Study: Modern Humans Killed Off Neanderthals Quickly

http://www.foxnews.com ^ | Saturday, February 25, 2006 | AP

[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.

[P.O.E.]

Looks like an x-ray of a TV talk show.

[PistolPaknMama]

With so many unpopulated places on the planet, it is unfathomable that they did not survive somewhere.

Sasquatch.

[SampleMan]

Although I'm making the same premise, "no interbreeding", I don't find your arguments persuasive in answering Patton's real questions.

You can't base the argument on modern social norms. Although you could possibly be correct, your argument can't ever get beyond assertion. And there are plenty of exceptions to the rules you mentioned, so cultural exclusivity will always be full of holes.

But the key question remains, even if there was interbreeding, how could one entire line go extinct when it stretched across the Eurasian landmass?

[Riley]

Why would humans *want* to mate with Neanderthals? *They were ugly.* I mean, really, really butt ugly.

Corollary question: When was beer invented? :-)

[CBart95]

Your analyisis would go a long way towards explaining how the current German government allowed so much "trading with the Enemy" (ie.Saddam Hussien) while pretending to be our ally.

They are'nt underhanded.

They are Neanerthals!

But , not to worry.

They've been overrun by a superior race...millions of Arab immigrants who despise them on sight.

Hmmm?


An evolutionary clue?

[Graymatter]

>>Neandethal had a brain volume of about ~1500cc, modern humans about ~1400cc. The argument that modern humans are smarter seems silly.

I thought it was all about wrinkles, not size. Wait a second, I'll go ask my whale.

[patton]

This is why I dislike whale hunting, BTW.

Seems cannalbalistic.

[AntiGuv]

That's ridiculous. I am not basing the argument on modern social norms. I am basing the argument on universal human behavior. You can go talk to the most 'primitive' humans on earth if you want proof. Opps!! Wait, you can't. Those would be the Sentinel Islanders and they're so xenophobic they won't let anyone even land on their island and no outsider has ever talked to them.

[CBart95]

Siezurers?

I came to praise Siezures!

Not to bury him!


( Ahem. "Seizures")

[stacytec]

NILF hunting, there is a anthropological study for ya.

[Graymatter]

Moreover, even primitive peoples have a sense of aesthetic, and by any sense of human aesthetics I'm aware of Neanderthals must've been butt ugly.

"A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes." -- William Makepeace Thackeray

IOW ugliness doesn't stop a woman from reproducing.

[Vasilli22]

You're world frightens and confuses me. I'm just a simple caveman.

[Junior]

Better technology could mean sharper, lighter spear heads, better axes, atlatls, whatnot. Stoneage technology is not all the same. The Aztecs were a stoneage people; would you mistake them for Cromagnons?

[sandbar]

>>>Not to be picky, but part of natural selection is the ability to defend against predators, from the microbial to the more complex>>>

I see. So humans wiping out the buffalo, bald eages, etc... is evolution?

[woofer]

NILF hunting, there is a anthropological study for ya.

NILF, ha!

But I like to wat...er, observe.

[SampleMan]

Get off of Patton's back.

Although I don't agree with him, your little tirade certainly doesn't help.

He is asserting an idea that was commonly accepted by science for over a hundred years. If he isn't well read on the field of study, that puts him ahead of about 90% of the population. Giving him the information that is currently held is helpful. Your little, "I'm too smart to talk with such scientific dolts!" speech isn't helpful.

[aruanan]

What kind of technology did they have back then??

Anything you make to do something with is technology.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Moreover, even primitive peoples have a sense of aesthetic, and by any sense of human aesthetics I'm aware of Neanderthals must've been butt ugly.

Finally, a child must not be merely born. It must be raised. Most cultures practiced infanticide of 'deficient' infants until relatively modern times. Raising an infant requires a great expenditure. Why on earth would modern humans want to raise a hybrid?

I think the arguments that humans and Neanderthals interbred are rather inane myself. And modern humans don't just "exhibit Neanderthal traits"; heck, modern humans exhibit chimpanzee traits, and even some duck-bill platypus traits. What that reveals is some degree of common ancestry, not human/duckbill interbreeding.

I think your first comment here swerves into something. Without the necessity of determining whether interbreeding was possible: if it could happen, it did happen; whether the offspring of a mixed couple were destroyed or never born, the result is the same. But your comment about the aethetic raises a possibility. If Neanderthal men having seen human women refused to go back to their "ugly" women, Neanderthal men's libidos may have led them to interbreed themselves entirely out of existence. This would also explain why Neanderthals did not migrate elsewhere: They did not want to and leave their supply of good-looking women behind. They could of course obtain human women by force, overpowering them and the smaller human men, but also by trade and by human women's tendency toward big ugly brutes rather than wimpy, intellectual magnon-sexuals, behavior you can still see today and conduct your own thought-experiment.

You can send my scientific awards and speaking invitations via FReepmail :-)

[AntiGuv]

*sigh*

I don't understand why this is so hard to get.

You need more than mere reproduction. You need the reproduction to be in the human community, because if it's over in the Neanderthal community it's of no consequence to the issue at hand.

And then, you need for the infant to grow to adulthood. In other words, you need to the infant to be raised by humans.

And, presumably, it will help to be able to talk to one another.

Otherwise, you're left with the occasional rape. And that's of course making the strained assumption that the Neanderthals even wanted to have sex with us.

We were probably just as butt ugly to the Neanderthals as they look to us.

[ASA Vet]

Red hair, green eyes, a gun.

She's probably a life member of the NRA (Neandertal Redheads Association.)