Implications for the Behavioral Modernity of Neandertals

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ^ | August 15, 2006 | J. Zilhão, F. d’Errico, J. Bordes, A. Lenoble, J. Texier, and J. Rigaud

[SunkenCiv]

Abstract: The Châtelperronian is a Neandertal-associated archeological culture featuring ornaments and decorated bone tools. It is often suggested that such symbolic items do not imply that Neandertals had modern cognition and stand instead for influences received from coeval, nearby early modern humans represented by the Aurignacian culture, whose precocity would be proven by stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates. The Grotte des Fées at Châtelperron (France) is the remaining case of such a potential Châtelperronian–Aurignacian contemporaneity, but reanalysis shows that its stratification is poor and unclear, the bone assemblage is carnivore-accumulated, the putative interstratified Aurignacian lens in level B4 is made up for the most part of Châtelperronian material, the upper part of the sequence is entirely disturbed, and the few Aurignacian items in levels B4-5 represent isolated intrusions into otherwise in situ Châtelperronian deposits. As elsewhere in southwestern Europe, this evidence confirms that the Aurignacian postdates the Châtelperronian and that the latter’s cultural innovations are better explained as the Neandertals’ independent development of behavioral modernity.

[SunkenCiv]

An article in the Independent was pretty cool, but that's off limits, so I went to their source.

The upshot is that some Neandertal art has been erroneously attributed to Cro-Magnon (I would say, due to biases).

Original title was too long for the system, but was "Analysis of Aurignacian interstratification at the Châtelperronian-type site and implications for the behavioral modernity of Neandertals".

[SunkenCiv]

Do I really need to ping this? Seems like people will just flock in here due to the fascinating title. ;')

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[Fred Nerks]

Did Jaques Chirac write this, or was it his limp-wristed fancypants foreign minister's work?
Any self respecting Neandertal reading this would be stitches!

[GoLightly]

I thought it was catchy. Would that make me a Neandertal or French?

[Fred Nerks]

Analysis of the skeletal remains of this four-year-old boy has revealed that he may be a Neandertal-Cro-Magnon hybrid. (Courtesy João Zilhão)

http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/neanderkid.html

[Fred Nerks]

A hybrid maybe?

[GoLightly]

:( ::snuffle::

[Fred Nerks]

Left: La Ferrassie neandertal, right: Cro Magnon modern human

[tomzz]

Koko, the first gorilla taught to sign, is now about 35 years old and is said to have an IQ around 100. That's more than bright enough for most human activities and you'd assume the same was true of neanderthals.

[Fred Nerks]

That's more than bright enough for most human activities...(particularly when one considers the IQ of the average follower of mohammadanism...)

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

[Fred Nerks]

btw, I wasn't taking a shot at your perfectly beautiful title for the post...it's the academic tone of the article that made me laugh!

[tomzz]

I think Koko would be bright enough to avoid I-slam.

You get the point however. Neither gorillas nor any of the hominids, are/were related to humans in any way despite being bright enough to associate with humans. Gorillas were very likely originally put here to help with the heavy lifting. They need to be rescued. Putting them in "preserves" is absolutely the wrong approach; they need to be integrated into industrialized societies and get back to doing the kinds of things they were cut out to do, at least two or three days out of the week. Tasks which are all but impossible for humans, like heaving leftover V8 engines in junkyards and fixup shops up into trucks, would be an ordinary day at the office for a silverback gorila.

[Dustbunny]

Wow, shades of 'The Cave Bear'.

Seems as though the author of those 'fantasy books' theory of the life style of Neanderthals was way ahead of the current archeological theory.

[SunkenCiv]

Your claim isn't defensible, because the average brain size was larger for Neandertal.

[GoLightly]

Nice pictures!

I always think along the lines of the direction of female pelvic bone development when I see different skulls. Walking upright, yet capability to deliver a baby with a big head creates a need for a balance between brain growth & the female pelvis. A shorter gestation period delivers a smaller headed baby, but increases infant mortality & may create a greater need for greater parental care, for a longer amount of time. Less "intelligent" survival strategies, such as ability to run or climb decreases some of the need for lengthy parental care. Gorillas have about a 9 months gestation, orangutans & chimpanzees approx 8-9 & baboons around 6.

From the article, the bone assemblage is carnivore-accumulated

Makes me wonder about ratios. I'd have to think Neandertal & Cro Magnon were equally tasty. Similar skill sets would show equal susceptibility to becoming lunch. Course, availability would also skew the ratio.

[GoLightly]

Koko, the first gorilla taught to sign, is now about 35 years old and is said to have an IQ around 100. That's more than bright enough for most human activities and you'd assume the same was true of neanderthals.

Makes me question the value of IQ testing...

[Fred Nerks]

Neanderthals and modern humans not only coexisted for thousands of years long ago, as anthropologists have established, but now their little secret is out: they also cohabited.

At least that is the interpretation being made by paleontologists who have examined the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a young boy discovered recently in a shallow grave in Portugal. Bred in the boy's bones seemed to be a genetic heritage part Neanderthal, part early modern Homo sapiens. He was a hybrid, they concluded, and the first strong physical evidence of interbreeding between the groups in Europe...

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Neanderthal.html

Methinks it was the interbreeding that wiped out the Neandertal...hybrids are infertile, are they not?

[GoLightly]

Methinks it was the interbreeding that wiped out the Neandertal...hybrids are infertile, are they not?

Hybrids are usually infertile, but not always. A lot depends on the distance between the species of the parents.

http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-mammals.html From your link:

The age of the skeleton, determined by radiocarbon dating, showed that full Neanderthals had apparently been extinct for at least 4,000 years before the boy was born. "This is no love child," Dr. Trinkaus said, meaning that this was not evidence of a rare mating but a descendant of generations of Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon hybrids.

Instead of seeing a species split into two, we're talking about it splitting into three. Since we seem to have only one sample of a hybrid line, could the child be an example of a child with some kind of growth disorder? Did you see my "Egil's bones" post?

[Fred Nerks]

"...could the child be an example of a child with some kind of growth disorder?"

Yes, it certainly could, I am looking forward to hearing the result of tests.


"Did you see my "Egil's bones" post?"

No, I didn't. Link please.

[GoLightly]

Did you see Neanderthal or Cretin? A Debate Over Iodine?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1689676/posts

Egil's bones is post #4.

The point I was trying to make had to do with relying too much on form, especially when dealing with a minute sampling. Modern "little people" have a range of skeletal proportions. While they are a small percentage of the population, they aren't a subspecies. Thousands of years from now, finding a burial of a modern little person could possibly lead to incorrect conclusions drawn.

I'm looking forward to the test results too.