Neanderthals of Western Mediterranean did not become extinct because of changes in climate

EurekAlert! ^ | July 20, 2020 | Universita di Bologna

[SunkenCiv]

Homo Neanderthaliensis did not become extinct because of changes in climate. At least, this did not happen to the several Neanderthals groups that lived in the western Mediterranean 42,000 years ago. A research group of the University of Bologna came to this conclusion after a detailed paleoclimatic reconstruction of the last ice age through the analysis of stalagmites sampled from some caves in Apulia, Italy.

The researchers focused on the Murge karst plateau in Apulia, where Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens coexisted for at least 3,000 years, from approximately 45,000 to 42,000 years ago... Data extracted from the stalagmites showed that climate changes that happened during that time span were not particularly significant... explains Andrea Columbu, researcher and first author of this study. "It doesn't seem possible that significant climate changes happened during that period, at least not impactful enough to cause the extinction of Neanderthals in Apulia and, by the same token, in similar areas of the Mediterranean".

The hypothesis that a changing climate was a factor in Neanderthals extinction (that happened, in Europe, nearly 42,000 years ago) found considerable support among the scientific community. According to this theory, during the last ice age, sharp and rapid changes in climate were a decisive factor in Neanderthals' extinction because of the increasingly cold and dry weather.

We can find confirmation of these sharp changes in the analysis of ice cores from Greenland and from other paleoclimatic archives of continental Europe. However, when it comes to some Mediterranean areas where Neanderthals had lived since 100,000 years ago, the data tell a different story. The Western Mediterranean is rich in prehistorical findings and, until now, no one ever carried out a paleoclimatic reconstruction of these Neanderthals-occupied areas.

[SunkenCiv]

(from the FRchives and the ghost town of dead internet links)

Caves reveal clues to UK weather
by Tom Heap
Saturday, December 2, 2000

At Pooles Cavern in Derbyshire, it was discovered that the stalagmites grow faster in the winter months when it rains more. Alan Walker, who guides visitors through the caves, says the changes in rainfall are recorded in the stalactites and stalagmites like the growth rings in trees. Stalagmites from a number of caves have now been analysed by Dr Andy Baker at Newcastle University. After splitting and polishing the rock, he can measure its growth precisely and has built up a precipitation history going back thousands of years. His study suggests this autumn's rainfall is not at all unusual when looked at over such a timescale but is well within historic variations. He believes politicians find it expedient to blame a man-made change in our weather rather than addressing the complex scientific picture.

(I like that closing sentence -- "future decision-making could be made based on scientific data and not on political expediency". I wouldn't count on it, but that would be great.)

Disaster that struck the ancients

Professor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, UK, wanted to solve the mystery, by gathering together scientific clues. His inspiration was the little known tomb in southern Egypt of a regional governor, Ankhtifi. The hieroglyphs there reported "all of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating their children". Dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, Fekri was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate. He also had to find a culprit capable of producing such misery. He studied the meticulous records, kept since the 7th Century, of Nile floods. He was amazed to see that there was a huge variation in the size of the annual Nile floods - the floods that were vital for irrigating the land. But no records existed for 2,200BC. Then came a breakthrough - a new discovery in the hills of neighbouring Israel. Mira Bar-Matthews of the Geological Survey of Israel had found a unique record of past climates, locked in the stalactites and stalagmites of a cave near Tel Aviv. What they show is a sudden and dramatic drop in rainfall, by 20%. It is the largest climate event in 5,000 years. And the date? 2,200 BC.

4,000-year-old planned community unearthed
Oct 13 2000

"'Evidently, the conception of what was urban in 2500 to 2000 B.C. was not all that different from what is considered urban today,' said Guillermo Algaze, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, who has been directing the excavation of Titris Hoyuk, a 125-acre walled urban site in the Euphrates River Basin in southeastern Turkey that flourished for a brief time in the third millennium Bronze Age. In its heyday, Titris had about 10,000 residents. Titris was a failure as a city and as a civilization, rising and falling within a 300 year period, never again to be reoccupied. But, said Algaze, Titrus's failure -- probably due to a shifting in trade routes -- is also the key to its appeal to modern archaeologists."

Tuba
Oct 13 2000

"The women in the tomb were highly ornamented. The ibex (goat above) was made of lapis lazuli which was available only in Afghanistan at the time. Evidence amassed thus far by Schwartz and Curvers indicates that Tubaarose as a political and economic center around 2500 BC, with a population of 5,000 to 7,500 people. The city, which was on a major east-west trade route that connected the Mediterranean coast with upper Mesopotamia, collapsed and was abandoned around 2100 BC possibly due to drought, only to resurrect itself as the primary urban center of the Jabbul plain until around 1200 BC."

[SunkenCiv]

KEYWORDS: neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve
in local libraries

"Frayer'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]

[a fool in paradise]

It was their lack of access to affordable healthcare

[aynrandfreak]

“Turn those machines back on!”

[butlerweave]

They live in Russia now

[a fool in paradise]

Imma take that premise now and write myself a few papers to buy a comfortable retirement.

[BradyLS]

They wouldn’t wear their maks.

[BeauBo]

Couldn’t hack living in a tough neighborhood, full of Homo Sapiens.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I had heard that the interbreeding of Neanderthals with Homo Sapiens caused the Neanderthals to die off.

[PIF]

Southern Italy

[BeauBo]

Absorbed/bred into the Homo Spaien dominant culture? Neanderthal girls will do in a clinch - any Port in a storm.

[Dilbert San Diego]

LOL, Chelsea Clinton as a Neanderthal girl.

Who knows, maybe many of us have some recessive genes from distant Neanderthal ancestors.

[freedumb2003]

“Neanderthals of Western Mediterranean did not become extinct because of changes in climate”

Oh yeah? Explain all those fossils of Neanderthal oil plants and SUVs, huh?

[BeauBo]

Brunette Neanderthal Girls:

With a lot of highlights:

[Vaquero]

Most Europeans and Asians have 2-4% Neanderthal/Denisovan DNA. 23 and me will tell you how much. (Ancestry.com won’t... I found out disappointedly...damned Mormons)

[Grimmy]

Huh.

Wonder if the ol’ Pelasgians had any connection to Neanderthals or heavily crossbred Neanders and Humans in the Aegean AO?

[Vaquero]

[BeauBo]

Howdy Partner,

Looks like Chelsea out-Neanderthals her dad.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

It was like putting a drop of ink in a bucket of milk. They got diluted.

And the fact that a child with a homo sapiens sapiens father meant that the homo sapiens neanderthalensis mother and child had a better chance of living would have made them preferred mates leaving the homo sapiens neanderthalensis males out in the cold.

[bunkerhill7]

It wuz dem giants that done kilt off dose Neanderfallers.