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 ...
Antiguv, like I said, I gotta go, but would you answer this please for Graymatter.
Graymatter, THE NEANDERTHAL ENIGMAN, by James Shreeve covers this very well and its an interesting read.
I thought it was established fact - hence the name, Homo Neanderthalus.
Like Homo Sapiens.
Well, that's actually a very excellent point. The reason I assumed they'd know something was out-of-whack with the kid is because it would presumably look deformed.
If chimps are that close to us, then the difference between us and Neanderthal might not be that great.
Red hair a legacy of Neanderthal man (The Sunday Mail - p.22. 22/04/2001)
Red hair may be the legacy of Neanderthal man. Oxford University scientists think the ginger gene, which is responsible for red hair, fair skin and freckles, could be up to 100,000 years old. They say their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man, who lived in Europe for 260,000 years before the ancestors of modern man arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.
Research leader Dr. Rosalind Harding said: "It is certainly possible that red hair comes from the Neanderthals." The Neanderthals are generally thought to have been a less intelligent species than modern man, Homo sapiens. They were taller and stockier, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads. They had a basic, guttural vocabulary of about 70 words, probably at the level of today's two-year-old, and they never developed a full language, art or culture.
They settled in Europe about 300,000 years ago, but 40,000 years ago, a wave of immigrants - our forefathers, Cro-Magnon Man - emerged from Africa and the two species co-existed for 10,000 years. Dr Harding's research - presented at a London conference of the Human Genome Organization during the week - suggests the two species interbred for the ginger gene to survive. Dr Harding said redheads should not be offended by being to the primitive Neanderthals. "If it's possible that we had ancestry from Neanderthals, then it says that Neanderthals were more similar to us than we previously thought," she said.
Scientists at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, at Oxford University, compared the human ginger gene with the equivalent in chimpanzees. They found 16 differences, or mutations, between the two genes. Since an early version of the gene developed in chimps roughly 10 million years ago, the scientists estimated there has been one mutation every 625,000 years. They used a computer to calculate how long it must have taken for the mutation responsible for the ginger hair to have passed down through the generations and become so common among Western people.
They concluded the mutation was older than 50,000 years and could be as old as 100,000 years. Some scientists believe Neanderthals were ultra-humans - able to adapt to extremes of climate and surviving for 272,000 years. But they became extinct about 28,000 years ago, outwitted for territory and food by the more socially advanced Cro-Magnons.
END OF REPORT
That raises the question of why did they develop all that cranial capacity if it wasn't put to use.
Based on the pictures I have several cousins who are Neanderthals. They're really great Deer hunters but the one-eyebrow thing kind of puts me off.
Umm.. No. What I am saying is that if the hybrid genes were over in the Neanderthal community they would die out anyway once the Neanderthal community died out. Newsflash: 100% of Neanderthal communities died out.
Of course, a lot of people here seem to claim that deformity wouldn't matter to the Cro-Magnon, even though it sure as heck has mattered in some way to every known human culture. Most of which (a) killed deformed infants; and (b) did not have sex with deformed adults.
The honest answer is that I don't know right off-top how to answer your question about the mtDNA.
yep.
Did they?
If you can't find it at your local library, check out eBay for a used copy. It is a great read!
I would bet on it.
I remember learning in a cultural anthropology class in college some years ago that the Aborigines of Australia did not make that connection.
TWO Everyone after that would have the DNA from only three women
THREE prior to the flood people lived for hundreds of years and their skulls would have continued to grow.
FOUR after the flood people no longer lived for hundreds of years. b'shem Y'shua
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