Posted on 02/18/2007 9:48:42 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The Neanderthals didn't disappear because they were slouches when it came to hunting. According to a new study based on material from the Republic of Georgia, Neanderthals were as good at hunting as early modern humans. But it may have been gender equality that put them at a disadvantage to their Homo sapien neighbors. Anthropologists observed that Neanderthals focused primarily on large game for food, while the frequency of healed fractures present in both genders and all ages suggests everyone participated in the hunt. Neanderthal shelters lacked evidence of gathered foods, such as seeds, as well as signs of skilled craft. The ability of female modern humans to stay at home, collecting berries and sewing weather-resistant clothing with bone needles, the anthropologists argue, allowed their species to live at higher, more advantageous population densities. Meanwhile, recent comparative analysis of the mandibles of Neanderthals from Spain and Britain have led researchers to conclude that not all Neanderthals looked alike, with southerners having distinctly broader faces and lower foreheads than their northern counterparts, suggesting physical variability across geographic regions.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v47n1/110417/brief/110417.abstract.html
Neanderthal and modern human hunters from the Southern Caucasus
by Daniel S. Adler, Guy Bar-Oz, Anna Belfer-Cohen, and Ofer Bar-Yosef
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 47, Number 1, February 2006
Over the past several decades a variety of models have been proposed to explain perceived behavioral and cognitive differences between Neanderthals and modern humans. A key element in many of these models and one often used as a proxy for behavioral "modernity" is the frequency and nature of hunting among Palaeolithic populations. Here new archaeological data from Ortvale Klde, a late Middle–early Upper Palaeolithic rockshelter in the Georgian Republic, are considered, and zooarchaeological methods are applied to the study of faunal acquisition patterns to test whether they changed significantly from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. The analyses demonstrate that Neanderthals and modern humans practiced largely identical hunting tactics and that the two populations were equally and independently capable of acquiring and exploiting critical biogeographical information pertaining to resource availability and animal behavior. Like lithic techno-typological traditions, hunting behaviors are poor proxies for major behavioral differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, a conclusion that has important implications for debates surrounding the Middle–Upper Palaeolithic transition and what features constitute "modern" behavior. The proposition is advanced that developments in the social realm of Upper Palaeolithic societies allowed the replacement of Neanderthals in the Caucasus with little temporal or spatial overlap and that this process was widespread beyond traditional topographic and biogeographical barriers to Neanderthal mobility.
Thoughtful Hunters (Neanderthals)
Leiden University | 1-2-2006
Posted on 01/02/2006 2:59:40 PM EST by blam
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The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
Yum, just like the mom in "Back to the Future II" used to tear open and hydrate...
Never say some truism and indicate that it was just an alert.
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