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We report, you decide.
Posted on 03/25/2005 3:54:29 AM PST by Woodworker
Economics-free trade may have contributed to the extinction of Neanderthals 30,000-40,000 years ago, according to a paper published in the “Journal of Economic Organization and Behavior.”
“After at least 200,000 years of eking out an existence in glacial Eurasia, the Neanderthal suddenly went extinct,” writes University of Wyoming economist Jason Shogren, along with colleagues Richard Horan of Michigan State University and Erwin Bulte from Tilburg University in the Netherlands. “Early modern humans arriving on the scene shortly before are suspected to have been the perpetrator, but exactly how they caused Neanderthal extinction is unknown.”
Creating a new kind of caveman economics in their published paper, they argue early modern humans were first to exploit the competitive edge gained from specialization and free trade. With more reliance on free trade, humans increased their activities in culture and technology, while simultaneously out-competing Neanderthals on their joint hunting grounds, the economists say.
Archaeological evidence exists to suggest traveling bands of early humans interacted with each other and that inter-group trading emerged, says Shogren. Early humans, the Aurignations and the Gravettians, imported many raw materials over long ranges and their innovations were widely dispersed. Such exchanges of goods and ideas helped early humans to develop “supergroup social mechanisms.” The long-range interchange among different groups kept both cultures going and generated new cultural explosions, Shogren says...
(Excerpt) Read more at newswise.com ...
Neanderthals are not extinct. They simply were installed in the judiciary.
I may have been unclear my post 11. Where Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon sites coexisted, a big difference between the two was that modern man had goods ( i.e. "crafted stone and bone tools, shell and ivory jewelry, and polychrome paintings") that had come from many hundreds of miles away. That we know. We can imagine that every single item was picked up by hand and carried by each individual user, or we can imagine an advanced "linguistic competence and cultural sophistication" --modern man traded things for the imports and Neanderthals preferred trade barriers,
...the cultural materials of late-Pleistocene and aboriginal peoples suggest that such social traditions originated at least as early as the period 40,000–20,000 years B.P.
Cultural materials (amber, sea shells, stone tools) often occur hundreds of kilometers from their points of origin indicating intergroup contacts over wide areas (Klein 1989, 376–8). No such evidence of social contact occurs before the late-Pleistocene...Bottom line: if trading with outsiders is too much for you, your days are numbered.
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Thanks Mike!
Not so much that, I think, as it is a case of "Adapt or die."
The Neanderthals weren't willing to, or weren't capable of, altering their ways. The were becalmed in the shallows of Time, whereas the Cro-Magn. had -- by fate, luck, or design -- caught the tide and rode, and continues to ride, it into the future.
SO9
Neanderthal, it's what's for dinner.
So9
Free traders had all the toys and so got all the cute girls.
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We report, you decide.
I've always thought that diseases introduced by Modern Man finally laid Neanderthal low.
Maybe the Neanderthals shouldn't have outsourced their mammoth hunting to India.
Consider that Neandertal isolationism from yet another angle, rather than just the economic-trade issue..
It may have effected them socially as well..
Neandertal may have practiced inter-marriage within the tribal structure and only rarely introduced new genetic material from the outside..
If this were "common practice", recessive genetic traits may have been passed from one tribal group to another, weakening the species..
For Cro-Magnon man, the "gatherings" may have meant more than opportunity for trade of obsidian and artwork, but also for finding mates outside of the tribe, mates that were not likely to be familialy related..
Greater genetic diversity and transfer would contribute to a flourishing species..
But this gene pool stuff is really important. Homo Sapiens are a very diverse group and IMHO we 'hard wired' that way. I can tell you from my personal experience that whenever I seem some foreign chick I've always wanted to see what's in those jeans genes.
I didn't mean to imply intermarriage between neandertal and cro-magnon..
What I meant was, neandertal, being isolationist and territorial, tended to be suspicious of even their own kind..
Intermarriage between neandertal tribes was therefore, fairly uncommon, possibly with the exception of females captured during clashes between tribes.
Their natural tendencies helped to cause their demise..
They stayed in their own territories and defended them from outsiders, even among their own species..
I expect the introduction of Cro-Mag made them even more insular..
Cro-Magnon, on the other hand, while they had their tribal clashes, also seemed to have found room for "nuetral ground", for gatherings, trade, etc.. ( and maybe a little wife-swapping, or other trading in females, be it on a simple barter basis, mutual interest like tribal alliances, or whatever.. )
Neanderthals restricted trade with China and Mexico, and look what happened. Well, at least they went extinct knowing they didn't have a trade deficit!!
The motivation for isolationism is obvious-- outsiders bring disease, try to enslave, etc (am I sounding like Willy Green yet?). So it does fill a crude need for survival. It takes a bit of sophistication to understand the value of adventure and meeting new people for its own sake--and balance that with the necessary safeguards. It really is possible to have borders and trade at the same time. In fact, history shows that the nation with the best trade ends up with the best borders..
BTW, Drum, it's a pleasure meeting you too.
If the Neanderthals traded at all, it was likely "free" trade in the sense that the means of exchange was the barter system, and presumably both parties acted in their own interest.
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