain away why they survived until such "recent" times.

Their culture changed very little over time so it might simply be a lack of adaptation, which is a big drawback for survival.

It's all too speculative but it makes for a good conversation anyhow. My pet hypothesis? I think they were a bit frightened of our strange cultural behaviour. Oh, never mind.

Shows what I know.

I always though that Neanderthals became the Sapiens, not replaced them.

Live and learn. (Unless you're a Neanderthal, that is.)

On a side note, I've just found a delicious Google "translation" on Neanderthals.

Have a laugh at this:

---

Economists believe that Neanderthals were Homo sapiens due to lack of trade to replace —

— Primitive Neanderthals in Europe (Neanderthals) was the master of Europe, but they are living in a healthy 26 years after the mysterious sudden disappearance 30,000 years ago. Reason for the disappearance of European and American scientists have been interested in the topic. February 2, Japanese newspaper has published a “Zuiben to Neanderthal extinction,” a text. However, according to the “New Scientist” magazine reported that recently the United States and the Netherlands economists also proposed a new point of view, from an economic point of view they find the cause of Neanderthal extinction. They believe that modern man might eventually lead to the extinction of the Neanderthal “culprit” is the direct cause of Homo sapiens began to free trade, while the Neanderthals do not understand trade.





The ancestors of modern Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals (Neanderthals) have historically been co-exist. Neanderthals lived in the back some 30,000 years ago, ancient humans, living in today’s Europe, Middle East and parts of Asia. 1856, first discovered near Düsseldorf, Germany Neanderthal valley upstream of the cave, then the origin of its name here. Neanderthals abruptly disappeared 30,000 years ago, the reasons for their demise has been the scholars debated topic.

The thing that stands out for me is that there is not one smoking gun, but numerous. Massive extinction events follow the first humans so many times. Australia, North America, New Zealand, the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, Indian Ocean islands, and so on. Humans arrive, and soon after, lots of animal species go extinct. That is not some coincidence related to climate change. The cause of those extinctions seems to be the introduction of alien species that travel with humans, like the Polynesian rat, plus direct hunting and killing by humans.

And then we see humans arriving in Europe from Africa, and within a few thousand years, the Neanderthals are extinct. It is pretty obvious that the cause of the extinction is humans. Bearing in mind the ferocity of primitive humans, as documented by anthropologists, and also the fact that direct human hunting wiped out so many other large animal species, the conclusion (to me) is plain.

"a few thousand years"

hahhahahahaha

Sculptor

That time factor also applied to the megafauna extinctions in Australia. Humans arrived some time between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago, and over 100 species were gone within perhaps 5,000 to 20,000 years. That seems to be what happened to Neanderthals as well. In my country, the main extinctions happened more quickly, but NZ is tiny compared to Australia or the whole of Europe.

and, then:

New findings from an international team of researchers show that most Neanderthals in Europe died off around 50,000 years ago. The previously held view of a Europe populated by a stable Neanderthal population for hundreds of thousands of years up until modern humans arrived must therefore be revised.

This new perspective on the Neanderthals comes from a study of ancient DNA published February 25 in Molecular Biology and Evolution.
The results indicate that most Neanderthals in Europe died off as early as 50,000 years ago. After that, a small group of Neanderthals recolonised central and western Europe, where they survived for another ......
....
The fact that Neanderthals in Europe were nearly extinct, but then recovered, and that all this took place long before they came into contact with modern humans came as a complete surprise to us. This indicates that the Neanderthals may have been more sensitive to the dramatic climate changes that took place in the last Ice Age than was previously thought”, says Love Dalén, associate professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.
In connection with work on DNA from Neanderthal fossils in Northern Spain, the researchers noted that the genetic variation among European Neanderthals was extremely limited during the last ten thousand years before the Neanderthals disappeared.
Older European Neanderthal fossils, as well as fossils from Asia, had much greater genetic variation, on par with the amount of variation that might be expected from a species that had been abundant in an area for a long period of time. “The amount of genetic variation in geologically older Neanderthals as well as in Asian Neanderthals was just as great as in modern humans as a species, whereas the variation among later European Neanderthals was not even as high as that of modern humans in Iceland”, says Anders Götherström, associate professor at Uppsala University.

note the lack of genetic variation which I had mentioned earlier

Sculptor

I am not sure what you are getting at. Low genetic variability is also characteristic of Homo sapiens. Yet we are immensely successful.

did you read the last quoted?

I read it. I do not give it the importance you seem to. There are numerous cases in the animal kingdom of species with very limited genetic variability springing back into large populations. We had an extreme case here in NZ, when one single female black robin was the last female of her kind, and the population is now passing the 1,000 mark. Low genetic variability is not, in itself, a death knell. It requires something else, quite potent, to cause an extinction.

Originally Posted by skeptic

I read it. I do not give it the importance you seem to. There are numerous cases in the animal kingdom of species with very limited genetic variability springing back into large populations. We had an extreme case here in NZ, when one single female black robin was the last female of her kind, and the population is now passing the 1,000 mark. Low genetic variability is not, in itself, a death knell. It requires something else, quite potent, to cause an extinction.

Cheetahs have a very low genetic variability, to the point that skin grafts between any two unrelated individuals are not rejected. They have been doing fine since the last ice age, which was supposedly when the bottleneck event took place. So perhaps Neanderthals were not as badly affected by it as it may seem. I still think there should be more evidence for something resembling warfare or killings (there is a lot for cannibalism) if anything so brutal had ever happened - not that other forms of "soft" hostility by H. Sapiens can be ruled out, though.

it does however mean that an infection that kills e.g. 10% of domestic cats might kill off 90% of cheetahs, just because they're so similar
and that makes them vulnerable to random mishaps

Originally Posted by marnixR

it does however mean that an infection that kills e.g. 10% of domestic cats might kill off 90% of cheetahs, just because they're so similar
and that makes them vulnerable to random mishaps

Is that like what happened with bananas? Panama disease?

ok
think about it this way

we were in a glacial period and the neanderthals lived north of the sapiens sapiens when (horror of horrors) we had a volcanic winter in the midst of colder temperatures which dropped the temperature another 6 degrees for thousands of years.
we were almost wiped out, and our northern cousins suffered much more than we did, loosing most likely well over 90% of their population, and most of their genetic diversity---only the western european neanderthals survived.
The very few survivors found refuges in southern europe---spain and italy--(and, maybe in the levant?)and hung on tenaciously inbreeding for thousands of years
maybe, breeding with us was the only way they could pass on at least some of their genetic material.

meanwhile we began to recover our population and started another migration out and up, east and west encountering the few remaining cousins

....................
There is zero evidence that we killed the neanderthals and/or forced their (almost) extinction.
There is zero evidence that we forced the extinction of the megafauna.
.................
Skeptic, you really need to become more skeptical.
.....................
suppositions/speculations without evidence are just wild guesses that offer much more information into the mind of the speculator than into the subject under discussion.
....................
I wonder why you feel this way?

Originally Posted by sculptor

we were in a glacial period and the neanderthals lived north of the sapiens sapiens when (horror of horrors) we had a volcanic winter in the midst of colder temperatures which dropped the temperature another 6 degrees for thousands of years.

Ahh. No. At worst the depressed temperatures last a few years, a decade at the most. A recent study of East Africa lakes shows ash but no significant temperature change at all, or not enough to serious effect fish populations or cause an overturning:
Reply to Roberts et al.: A subdecadal record of paleoclimate around the Youngest Toba Tuff in Lake Malawi

--
That being said it doesn't take a few years to starve out populations-- even in more modern times a single season causes mass starvation.
--
And I for the most part agree with Skeptic, just about every study shows tribal cultures extreme violent internally and towards other tribes, the only exceptions being where there was some cultural similarity that encouraged some trade.
There's also robust evidence of modern extinctions of multiple species when humans arrived either directly, or indirection by habitat displacement or introduction of invasive species.

Given the very similar and overlapping times for multiple mega-fauna events and appearance of modern humans all over the world it's certainly the lead hypothesis.

Originally Posted by Daecon

Is that like what happened with bananas? Panama disease?

it's even worse for bananas - since the bananas that we eat don't have any seeds (as opposed to wild ones which are so full of seed that they're totally inedible) they're essentially clones, so a disease could wipe out all edible bananas in one pandemic

Originally Posted by skeptic

3. Rather fuck than fight? Well, if you go by anthropologist reports of modern primitives, it appears that the fucking is achieved by stealing women after killing off the men. The Maori of my country, before European influence, would attack another tribe, kill the men, and take the women as slaves. I can assure you that those female slaves did not suffer a lack of fucking! The most likely way Neanderthal DNA got into the human genome was via Neanderthal women taken as slaves.

Who would want to take a Neanderthal woman as a slave? And if they did take one as a slave, who would want to have sex with her?

I think a good alternative hypothesis would be that, once the Neanderthals began to realize the sapiens were better and smarter planners than they were, they allowed sapiens to become their chiefs. Then the interbreeding would happen because they were occupying the same villages. By all accounts I've read, neanderthals were physically stronger and tougher than sapiens, so they'd make good warriors in a sapiens tribe to be deployed against other sapiens. Maybe the best neanderthal warriors were awarded the spoils of some of their raids against other tribes?

You need to read Steven Pinkers book on the history of violence, to have your eyes opened about how damn violent primitive peoples really are. You naively assume that, because modern people are less violent, so were primitives. Wrong!!!

Really the two theories cross over. People are remarkably peaceful during boom times, when there is plenty of food to go around, and remarkably violent when the food gets scarce.

So what happened during the ice age? Probably food got scarce for everyone.

Jared Diamond's "The world until yesterday" is a good and relevant read in this respect
what often happens in tribal settings is that there is no powerful state or chief to enforce conflict resolution, hence conflict can drag on as a chronic condition

Originally Posted by marnixR

Jared Diamond's "The world until yesterday" is a good and relevant read in this respect
what often happens in tribal settings is that there is no powerful state or chief to enforce conflict resolution, hence conflict can drag on as a chronic condition

Like the "maras" in South American countries, whose never-ending conflicts resemble a continuation of pre-columbian warfare. No cold diplomats to come to agreements.

BTW, I'll get that book. Jared Diamond is an interesting read.

Several individuals have expressed surprise that any man would take a Neanderthal women for a mate or even a tryst. Speaking from the female perspective here, I can't begin to understand how some women get selected even today because they would fail by any measure that I would consider 'attractive'.

Apparently raging hormones are not that choosy and in the dark, all cats are gray.

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Several individuals have expressed surprise that any man would take a Neanderthal women for a mate or even a tryst. Speaking from the female perspective here, I can't begin to understand how some women get selected even today because they would fail by any measure that I would consider 'attractive'.

Apparently raging hormones are not that choosy and in the dark, all cats are gray.

I will add to this sentiment that person doesn't 'choose' who they are attracted to.

On not having sex with neanderthal women, because they are so ugly. Man you guys are naive!!!!

A young man with no woman will have sex with pretty much anything. Sheep and cows, look out!
Now imagine a tribe with neanderthal women as slaves, and available sexually to anyone. The young men of that tribe with no women will definitely make use of that sexual opportunity.

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Several individuals have expressed surprise that any man would take a Neanderthal women for a mate or even a tryst. Speaking from the female perspective here, I can't begin to understand how some women get selected even today because they would fail by any measure that I would consider 'attractive'.

Apparently raging hormones are not that choosy and in the dark, all cats are gray.

Oh, but I meant it as a joke, of course!

If there's genetic evidence according to some, then it probably happened. Back in the day they were far less saturated by the fashion media than we are today.

Originally Posted by jgoti

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Several individuals have expressed surprise that any man would take a Neanderthal women for a mate or even a tryst. Speaking from the female perspective here, I can't begin to understand how some women get selected even today because they would fail by any measure that I would consider 'attractive'.

Apparently raging hormones are not that choosy and in the dark, all cats are gray.

Oh, but I meant it as a joke, of course!

If there's genetic evidence according to some, then it probably happened. Back in the day they were far less saturated by the fashion media than we are today.

Did they have any? If they did it was called "The Daily Rock".

I think it was a mixture of stuff.

Genocide, interbreeding, disease, out-competition all must have played factors.

Who is also to say Neanderthals didn't kill off sapiens bands? I wouldn't say pure intelligence on our part killed them off (Lasceuax could be part Neanderthal, who is to say?) But we are a naturally migratory species, Neanderthals were not, so perhaps we're naturally more adaptable than they were.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by sculptor

we were in a glacial period and the neanderthals lived north of the sapiens sapiens when (horror of horrors) we had a volcanic winter in the midst of colder temperatures which dropped the temperature another 6 degrees for thousands of years.

Ahh. No. At worst the depressed temperatures last a few years, a decade at the most. A recent study of East Africa lakes shows ash but no significant temperature change at all, or not enough to serious effect fish populations or cause an overturning:
Reply to Roberts et al.: A subdecadal record of paleoclimate around the Youngest Toba Tuff in Lake Malawi.

But, then again, we have the thoughts of professor Ambrose:

The last glacial period was preceded by 1000 years of the coldest temperatures of the Late Pleistocene, apparently caused by the eruption of the Mount Toba volcano. The six year long volcanic winter and 1000-year-long instant Ice Age that followed Mount Toba's eruption may have decimated Modern Man's entire population. Genetic evidence suggests that Human population size fell to about 10,000 adults between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. The survivors from this global catastrophy would have found refuge in isolated tropical pockets, mainly in Equatorial Africa. Populations living in Europe and northern China would have been completely eliminated by the reduction of the summer temperatures by as much as 12 degrees centigrade.

Volcanic winter and instant Ice Age may help resolve the central but unstated paradox of the recent African origin of Humankind: if we are all so recently "Out of Africa", why do we not all look more African?

Because the volcanic winter and instant Ice Age would have reduced populations levels low enough for founder effects, genetic drift and local adaptations to produce rapid changes in the surviving populations, causing the peoples of the world to look so different today. In other words, Toba may have caused Modern Races to differentiate abruptly only 70,000 years ago, rather than gradually over one million years.

Volcanic Winter

The Mount Toba eruption is dated to approximately 71,000 years ago. Volcanic ash from Mount Toba can be traced north-west across India, where a widespread terrestrial marker bed exists of primary and reworked airfall ash, in beds that are commonly 1 to 3, and occasionally 6 meters [18 feet] thick.

Tambora, the largest known historic eruption, displaced 20 cubic kilometres of ash. Mount Toba produced 800 cubic kilometres.* It was therefore forty times larger than the largest eruption of the last two centuries and apparently the second largest known explosive eruption over the last 450 million years.

Volcanic Winter, and Differentiation of Modern Humans

Mount Toba's eruption is marked by a 6 year period during which the largest amount of volcanic sulphur was deposited in the past 110,000 years. This dramatic event was followed by 1000 years of the lowest ice core oxygen isotope ratios of the last glacial period. In other words, for 1000 years immediately following the eruption, the earth witnessed temperatures colder than during the Last Glacial Maximum at 18-21,000 years ago.

more at: Mount Toba : Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans

He ain't the only one to so opine.
Caveat: We do run into problems with dating in that time-frame. (beyond radiocarbon more guesswork must needs be employed) The caveat holds for the Lake Malawi data also

Almost daily, more information about neanderthal genomes surviving in modern populations becomes available:
eg:

Scientist have found evidence of accumulation of a Neanderthal DNA region found on chromosome 3 that contains 18 genes, with several related to UV-light adaptation. Their results reveal this region was positively selected and enriched in East Asians, ranging from up to 49 percent in Japanese to 66 percent in Southern Chinese.

more at: Sunlight adaptation region of Neanderthal genome found in up to 65 percent of modern East Asian population -- ScienceDaily

One hypothesis (can't find the link now) postulated that the neanderthals didn't go extinct, but that all that inbreeding led to having too many recessive genes, and they were subsumed within ourselves.-------seems a tad far fetched--------?

..............
addendum to above:
Toba was anything but normal, and may have been the most destructive volcano of the past 2 million years.

Yes Ambrose did some great work relative to what we knew 15 years ago and tying the interdisciplinary topics of the geology, anthropology and genetics to come up with an interesting idea. But even own research does not support the idea of a thousand year chill as you suggested--and how could he, it was speculation way out of his field. There is no simulation, nor observational data which suggest a thousand year cooling, or any ice-age. Furthermore, it would take far less than even ten years to devastate biospheres (including humans), from even a short term impacts--something that would have consequences for many decades as forest, carbon cycles gradually try to return to pre eruption conditions (assuming it didn't enter entirely new stable regimes).

My objection isn't to the impact on humans (or their subspecies), but the length of significant climate impact, especially cooling. Niether simulations or observations show an enduring or long term impact to climate, especially for temperature. As the quote you posted indicates, "volcanic winter" might be appropriate term...but not an ice age.

Already posted the Lake Malawi data showing little cooling.
Others:
"The simulated temperature changes in those areas that were inhabited by humans suggest thermal discomfort, but not a real challenge for survival. Precipitation is reduced in all regions during the first two years but recovers quickly thereafter. Some catchments in these regions (Ganges/Brahmaputra, Nile), experience an over-compensation in precipitation during the third to fifth post-eruption years which is also reflected in anomalously strong river runoffs. Change in vegetation composition may have created the biggest pressure on humans, who had to adapt to more open space with fewer trees and more grasses for some decades especially in the African regions. The strongest environmental impacts of the YTT eruption are simulated under interglacial background conditions suggesting that the climate effects of the YTT eruption did not impact humans on a major scale and for a period long enough to have dramatic consequences for their survival."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618211005817

--

"Lane et al. (1) recovered microscopic glass shards (cryptotephra) from a thin layer of sediment deposited in Lake Malawi and chemically characterized them as volcanic ash (Youngest Toba Tuff, YTT) from the Toba “supereruption” in Sumatra. The authors found no evidence of significant climate change at multidecadal to millennial timescales in the sedimentary record, and in their report conclude that the eruption distributed ash much more widely than previously documented but did not trigger a volcanic winter or human bottleneck in East Africa. Although the YTT event had limited impact on ecosystems around Lake Malawi, we think Lane et al. (1) are premature in extrapolating their"
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/33/E3047.short

Ice cool samples, even one with pretty good time temporal resolution also fail to show temperature change of anything on the order of a thousand years--most rule out an global temperature effect much beyond ten years.

curiously:
A.J. Williams, et al, published:

The Toba eruption marks the onset of the coldest two millennia of
the Greenland ice cores (Dansgaard et al., 1993; Zielinski et al., 1996;
Lang et al., 1999; North Greenland Ice Project Members, 2004). It is
likely that the formation of the fossil soil carbonates in the Rehi section
and the first 5–10 cm of the marine core above the Toba ash span the
duration of this stadial interval. Small numbers of Middle Palaeolithic
artifacts from gravels and sands stratified below and above a thick
bed of ash in south India have been interpreted as demonstrating
insignificant impacts of Toba on terrestrial environments and human
adaptations in India (Petraglia et al., 2007). Our results challenge this
conclusion because they show that the Toba eruption led to prolonged
drought and deforestation in India, probably lasting for 1000–
2000 years. Cooling arising from the Toba super-eruption is considered
responsible for the extreme cold of ice core stadial 20 (Zielinski
et al., 1996) and is supported by our work. The precise magnitude and
duration of the Toba-induced cooling in other regions of the world is
still not well known, because their environmental records are not
stratified with clear markers of the 73 ka Toba eruption. However,
cores from three large, deep lakes in tropical Africa (Lakes Malawi,
Tanganyika and Bosumtwi) have unusual depositional events at
∼73 ka, reflecting apparently synchronous abrupt drops in lake levels
(Scholz et al., 2007). This is consistent with a severe global environmental
impact for the Toba-induced cooling.

see more at: http://files.abovetopsecret.com/file...902f91d85d.pdf

ok volcanic winter(s)(6 in a row?) and then feedback mechanisms?
and then
there were more volcanoes in europe about 40ka
more blows to the refuged neanderthals?

I read it prior to my last post. It makes a good case for drying, not one at all for long term cooling--in fact, they identify the key problem with the Greenland record, which is several similar swings, one of which appears to coincide with the Toba event--that makes it highly questionable as a good indicator.

so, there we have it
less a smoking gun than conflicting information
there is something similar in the vostoc cores, but the dates seem imprecise

Originally Posted by sculptor

so, there we have it
less a smoking gun than conflicting information
there is something similar in the vostoc cores, but the dates seem imprecise

Three similar swings in Greenland....unless Toba was 3 seperate events, its a damn stretch to assume one eruption that happened about the same time as one rather than the 3 being caused from some other phenomena....

There Vostoc record doesn't' show a thousand year cooling either, and effectively rules out anything close to that long.
"Antarctic temperature proxies exclude the possibility ofa more-than-a-century-long global cooling impact of the
eruption(s) as Antarctica warms up shortly after the bipolar
events."
http://www.clim-past.net/9/749/2013/cp-9-749-2013.pdf

What you think you know it rather dated information and a supposition by an anthropologist rather than a geologist or climatologist and hasn't been confirmed as happening anything like he originally imagined. When observations and simulations all show something different, well than its likely to have been something different.

But here's something I think we can both agree on:

It wouldn't take a long period of dramatic cold to dramatically effect human populations. These are primitive societies don't store a lot of food. Even a single year without fruits, vegetables or shattered patterns animal migrations would have been more than sufficient to be a devastating knockdown blow to our slender ancestors, or to our more robust subspecies cousins trying to subsite in Europe and the Middle East.

Lastly there's a heck of a long break between toba and Neanderthal decline, far far longer than necessary to replenish even the most devastated peoples (they should recover in a few centuries). The migration of modern humans into the Middle East and later into Europe seems the most likely reason for their decline.

A human posing with a museum reconstruction of a neanderthal

Another modern reconstruction of what a neanderthal migh have looked like.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

I read it prior to my last post. It makes a good case for drying, not one at all for long term cooling--in fact, they identify the key problem with the Greenland record, which is several similar swings, one of which appears to coincide with the Toba event--that makes it highly questionable as a good indicator.

but wouldn't a long-term drying lead to to a long-term cooling, seeing that water vapour is a very potent greenhouse gas ?

marnixR: yeh, that's my take on it.
and, from Ambrose:

The dryness probably also indicates a drop in temperature "because when you turn down the temperature you also turn down the rainfall," Ambrose said. "This is unambiguous evidence that Toba caused deforestation in the tropics for a long time."

noaa's take:

and another:

Originally Posted by marnixR

but wouldn't a long-term drying lead to to a long-term cooling, seeing that water vapour is a very potent greenhouse gas ?

Not necessarily, it really depends on the regional monsoon flows, and frequencies of local storms, and position of tropical jet in that part of the world. There are many situations where dryer can mean warmer, the American Southwest for example. The water vapor, greenhouse connection is strong but only when integrated over the globe.

--
Sculptor, most of the recent work narrows the down to 74000 BP plus or minus a few centuries. The NASA chart you showed shows the temperature decline starting about 85,000 BP with several rises and dips about the time of the Toba eruption. The second chart doesn't' even cover the eruption. When Ambrose did is initial work the times was much less well known with an uncertainty gap of about 10,000 years to which some of the data at the time seemed to fit his ideas. We know better now and the timing has been much better nailed down to Astronomically calibrated 40Ar/39Ar age for the Toba supereruption and global synchronization of late Quaternary records

Many other have noticed the mismatch now that we have more precise estimates of the Toba event: "However, the climate was undergoing recovery prior to the onset of stadial 20 (Fig. 9) suggesting Toba was not responsible for the prolonged global cooling and onset of stadial20."
http://www.academia.edu/2388761/A_high-precision_40Ar_39Ar_age_for_the_Young_Toba_Tuff_an d_dating_of_ultra-distal_tephra_forcing_of_Quaternary_climate_and_im plications_for_hominin_occupation_of_India,

--
Also not sure why you continue to discuss the duration of cooling when the evidence doesn't' support your position and it probably doesn't matter anyhow. Do you think early modern humans needed a thousand years of food shortages to suffer a huge loss in population? Or just a couple harsh years, which most certainly did happen.

Well, I was degreed in Anthropology.archaeology from the University of Illinois in the late 70s, so much of what I;ve posted stems from that.
so
here is an old chart from 'the 80s showing my original claim that we were entering the colder parts of the last glaciation when toba blew and continued to help the temperatures decline.
There is strong archaeological evidence for the demise of the eastern taller more gracile neanderthals at that time.
The survivors were mostly the western more robust, "classical" neanderthals, who are believed to have never regained their preglacial populations.



We could debate this until more information settles a like debate within the archaeological/anthropological community, but probably wouldn't come to any iron clad conclusions.
Which brings us back to my original:
"We simply do not know." And therefore any claims must be seen as speculation.

We have a serious problem dating remains beyond the approximate 62k years of useful radiocarbon dating, and much of this falls beyond that time.

What we do know, Sculptor, is that Neanderthals survived for 300,000 years, and then died out soon after contact with Homo sapiens. My view on what probably killed the Neanderthals is human driven spears. Sure, it is just a probability. I base that partly on the timing of their demise, and partly on what we know of the behaviour of primitive humans.

or:

Volcanoes Killed Off Neanderthals, Study Suggests:
About 40,000 years ago in what we now call Italy and the Caucasus Mountains, which straddle Europe and Asia, several volcanoes erupted in quick succession, according to a new study to be published in the October issue of the journal Current Anthropology.
It's likely the eruptions reduced or wiped out local bands of Neanderthals and indirectly affected farther-flung populations, the team concluded after analyzing pollen and ash from the affected area.

see more at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...s/#close-modal

Stone-age pickup line: "Do you have any Neanderthal in you? Would you like some?"

Originally Posted by Daecon

Stone-age pickup line: "Do you have any Neanderthal in you? Would you like some?"

That would explain, in a single sentence, why Neanderthals are now extinct. A female (of any species) would rather throw herself upon her spear than succumb to that invitation.

zzz

Originally Posted by Daecon

Shows what I know.I always though that Neanderthals became the Sapiens, not replaced them.Live and learn. (Unless you're a Neanderthal, that is.)

These type of threads continually pop up and yet, homo sapiens, modern humans, are part neandertal and part other hominids. These hominids, neandertals included, made Us.... We did not exist until these different hominids bred to each other. Every hominid that made Us, not just pure neandertals, are extinct. We, the mixed mutts, homo sapiens, are the product of those crosses.. We did not exist before these crosses, only our multiple different hominid ancestors existed..

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Originally Posted by Daecon

Shows what I know.I always though that Neanderthals became the Sapiens, not replaced them.Live and learn. (Unless you're a Neanderthal, that is.)

These type of threads continually pop up and yet, homo sapiens, modern humans, are part neandertal and part other hominids. These hominids, neandertals included, made Us.... We did not exist until these different hominids bred to each other. Every hominid that made Us, not just pure neandertals, are extinct. We, the mixed mutts, homo sapiens, are the product of those crosses.. We did not exist before these crosses, only our multiple different hominid ancestors existed..

and, :
Those earlier hominids were most likely also "mixed mutts".

Humans do seem to among the least discriminating species when it comes to copulation. No reason to think that our ancestors were any more Puritan.

(Someone had to say it.)

Originally Posted by sculptor

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Originally Posted by Daecon

Shows what I know.I always though that Neanderthals became the Sapiens, not replaced them.Live and learn. (Unless you're a Neanderthal, that is.)

These type of threads continually pop up and yet, homo sapiens, modern humans, are part neandertal and part other hominids. These hominids, neandertals included, made Us.... We did not exist until these different hominids bred to each other. Every hominid that made Us, not just pure neandertals, are extinct. We, the mixed mutts, homo sapiens, are the product of those crosses.. We did not exist before these crosses, only our multiple different hominid ancestors existed..

and, :Those earlier hominids were most likely also "mixed mutts".

I would bet so...

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Humans do seem to among the least discriminating species when it comes to copulation. No reason to think that our ancestors were any more Puritan.

(Someone had to say it.)

I doubt that we are any less discriminating than any other mammalian species.
I have seen dogs hump just about any and everything, horses humping cows, etc.......
and most of the dogs i've had are mixed breeds--------when a bitch needs sex it doesn't much matter who is available----also my cat from years ago(college days): She was in heat and would climb onto my bed and meow plaintively and loudly, until, i just opened the door of the apartment ant tossed her out into the hall.
When I returned from a morning class, there were maybe a dozen toms staggered up the stairs to my hallway, waiting their turn, and at the top of the stairs was my cat, "blue eyes" getting satisfied again and again and again and again and again and again..........................

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Humans do seem to among the least discriminating species when it comes to copulation. No reason to think that our ancestors were any more Puritan.

(Someone had to say it.)

Why do you say this? Some people are actual descendants of the Puritans, in which case their ancestors were, in fact more Puritan. Many people actually are very discriminating when it comes to copulation. It's called marriage, and is not all that unusual in human history.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Humans do seem to among the least discriminating species when it comes to copulation. No reason to think that our ancestors were any more Puritan.

(Someone had to say it.)

Why do you say this? Some people are actual descendants of the Puritans, in which case their ancestors were, in fact more Puritan. Many people actually are very discriminating when it comes to copulation. It's called marriage, and is not all that unusual in human history.

Why do I say this?

Because I am female and I am discriminating. I have also had two long term relationships in wedlock and despite wearing my wedding ring very prominently and dressing and acting conservatively, I still get propositioned.

I expect the male perspective of this matter is really quite a different experience.

comparing some humans and their behavior to neandertals is not correct. i doubt if neandertals were hateful.

We have yet to determine how or why Neanderthal became extinct, but their DNA remains in the gene pool.

Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of modern humans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa perhaps about 40,000 to 80,000 years ago, although some research suggests the migration began earlier. About 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of anyone outside Africa is Neanderthal in origin.

At least 20% of Neanderthal DNA Is in Humans | LiveScience

All Europeans and Asians, however, retain Neanderthal genes affecting keratin, which is a fibrous protein in skin and hair. Reich explained that keratin makes skin, hair and nails tougher and better able to withstand cold temperatures. 



The findings also strongly support the theory that Neanderthals were simply absorbed into the human gene pool. They are now, in essence, a part of many people.

How Neanderthal DNA Changed Humans : Discovery News

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Humans do seem to among the least discriminating species when it comes to copulation. No reason to think that our ancestors were any more Puritan.

(Someone had to say it.)

Why do you say this? Some people are actual descendants of the Puritans, in which case their ancestors were, in fact more Puritan. Many people actually are very discriminating when it comes to copulation. It's called marriage, and is not all that unusual in human history.

Why do I say this?

Because I am female and I am discriminating. I have also had two long term relationships in wedlock and despite wearing my wedding ring very prominently and dressing and acting conservatively, I still get propositioned.

I expect the male perspective of this matter is really quite a different experience.

Well, men are different. They have sex on the mind 24/7, as we all know, but even in that they are discriminating and will pursue the hotter females a lot more vigorously. Not that they would be inclined by nature to turn down any opportunity that might arise.

Originally Posted by Chucknorium

comparing some humans and their behavior to neandertals is not correct. i doubt if neandertals were hateful.

Why do you doubt that? Most primates are pretty "hateful", and the Neanderthals were more closely related than most.

define "hateful"
please

Originally Posted by sculptor

define "hateful"
please

My definition would be when groups band together to attack neighboring groups or tribes of the same species. Chimps go out on border patrols and kill any strangers, expanding their feeding territory.

Chimps Engage in 'War' for Turf : Discovery News

Baboons organize in troops and clans that make war on one another, often for control of the female harems.

BBC - Earth News - When two baboon troops go to war

I would call that being territorial, which many species behave in this manner. Though there are instances where humans have behaved in this way, it does not explain the other instances of violence. I think this is what Chucknorium was referring to.

Really:
We know so little of neanderthalensis. I suspect that if we gathered together all of the neanderthal
remains, they would fit into the back of a pick-up truck. And, even less is known of neanderthal society and behavior. When i studied the area, it was "known" that the mousterian stone culture was only of and by neanderthals, and remained "unchanged for well over 60,000 years. And, then, the same stone culture was found in association where only sapiens sapiens remains or heidelbergensis remains were found.

Speculation is necessary for the advancement of science.

What we have, mostly of neanderthalensis is speculation from our sapiens sapiens perspective.

We ain't even scratched the surface.
Without wandering off on a racist tangent-----If we could truly understand the strengths and weaknesses -- physical, psychological and intellectual of those with or without neanderthal dna, perhaps we would be able to more clearly guestimate neanderthal strengths and weaknesses, and from that knowledge, reconstruct likely neanderthal behaviors.

In the meantime
Let us speculate with the understanding that speculating is what we are doing.

Originally Posted by sculptor

Really:We know so little of neanderthalensis. I suspect that if we gathered together all of the neanderthal remains, they would fit into the back of a pick-up truck. And, even less is known of neanderthal society and behavior. When i studied the area, it was "known" that the mousterian stone culture was only of and by neanderthals, and remained "unchanged for well over 60,000 years. And, then, the same stone culture was found in association where only sapiens sapiens remains or heidelbergensis remains were found.Speculation is necessary for the advancement of science.What we have, mostly of neanderthalensis is speculation from our sapiens sapiens perspective.We ain't even scratched the surface.Without wandering off on a racist tangent-----If we could truly understand the strengths and weaknesses -- physical, psychological and intellectual of those with or without neanderthal dna, perhaps we would be able to more clearly guestimate neanderthal strengths and weaknesses, and from that knowledge, reconstruct likely neanderthal behaviors.In the meantimeLet us speculate with the understanding that speculating is what we are doing.

The problem with such an approach is that there is really no "single source" or single population, and there never was one. Not a single person alive today, not a single modern human, ever, became modern by way of a single hominid population. Those that do not have direct genes from neandertal ancestors have genes from other Homonid populations/distant cousins/sub-species.There is just no pre-modern human single source/population homo sapien for modern humans, no matter what part of the world they are from. There where multiple populations and subspecies with common ancestors breeding to each other.. This is the story of all modern humans.

agree
the point of the speculation came from the claim that subSaharan Africans don't seem to have any neanderthal dna.
We could do the same exercise for denisovan dna.

but the metrics would be even trickier.

Originally Posted by gonzales56

The problem with such an approach is that there is really no "single source" or single population, and there never was one. Not a single person alive today, not a single modern human, ever, became modern by way of a single hominid population. Those that do not have direct genes from neandertal ancestors have genes from other Homonid populations/distant cousins/sub-species.There is just no pre-modern human single source/population homo sapien for modern humans, no matter what part of the world they are from. There where multiple populations and subspecies with common ancestors breeding to each other.. This is the story of all modern humans.

There were considerable barriers to interbreeding between the Hominid subspecies - no boats, no planes and no horses.

and some of the erstwhile shared genes were incompatible

Originally Posted by sculptor

agreethe point of the speculation came from the claim that subSaharan Africans don't seem to have any neanderthal dna.We could do the same exercise for denisovan dna.but the metrics would be even trickier.

But sub-saharan africans have other Arciac hominid populations, mixed, in their ancestry as well. Ultimately, there is very little of anything that is modern about any of Us. What makes Us who we are is mostly the Neandertals, the Denisovans, Arciac African Hominids and their ancestors. What connects us all, what makes Us all similar, is far older than modern humans or the idea of "homo sapiens". For some reason though people want a direct line solution. The idea of evolution by way of multiple populations confuses them, it stumps them. However, the DNA tells Us that our kind has come to be by way of multiple populations. We are the product of multiple evolutionary paths, so be it tiny paths.

Originally Posted by Robittybob1

Originally Posted by gonzales56

The problem with such an approach is that there is really no "single source" or single population, and there never was one. Not a single person alive today, not a single modern human, ever, became modern by way of a single hominid population. Those that do not have direct genes from neandertal ancestors have genes from other Homonid populations/distant cousins/sub-species.There is just no pre-modern human single source/population homo sapien for modern humans, no matter what part of the world they are from. There where multiple populations and subspecies with common ancestors breeding to each other.. This is the story of all modern humans.

There were considerable barriers to interbreeding between the Hominid subspecies - no boats, no planes and no horses.

That argument, albeit perhaps persuasive to some at one point in time, or at least basic enough to allow some to believe what they want and ignore other points, is moot at this point. Whatever barriers there are, or were, to these populations, they over came most of them. The evidence, the DNA, proves that / shows that. No trains, planes or automobiles required. The fact that breeding took place also means that the genetics line up well, over a far greater split than most ever imagined.

Even today some modern humans cannot produce offspring with other modern humans but, as a whole, someone, some percentage of a population, will be able to. It is clear that humans can go 100,000s of years split and still produce offspring... It has already happened several times.

Originally Posted by skeptic

On not having sex with neanderthal women, because they are so ugly. Man you guys are naive!!!!

A young man with no woman will have sex with pretty much anything. Sheep and cows, look out!
Now imagine a tribe with neanderthal women as slaves, and available sexually to anyone. The young men of that tribe with no women will definitely make use of that sexual opportunity.

That would be the exception, not the rule. In any discussion about evolution, nobody is trying to say that mating between a male sapiens and a female neanderthal never happened even once in the whole history of mankind. Sure a male sapiens would mate with a female neanderthal if there were no better options available. But how often would that be true? It wouldn't be more often than the alternative.

Evolution is driven by relative probability. If one thing is more likely than another, then it gradually eclipses the other.

The possibility I think we're reluctant to consider, because it's so barbaric, is the likelihood that primitive males were going around kidnapping their mates. But that was common practice even as late as the 10th century AD in Mongolia (an all sapiens population). What reason do we have to believe that ancient neanderthal society was more advanced than medieval Mongol society?

Originally Posted by looshooz

I think it was a mixture of stuff.

Who is also to say Neanderthals didn't kill off sapiens bands? I wouldn't say pure intelligence on our part killed them off (Lasceuax could be part Neanderthal, who is to say?) But we are a naturally migratory species, Neanderthals were not, so perhaps we're naturally more adaptable than they were.

Genocide, interbreeding, disease, out-competition all must have played factors.

The sapiens were usually found in big groups, gathered together, but the neanderthals were more spread out in smaller groups. That was their real advantage. Their weapons were about equal. Even if sometimes the neanderthals were just copying the sapiens, they still would have been on an equal footing that way. But the issue is who has more warriors gathered in one place.


If 30+ sapiens warriors square off against 5 or 6 neanderthals, who's going to win that fight?

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Originally Posted by sculptor

agreethe point of the speculation came from the claim that subSaharan Africans don't seem to have any neanderthal dna.We could do the same exercise for denisovan dna.but the metrics would be even trickier.

But sub-saharan africans have other Arciac hominid populations, mixed, in their ancestry as well. Ultimately, there is very little of anything that is modern about any of Us. What makes Us who we are is mostly the Neandertals, the Denisovans, Arciac African Hominids and their ancestors. What connects us all, what makes Us all similar, is far older than modern humans or the idea of "homo sapiens". For some reason though people want a direct line solution. The idea of evolution by way of multiple populations confuses them, it stumps them. However, the DNA tells Us that our kind has come to be by way of multiple populations. We are the product of multiple evolutionary paths, so be it tiny paths.

The thing about evolution is the best traits survive, not the best creatures. If we're all 4% or 2% or 6% neanderthal, it is probably because we all carry a few traits that survived from an unknown number of interbreedings.

If one lone sapien were to show up in a Neanderthal tribe, and due to higher intellect manages to become chief and leads that tribe on to many successful hunts, raids, etc.... the "smart trait" from that sapien will gradually disperse throughout the entire tribe. Generation after generation more and more members of the tribe will be pairing off with that guy's descendants, hoping to have offspring that is good at planning hunts. But also that guy's descendants will want to mate with neanderthals that have bigger muscles - or whatever their own DNA is missing.


That doesn't mean higher intellect came from the cross breed. It means some neanderthal DNA survived because the Sapiens DNA was being passed through a neanderthal carrier.

Kojax

There will be many occasions where mating with a slave neanderthal woman would have been the only option for sex. Human women who are yet unmarried, in a primitive tribe, will not want to become pregnant, and will be highly resistant to seduction. This is especially true for an unattractive teenage male. Such guys will seek out, and mate with the neanderthal slave as often as possible. This would not be an unusual event.

As to who will win a fight, that depends less on the relative physical strength, and more on technology. Early European humans had atlatl's. A spear thrown from such a devastating tool would easily kill a neanderthal. In fact, if I faced off against Arnold Schwarzeneggar, if he had bare hands, and I had a spear in an atlatl, and had skill with that system, Arnie would be toast! If we look at deaths in inter-tribal warfare between modern primitive tribes,as anthropologists have, we see that most such deaths come from ambushes rather than open battle. So it would have been with killing neanderthals, and theatlatl would have been most effective as an ambush killing tool.

Originally Posted by skeptic

Kojax

There will be many occasions where mating with a slave neanderthal woman would have been the only option for sex. Human women who are yet unmarried, in a primitive tribe, will not want to become pregnant, and will be highly resistant to seduction. This is especially true for an unattractive teenage male. Such guys will seek out, and mate with the neanderthal slave as often as possible. This would not be an unusual event.

I'll admit I have seen some very ugly women making a living as harlots, walking up to cars on 82nd street in Portland, OR. Or also at truck stops. It is amazing what a man will settle for if he's been away from women for a while. (And knowing full well she's 50% or more likely to have an STD.)

But you're looking at it from the wrong side of the coin (probably because you are also a male.) How much reproductive success is that Neanderthal slave going to have, as compared with the reproductive success of the more attractive sapiens females of the tribe who are more picky about who they mate with? Is lack of standards such a great evolutionary advantage that it can overcome the difference in status?

As to who will win a fight, that depends less on the relative physical strength, and more on technology. Early European humans had atlatl's. A spear thrown from such a devastating tool would easily kill a neanderthal. In fact, if I faced off against Arnold Schwarzeneggar, if he had bare hands, and I had a spear in an atlatl, and had skill with that system, Arnie would be toast! If we look at deaths in inter-tribal warfare between modern primitive tribes,as anthropologists have, we see that most such deaths come from ambushes rather than open battle. So it would have been with killing neanderthals, and theatlatl would have been most effective as an ambush killing tool.

I had my doubts, so I went ahead and researched that. It turns out Neanderthals didn't have very good throwing arms. So even though they've been found with some interesting spear technology, such as getting the idea to use bitumen as a fastening agent, they couldn't use them as ranged weapons very well.

Neanderthal Lacked Anatomical Competitive Edge: Skeletal Remains Tell the Story

To kojax

Re reproductive success of a female neanderthal slave.
She would not necessarily have to have much such success. After all, the percentage of neanderthal genes in humans today is low. A few kids here and there, spread over centuries would be enough.

But it is worth remembering that slavery as an institution has existed for most of human history, and that female slaves have always been used sexually by their masters. American black slaves that were young, female and attractive, rather frequently gave birth to half European children. Ancient Roman masters were known from historical records to spend lots of time, money and effort into bettering the children of their female slaves. Guess who those men thought was the father?

Women being used sexually when slaves has always been one route to reproductive success. And very, very often, the offspring were adopted into the relevant society as full and free citizens.

I think there is too much conjecture about slavery. It is equally as possible that neanderthal females choose to be with other sapiens freely. In the early colonies of America many white women choose to stay with native tribes because they natives treated them better than European men.

MM

I doubt that native American men were so saintly. The historical record shows that the peoples of North America were as violent as any other primitive people.

On slavery. Not speculation. It is almost universal among pre-enlightenment peoples. Our primitive ancestors almost certainly captured women from hostile tribes and treated them as sex slaves. This would, naturally enough, include neanderthals. Such slavery is known from reports by anthropologists, and from history.

Slavery seems like an odd term in this context. I have a hard time imagining what the captured, or not-killed-after-a-battle, Neanderthal female would be asked to do that other females in the group wouldn't, or that her outsider status would be permanent, especially once she had kids. In other primate groups, males or females joining another group don't seem to retain a lower rank, although males might be subject to some initial agression to establish where they are going to be in the pecking order.

Originally Posted by DianeG

Slavery seems like an odd term in this context. I have a hard time imagining what the captured, or not-killed-after-a-battle, Neanderthal female would be asked to do that other females in the group wouldn't, or that her outsider status would be permanent, especially once she had kids. In other primate groups, males or females joining another group don't seem to retain a lower rank, although males might be subject to some initial agression to establish where they are going to be in the pecking order.

Washing, ironing, fetching etc ...

Originally Posted by DianeG

Slavery seems like an odd term in this context. I have a hard time imagining what the captured, or not-killed-after-a-battle, Neanderthal female would be asked to do that other females in the group wouldn't, or that her outsider status would be permanent, especially once she had kids. In other primate groups, males or females joining another group don't seem to retain a lower rank, although males might be subject to some initial agression to establish where they are going to be in the pecking order.

Nothing strange about it. There is plenty of precedent to base a judgment on. Primitive human groups today and in the past kept slaves, and anthropologists have described the role of those slaves in the tribe. Her duties would include heaps of fetching and carrying, digging, building, and child minding. Basically, all the hard labour that falls upon female shoulders. The women of the tribe would make sure her status never rose, since they are the ones making most use of her muscles. The women of the tribe, of course, would oppose any use of the slave sexually by their husbands, but there will be enough unattached men to ensure the neanderthal woman will end up pregnant.

Originally Posted by skeptic

MM

I doubt that native American men were so saintly. The historical record shows that the peoples of North America were as violent as any other primitive people..

You are missing the larger point. Sometimes people go with tribe of people because they are nice to them. Slavery isn't a requirement.

Originally Posted by skeptic

Originally Posted by DianeG

Slavery seems like an odd term in this context. I have a hard time imagining what the captured, or not-killed-after-a-battle, Neanderthal female would be asked to do that other females in the group wouldn't, or that her outsider status would be permanent, especially once she had kids. In other primate groups, males or females joining another group don't seem to retain a lower rank, although males might be subject to some initial agression to establish where they are going to be in the pecking order.

Nothing strange about it. There is plenty of precedent to base a judgment on. Primitive human groups today and in the past kept slaves, and anthropologists have described the role of those slaves in the tribe. Her duties would include heaps of fetching and carrying, digging, building, and child minding. Basically, all the hard labour that falls upon female shoulders. The women of the tribe would make sure her status never rose, since they are the ones making most use of her muscles. The women of the tribe, of course, would oppose any use of the slave sexually by their husbands, but there will be enough unattached men to ensure the neanderthal woman will end up pregnant.

I suppose it depends on how you define slavery or how far back you want to go. I don't know what kind of archeological evidence one would look for, but I would think slavery would be rare in hunter-gatherer groups, if it's defined as a larger system of social stratification, that is somewhat stable over time, rather than simply individual mistreatment of a newcomer. Actual slavery would also seem to depend on a system with more division and specialization of labour, which I also don't think you'd be likely to find in small hunter-gather groups at the time humans and Neanderthals came into contact.

Diane

The evidence for slavery is not so much archaeological, as historical (documents) and from anthropologists studies of present day, or recent past, primitive tribes. Slavery is so common in the latter group as to be almost universal. When two tribes are at war, and captives are taken, the males are normally killed, and the females kept as slaves. It appears that slavery is a 'normal' part of human existence, except for times after the enlightenment, which means the last 500 years, and even then, most countries had slavery until the very recent past.

I think it depends where they were in the world. Climate can effect food sources etc...What skills had they developed, how many died of disease or starvation? Talking of ancient tribes etc, I have an interesting topic to discuss later.

In support of Skeptic's slavery hypothesis, I'll say why Neanderthals would be more likely enslaved by sapiens. Though Neanderthals had larger brains overall, sapiens brains have great frontal lobes. That's the part that allows us to reflect upon our position and purpose in the greater scheme of things. It allows us to plan and manage social relationships. It is the part that revolts against slavery, and also the part that manipulates others to our ends. So, guessing by the basic differences in cerebral shape, we imagine sapiens found neanderthals easily conned, while Neanderthals lacked the faculties to know or care what is slavery or whether they were in fact slaves.

Neanderthal extinction, I think could be superficially amicable; only the result of Neanderthals interacting with sapiens, consistently taking the poor end of every bargain, over a few thousand years. This ground them down.

***

I dunno that Neanderthal women are ugly. The taste for gracile females is modern; normally it was voluptuous women in demand. And the heavy frames of Neanderthal ladies probably supported assets rivaling those Venus figurines that for want of better explanation represent ideal beauty.

Looking around on the web, the few primitive societies in which anything close to slavery was practiced were sedentary and had agriculture - they weren't, strictly speaking, hunter-gatherer bands.

Think about it, other than saving yourself a bit of work by poking someone with a stick and making them do some of it for you, which is probably just as time consuming and not terribly productive, what is the benefit of having slaves in that type of society? You can 't accumulate huge hoards of valuable material goods. You can only hunt and store a limited amount of meat and fruit before it rots. Land ownership doesn't contribute to status, especially if you're nomadic. Everyone is dependent on the group for survival, so the concept of your freedom or anyone else's is not really meaningful. At most, it's paleolithic bullying - There's no system to maintain the captive's lower status since there is no occupation or lifestyle or lack of wealth that would be significantly different from that of the women who were already there. Even if the newcomer was abused, I doubt it was generational, or that the children of the captives retained their low status and were subservient to even the lowest raking member of the in-group (which is how I would define slavery.)
Lastly, I don't know how reliable the comparison is between recent primitive societies and those 40,000 - 80,000 years ago.

Originally Posted by Pong

***

I dunno that Neanderthal women are ugly. The taste for gracile females is modern; normally it was voluptuous women in demand. And the heavy frames of Neanderthal ladies probably supported assets rivaling those Venus figurines that for want of better explanation represent ideal beauty.

Supposedly a teenage Neanderthal female had biceps bigger than a modern human male, which makes me question how easy it would have been for the other women in the group to push her around for very long. Although, the eyebrow jokes probably hurt.

Originally Posted by Pong

***

I dunno that Neanderthal women are ugly. The taste for gracile females is modern; normally it was voluptuous women in demand. And the heavy frames of Neanderthal ladies probably supported assets rivaling those Venus figurines that for want of better explanation represent ideal beauty.

I doubt this. The current taste is not so much for gracile women (though that may seem correct) but for women who have a figure similar to that of a young woman. Heavier figures are what we expect on a middle aged, and hence largely non fertile, woman. A teenage gal has a 'gracile' figure, and her developing fertility makes her the ideal mate in terms of reproduction. It is not gracile, but youth, that men lust after.

There are ancient Roman writings of the love poem variety which laud the slim figures of the object of lust. Similar writings in other older cultures. The only evidence for the idea that primitives lust after robust figures is the statues of 'fertility goddesses' occasionally dug up. But these are not so much voluptuous as heavily pregnant. It is quite likely that, in a primitive society where fertility means survival, that having a stone figurine that is massively pregnant may be seen as a promotion for more reproduction.

Diane

Your arguments about the value of slavery really mean little. The simple fact is that slavery has been present through the vast bulk of human history, and such evidence as we have suggests that it is also true for most of human pre-history. Whether you, or anyone else, thinks it was useful or not is irrelevant, because it did exist.

There is a weird politically correct belief that primitive societies were somehow socially superior. The facts show otherwise. Primitive societies were horrible. They had cruelty, violence, sexual molestation and rape, terrible harm to women, and defintely had slavery. The social utopia by comparison, is western nations in the 21st century.

Originally Posted by DianeG

Supposedly a teenage Neanderthal female had biceps bigger than a modern human male, which makes me question how easy it would have been for the other women in the group to push her around for very long. Although, the eyebrow jokes probably hurt.

Neanderthals reached physical maturity much more rapidly (the teeth reveal a skeleton's age) than their sapiens peers. Some other imbalances between the species stem from this. For one, a Neanderthal becomes able-bodied / marriageable while relatively childish. One can see how they'd get classed as louts from an early age. Another thing I think decisive to the question of interbreeding, is that Neanderthal mothers must either produce far more milk, or richer milk; while a sapiens mom of our hypothetical mixed baby can't well satisfy its demands.

Yeah, I believe the eyebrow jokes did hurt. And that Neanderthals were routinely made fun of by their more socially adept neighbours. In schoolyard parlance, they were suckers. Ultimately, they were losers.

Originally Posted by skeptic

MM

I doubt that native American men were so saintly. The historical record shows that the peoples of North America were as violent as any other primitive people.

Native Americans' behavior in this regard was all over the map. The commanche, for example, were utter brutes. Each tribe was different, though.

I don't doubt that the men of some tribes treated their women better than the American men of the early 1800's. A lot of the tribes in the Eastern USA had become almost half European in blood by the time of the "Trail of Tears". That can't all have been involuntary. A tribe that's having a hard time keeping its numbers up will be a lot kinder to a newcomer than a tribe that's already got all the numbers it needs.

Originally Posted by skeptic

Diane

Your arguments about the value of slavery really mean little. The simple fact is that slavery has been present through the vast bulk of human history, and such evidence as we have suggests that it is also true for most of human pre-history. Whether you, or anyone else, thinks it was useful or not is irrelevant, because it did exist.

There is a weird politically correct belief that primitive societies were somehow socially superior. The facts show otherwise. Primitive societies were horrible. They had cruelty, violence, sexual molestation and rape, terrible harm to women, and defintely had slavery. The social utopia by comparison, is western nations in the 21st century.

I'm not idealizing stone age culture or painting the picture of the noble savage. I'm sure it was in some ways a brutal existence. But slavery makes no sense without more complex stratification, division of labour, and the means to accumulate wealth. If you don't need people to toil away in large fields, work in the mines, or move large stones to build structures - if your most important activity is a highly cooperative one like hunting - where's the benefit? It's more of an economic argument than one about the niceness or nastiness of human nature.

Originally Posted by skeptic

Your arguments about the value of slavery really mean little. The simple fact is that slavery has been present through the vast bulk of human history, and such evidence as we have suggests that it is also true for most of human pre-history. Whether you, or anyone else, thinks it was useful or not is irrelevant, because it did exist.

Do you have any references for slavery in hunting-gathering societies. According to this site, it didn't happen.
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/f...astoralism.pdf

Slavery, unknown in hunting and
gathering societies, makes its
appearance as captives in battle are put
to work for their conquerors.

User:Hkhenson/Capture bonding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To Harald

Maybe we have a problem of definition. When I talk of slavery in primitive hunter gatherer societies, it is really more like the capture bonding of the reference above. In this, inter-tribal war leads to men being killed and women captured as slaves. The women may then end up as de facto members of the tribe and second or third 'wives' to the man who captures her. This kind of slavery is not only present, but damn near ubiquitous among primitive hunter gatherer tribes. Nor is it entirely based on economics, since the sexual/reproductive factor is also very important.

The reference above even suggests this is the evolutionary origin of the Stockholm Syndrome, in which captured women change their allegiance to become loyal to their captors.

I think there are problems of definition. Hunter gatherer societies such as those that lived here in the Pacific Northwest had slaves as prizes from wars, as ransom for goods and sometimes just for vengeance. They had little agriculture, subsisting on game and the rich Pacific life, but were not' nomadic either--they were based in fixed well developed relatively fixed communities.

I also wonder if the idea that hunter-gatherer societies didn't have slavery is just another hang over from the noble-savage mythos.

I'm not idealizing stone age culture or painting the picture of the noble savage. I'm sure it was in some ways a brutal existence. But slavery makes no sense without more complex stratification, division of labour, and the means to accumulate wealth.

Well, let's get a little more basic. When women's death rate in pregnancy and childbirth is high, and the maiming/crippling rate is also high for those who do live through it, you have to manage that somehow. It probably depends a bit on what the death rate is for men from other causes, but some groups would find "acquiring" women from other groups as one way to keep themselves going.

Adelady

The death rate for men in those societies is generally a lot higher than for women. It is those inter-tribal wars that cause this. Some modern hunter-gatherer tribes have death rates of males in male on male violence as high as 20%. In such societies, polygamy is common. My data, by the way, comes from Prof. Steven Pinker's book about the history of violence, which I have now read twice.

It sounds a lot like "those whom your right hand possesses" as described in the quran.
Ma malakat aymanukum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The death rate for men in those societies is generally a lot higher than for women.

A lot higher? Death rates for women who have survived their first pregnancy are OKish in subsequent pregnancies by no-medical-knowledge-no-medical-services standards. But the death and injury rates for first pregnancy/childbirth are much higher, especially in groups where marriage is early. That's why there used to be, don't know about now, a few groups where women weren't eligible for marriage until they'd proved their fertility and their strength by producing a child and remaining healthy themselves.

If anything, slavery is easier for hunter gatherer tribes than for agricultural communities. For most members of a tribe, exile is certain death. Only a scarce few have the skills necessary to survive for a long time on their own. The slaves won't run away because there's nowhere to go.

As for feeding them, that's a double edged issue. When food gets scarce, the slaves might become food. It was known to happen on boats in the 1800's, where sailors would get Shanghai-ed from ports, and wake up aboard a boat out in the ocean, and told they'd have to stick around for a few years.

They called it "long pork".

The amount of modern DNA in every human alive today is only roughly 1.8-7%. Many people are, DNA wise, more Neandertal, Denisovan or, another cousin of one of those, than they are "Modern". I dont know how or where all the cross breeding went down back then (although I have some ideas) but, I know it did.

Originally Posted by kojax

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Originally Posted by sculptor

agreethe point of the speculation came from the claim that subSaharan Africans don't seem to have any neanderthal dna.We could do the same exercise for denisovan dna.but the metrics would be even trickier.

But sub-saharan africans have other Arciac hominid populations, mixed, in their ancestry as well. Ultimately, there is very little of anything that is modern about any of Us. What makes Us who we are is mostly the Neandertals, the Denisovans, Arciac African Hominids and their ancestors. What connects us all, what makes Us all similar, is far older than modern humans or the idea of "homo sapiens". For some reason though people want a direct line solution. The idea of evolution by way of multiple populations confuses them, it stumps them. However, the DNA tells Us that our kind has come to be by way of multiple populations. We are the product of multiple evolutionary paths, so be it tiny paths.

The thing about evolution is the best traits survive, not the best creatures. If we're all 4% or 2% or 6% neanderthal, it is probably because we all carry a few traits that survived from an unknown number of interbreedings. If one lone sapien were to show up in a Neanderthal tribe, and due to higher intellect manages to become chief and leads that tribe on to many successful hunts, raids, etc.... the "smart trait" from that sapien will gradually disperse throughout the entire tribe. Generation after generation more and more members of the tribe will be pairing off with that guy's descendants, hoping to have offspring that is good at planning hunts. But also that guy's descendants will want to mate with neanderthals that have bigger muscles - or whatever their own DNA is missing. That doesn't mean higher intellect came from the cross breed. It means some neanderthal DNA survived because the Sapiens DNA was being passed through a neanderthal carrier.