"NOT COOL!"
Posted on 02/25/2006 5:11:22 AM PST by ThreePuttinDude
LONDON — Neanderthals in Europe were killed off by the advance of modern humans thousands of years earlier than previously believed, losing a competition for food and shelter, according to a scientific study published Wednesday.
The research uses advances in radiocarbon dating to revise understanding of early humans, suggesting they colonized Europe more rapidly and coexisted for a much shorter period with genetic ancestors.
Paul Mellars, professor of prehistory and human evolution at the University of Cambridge and author of the study, said Neanderthals — the species of the Homo genus that lived in Europe and western Asia from around 230,000 years ago to around 29,000 years ago — succumbed much more readily to competition.
"The two sides were competing for the same territories, the same animals and fuel supplies and occupying the same cave spaces. With that kind of competition, the Neanderthals were always going to come out as the losers," said Mellars, whose paper was published in the journal Nature.
Modern humans — those anatomically the same as people today — were also better equipped to deal with a 6 degree Celsius (11 Fahrenheit) fall in temperatures around 40,000 years ago.
"Because they had better clothing, better technology(??) and a better mastery of fire, the humans were equipped to deal with it," Mellars said.
Mellars used the results of two recent studies of radiocarbon dating — a process of assessing age by counting radioactive decay of carbon in materials — to refine dates determined from fossils, bone fragments and other physical evidence that relates to the spread of humans.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"NOT COOL!"
Mitochandrial DNA says their mother isn't.
Its hard to tell from the diagrams but the Neanderthal skeleteon is much larger and thicker. From a design perspective, it looks like a structure that was designed to take a beating. But studying a fossil can only tell us so much, I'm sure that there was a lot more to the rise of humans than just bone size.
Neanderthal demise remains an enigma. Bigger, stronger, with more cranial capacity? Large displacements can be explained, but to vanish? With so many unpopulated places on the planet, it is unfathomable that they did not survive somewhere.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
Like pigs, monkeys, and earthworms I suppose.
Spelling checkers??
Not entirely a closed book, but cross pollination has been almost entirely ruled out.
And redheads?
The Smithsonian is in my back yard so I might have to swing by agian to see if they did indeed have better weapons. My statement was posed in the context of the authors general conclusions - that humans had better technology. I've seen a lot of TV reconstructions on Neanderthal society that stated that they weren't as underdeveloped as the media seems to constantly suggest, which is why the author raised my brow by suggesting that humans had better technology.
Were any of them Jewish? We could be in big trouble ...
Neanderthals were very well-muscled but their average height of a male was 5'6". All signs indicate that despite the larger cranial capacity they were not more intelligent: inferior tool-making; inferior 'artistic' expression; inferior adaptability. If they were more intelligent, by whatever measure, then it seems clear enough that their arrangement of cognitive traits was less effective than that of humans. I would guess that they engaged in far less cooperative behavior and were far less inquisitive (based on certain archaeological evidence, such as a tendency not to travel far from home their entire lives).
Pre-Brokeback, mothers were still required. Seriously though, interbreeding (if possible) doesn't explain planet wide reduction of Neanderthals. Being physically hardier, it would be expected that they would live at least on the edges of survival. Remember that large portions of the planet were barren of people, and not even explored until recent times. Yet zero Neanderthals.
Concur. But its the why that is the question isn't it? I have often wondered if it doesn't have something to do with our arrested development. A 1000 pound animal can grow to adulthood and reproduce in two years, yet we take around 13 years to reproduce and fully 20 to reach adult maturity. For bare survival of the species, a short growth cycle is a powerful tool. A day old calf can be caught by a man on foot, but a three day old calf cannot. Human babies are essentially helpless for years, while they program their brains. If Neanderthal matured more quickly, they might survive better in very harsh environments, but never have the time to program those big melons. I'm aware of recent tests that say this isn't the case, but I wonder how conclusive those are.
Modern humans — those anatomically the same as people today — were also better equipped to deal with a 6 degree Celsius (11 Fahrenheit) fall in temperatures around 40,000 years ago..."Because they had better clothing, better technology and a better mastery of fire, the humans were equipped to deal with it,"
I do not understand hou one can conclude that two genotypes of the same species, who coexisted, did not interbreed.
Remember, the definition of species is "cabable of breeding."
Furthermore, Many humans exhibit neanderthal traits - I do. If you put my skull up there, scientists would argue for years over which class it belonged in. Some traits of both.
Also, Neandethal had a brain volume of about ~1500cc, modern humand about ~1400cc. The argument that modern humans are smarter seems silly.
I don't know what happened, but it seems the simplest answer is that the two became one, by interbreeding.
>>>>Modern Humans Killed Off Neanderthals Quickly
Ding dong the dems are dead!
LOL, perhaps those Neanderthals had too much of the gay cowboy gene - their fate was sealed!
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