Posted on 05/10/2011 5:06:10 AM PDT by Pharmboy
An improvement in the dating of fossils suggests that the Neanderthals, a heavily muscled, thick-boned human species adapted to living in ice age Europe, perished almost immediately on contact with the modern humans who started to enter Europe from the Near East about 44,000 years ago. Until now bones from several Neanderthal sites have been dated to as young as 29,000 years ago, suggesting there was extensive overlap between the two human species. This raised the question of whether there had been interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals, an issue that is still not resolved. RSS Feed RSS Get Science News From The New York Times »
But researchers report that tests using an improved method of radiocarbon dating, based on a new way to exclude contaminants, show that most, and maybe all, Neanderthal bones in Europe are or will be found to be at least 39,000 years old. Thomas F. G. Higham, a specialist in radiocarbon dating at Oxford University, and Ron Pinhasi, an archaeologist at University College Cork in Ireland, have dated the bones of a Neanderthal child less than 2 years old whose remains were found in the Mezmaiskaya Cave in the northern Caucasus Mountains. A second Neanderthal baby, found in a lower layer in the cave, was previously dated back 29,000 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Cro-Magnon-out-clubbing, ping...
You'll take over the cave without firing a shot.
Neanderthals appear to have lived in smaller groups than our own folks ~ which suggests they had a serious problem with infectious disease.
Sodbusters vs. Free-rangers?
Ants vs. grasshoppers?
This business of being farmers is quite new.
Yeah, look at the history of violent contact between tribes of modern humans - and now contemplate the level of violence when there actually is a significant genetic difference between the groups.
The anthropologists twist themselves into knots to try and explain everything in the most non-violent manner possible.
And the primatologists were like that also until women like Jane Goodall lived amongst apes and reported back that they were quite violent.
Native Americans were hardly the peace-loving enviro utopians as some try to portray them. They were extremly violent towards each other as well. No particular knock on them, that’s just human nature deep in the genes - a fear of someone who isn’t part of your tribe, bred that way for good reason - because in the past, someone who wasn’t part of your tribe often represented a mortal threat.
The disease factor is the item I favor with my non expert opinion. So many animals of the Pleistocene disappeared, that that to me, I have to speculate that the Neanderthals succumb to the catastrophe as well. Something in the genetic makeup made them more vulnerable than the Cro Magnums that replaced them...
It wasn't fear, it was practicality. When your tribe expands beyond the supporting capacity of your territory, the only way to avoid starvation is to invade your neighbor's territory.
As far as how Cro-mags killed off Neanderthals, a moderate advantage in speed or throwing ability translates into a BIG military advantage. If you can creep up to your enemies, throw spears at them from longer range than they can throw back, and then run away faster than they can follow, it would not take long to wipe them out.
And you either take that territory or solve your overpopulation problem trying.
That THEY were shocked is saying something ... coming from Europeans THEMSELVES survivors of decades of internecine, abjectly bloodthirsty religious wars and wars of succession.
That makes sense. It was certainly important in the killing of many American Indians. It seems likely that infectious diseases to which they had no resistance swept through North America after the arrival of Columbus, destroying entire tribes and leaving survivors lost and vulnerable.
Neantherdals are going to be needing some reparations, and interest owed over 39,000 years.
I am going to be needing my customary 30 percent cut.
Bloodthirsty religious war is a leftist fantasy. The evolutionary purpose of religion is it helps a tribe win at warfare, especially if it is a superior religion. Envy is the root cause of tribal warfare. Leftists are driven by envy so they can’t handle envy being the problem so they blame the solution.
Does that mean that in wars, the side that wins has the superior religion? How does that work when the warring factors are of the same religion?
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