Posted on 01/21/2004 3:26:51 PM PST by blam
Big chill killed off the Neanderthals
19:00 21 January 04
It is possibly the longest-running murder mystery of them all. What, or even who, killed humankind's nearest relatives, the Neanderthals who once roamed Europe before dying out almost 30,000 years ago?
Suspects have ranged from the climate to humans themselves, and the mystery has deeply divided experts. Now 30 scientists have come together to publish the most definitive answer yet to this enigma.
They say Neanderthals simply did not have the technological know-how to survive the increasingly harsh winters. And intriguingly, rather than being Neanderthal killers, the original human settlers of Europe almost suffered the same fate.
The last ice age
Led by Tjeerd van Andel of the University of Cambridge, a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists and climate modellers have compiled a vast new set of biological, environmental and social evidence on life between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.
It includes data from sediment cores and 400 or so archaeological sites, and information gleaned from fossil bones and stone tools. To this they have added the most up-to-date climate models, and radiometric dates of human and Neanderthal sites and artefacts.
Seasonal migration
The result is a definitive series of maps covering climate change over time, the appearance of animal and plant populations, and how human and Neanderthal communities migrated with the seasons. The resolution is so good that, for the first time, researchers can reliably trace the movements of both hominid species.
Ice cores recovered from Greenland in the 1970s show that Europe's climate varied hugely during the last ice age, especially in the period between 70,000 and 20,000 years ago. Cold glacial periods were punctuated by warmer times, and the average temperature could rise and fall several degrees within a decade or so.
Studies of permafrost patterns, the remains of small animals and pollen grains, as well as fossil bones, show that such changes had a dramatic effect on the flora and fauna of the time, including Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
The maps show that, facing temperatures that plummeted to -10°C in winter (see map), Neanderthals retreated south from northern Europe 30,000 years ago, a migration which coincided exactly with the southern march of the ice sheets (Neanderthal and Modern Humans in the European Landscape of the Last Glaciation: Archaeological Results of the Stage 3 Project).
It is surprising "the extent to which Neanderthals seem to have been deterred by the cold, and retreated as the going got tough," says archaeologist William Davies, a co-editor of the report based at University of Southampton, UK.
Last refuge
The maps also reveal that the earliest modern humans, the Aurignacian people, who appeared around 40,000 years ago, could not cope with the glacial cold either. They retreated south until 25,000 years ago when they were reduced to a few refuges, such as southwest France and the shores of the Black Sea.
The new maps show that even at the height of the last glacial period, 18,000 to around 22,000 years ago, continental Europe supported extensive grasslands which were fodder for huge numbers of migrant animals such as reindeer and bison.
The archaeological evidence strongly suggests that both hominids coexisted in southern Europe for thousands of years, but competed for ever diminishing resources. And that might have been the end for both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals but for the arrival of the technologically advanced Gravettians.
The Gravettians appeared in eastern Europe 29,000 to 30,000 years ago complete with flash new tools, such as javelin-like throwing spears and fishing nets, which allowed them to catch a greater range of prey.
They also had clothing to keep the cold out, such as sewn furs and woven textiles, and possibly more specialised social structures. Their ability to tough out the colder climes dominating Europe 18,000 to 25,000 years ago revitalised the human population.
Adapt to survive
The Neanderthals, however, without either new blood or new technology, found it impossible to survive and died out, probably around 28,000 years ago.
For Neanderthal expert Paul Pettitt of the University of Sheffield, UK, the evidence that climate adversely affected the Aurignacian people as much as the Neanderthals is fascinating. When the going got tough in northern Europe, says Pettitt, both adopted a "get out of the kitchen strategy".
In contrast, Gravettians used their technological prowess "to reorganise the way the kitchen was used". Pettitt says that step was just as revolutionary as becoming modern Homo sapiens in the first place.
Douglas Palmer
Web hubbel is the neanderthal, the witch is the ...the witch.
The nice thing about generating BS is that no one can actually prove you wrong...
In the competition for a Reasonable Working Theory, the arrogant forget that they cannot achieve Truth.
Really? I find it quite touching. It's like seeing a picture of a long-lost cousin.
Here we have it. Proof that the neanderthals drove SUVs and destroyed their climate.!
Well, it sounds as good as anything else. Any idea where most of this funding comes from? Is there a Junk Science Venture Capital group we haven't heard of? Ah, that would have to be the universities; gatekeepers for every kooky idea/theory/notion that rears its head? I dunno, but something smells.
FGS
I'll agree with you. Academia: publish or perish, and lobby for those research grant applications!
NOT A PING LIST, merely posted to: 11th Earl of Mar; A.J.Armitage; Agnes Heep; Ahban; Alas Babylon!; Andyman; abner; ameribbean expat; anniegetyourgun; backtobasics; bert; blam; CathyRyan; Citizen Tom Paine; carpio; colorado tanker; DallasMike; Darlin'; DeepDish; Destructor; Doe Eyes; dc-zoo; dead; dljordan; EggsAckley; ForGod'sSake; Free ThinkerNY; farmfriend; GunRunner; gcruse; genefromjersey; going hot; greenwolf; Henchman; John O; Kirkwood; LiteKeeper; Little Ray; Mamzelle; Migraine; Modernman; miltonim; msdrby; NonValueAdded; night reader; PeterPrinciple; Radix; RightWhale; Rocky; ruoflaw; templar; tpaine; txflake; ValerieUSA; vetvetdoug; xJones; *Gods, Graves, GlyphsThe 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
Women and children hardest hit!
Tom Daschle "very concerned!"
"there is no one more thickheaded than a liberal, and especially those who waste our time and money trying to stop the warming that ended the ice age."
If you really knew anything about nature than you would know that rising global temperatures will cause a new ice age that we are already about 2 or 3 thousand years over due for. Ice ages are just natures way of creating balance in the environment.
And no i'm not a greeny. It isn't anything to do with the US, you will be affected just as much as the rest of the world, so get off your high horse and stop trying to prove that the US is a better country, you are the same as every other country in the world. You do die over there don't you or are you all immortal......
Sure thing 'Egg', -- who cares if our rights to life, liberty & property are violated?
So the right to life and liberties and property of other countries aren't as important as Americas.
"Geneticists describe the neanderthal as a separate species from us and as an evolutionary dead end. DNA test showed them to be enough different from us that crossbreeding would not have even been possible. I would guess that our ancestors got tired of looking at them and killed them all."
Than explain genetic cross-breeding in other mammal species.... Dogs for example have been cross-breed to produce better strains and for different purposes (e.g. pit bulls are breed for hunting and protection. Horses are cross-breed to make faster and stronger breeds.) So what makes it impossible for a neanderthal and a homo sapien (the basic equal to a labrador and a poodle) to cross-breed if it is benificial to both species, possibly making one smarter and the other stronger. It's called nature and nature adapts to suit the variables it is impossed with.
In other words there is no such thing as an impossability in nature.
Yeah, I get scared thinking about my first wife too.
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