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Study: Modern Humans Killed Off Neanderthals Quickly
http://www.foxnews.com ^ | Saturday, February 25, 2006 | AP

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 ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bear; bears; cave; caveart; cavedrawings; cavepainting; cavepaintings; crevolist; evolution; genocide; godsgravesglyphs; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; radiocarbondating
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To: Pharmboy

Umm.. No. The part you call "rehashed" was actually the whole crux of the article. The part you decided to post was the "fringe" dispute by the multi-regional theorists.


241 posted on 02/25/2006 9:56:53 AM PST by AntiGuv
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To: patton
You see that pice of bone where the nerve enters the jaw? Some percentage of modern humans have that, most don't. Neanderthals are us.

We'll know for sure when the first reparations lawsuits are filed.

242 posted on 02/25/2006 10:00:23 AM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
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To: ASA Vet
"Hard to believe this thread has gone to 190 posts without a Ping to Blam. (Or did I miss it?)"

Thanks for the ping. This is at least the 4th thread on this subject and, there's only so much that can be said.

243 posted on 02/25/2006 10:00:58 AM PST by blam
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To: Pharmboy; AntiGuv
Posted this link earlier but it didn't seem to catch. The latest molecular studies favor the modified mult-regional, less-than-total replacement theory.

The relevant thread: New analysis shows three human migrations out of Africa, Replacement theory 'demolished'.

244 posted on 02/25/2006 10:01:12 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Max in Utah

You are right. I was unclear at first. As I made clear above, I excluded the 'taking of slaves' scenario simply because we do not find intermixed communities in the fossil record. If Neanderthal women were taken slaves (and who knows why a Cro-Magnon caveman would want to take an unintelligible butt ugly musclebound Neanderthal female home, but let's leave that aside) then that would be an intermixed community. We don't find them in the fossil record. It doesn't definitively mean that they didn't exist, and you're welcome to fantasize them all day till the butt ugly cows come home, but we haven't found evidence of them if they did exist.


245 posted on 02/25/2006 10:01:57 AM PST by AntiGuv
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To: ThreePuttinDude
"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.

What does that tell us about jihad?

246 posted on 02/25/2006 10:02:13 AM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
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To: AntiGuv

I'm ok with all you've said except for that minor premise that females were kept close to home for protection. What are they doing there, sorting socks and sweeping trash into neat archaeological sites?

Unless they were heavily pregnant or infirm, the women---and the kids too---were out gathering food, checking the traps, and following other gainful pursuits. Not too many got sneaked up on by any Neandertal, I would think. Probably not stupid enough to go out alone either.

Keeping women home sounds like the practice of an affluent society. Mind you I'm not saying the early hunter-gatherers were down and out; hunter gatherers are very efficient at obtaining food. But the usual picture we get, of menfolks going out and bagging moose while the little women hide in the caves, that's just Hollywood. They probably subsisted on meat less dangerous to catch; any child can trap a squirrel.

Furthermore, I would think that many primitive people, up to modern times, thought nothing of sexual activity with pre-adolescent females. Therefore it should be no surprise if they didn't understand the link between sex and reproduction. What they observed was simply that females make babies, once they reach a certain age. In many cultures those females might have been sexually active for several years. To the primitive mind, what's to say that one male caused a baby to form?


247 posted on 02/25/2006 10:02:14 AM PST by Graymatter (...and what are we going to do about it?)
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To: VadeRetro

Thanks...


248 posted on 02/25/2006 10:03:17 AM PST by Pharmboy (The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones.)
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To: AntiGuv
Good morning.
"And human intermixing (between tribes/clans) in pre-urban cultures is so rare and fleeting as to be all but nonexistent."

Human intermixing is a constant in our history, is the prerogative of the winners and a tool for making the group stronger. They get to spread their genes, race, religion, you name it.

Cite something that proves me wrong. You could demand the same from me, but you prove it first.

Michael Frazier
249 posted on 02/25/2006 10:04:24 AM PST by brazzaville (no surrender no retreat, well, maybe retreat's ok)
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To: Graymatter

From a rather extensive survey of hunting-gathering peoples, it turns out that women are responsible for about 65% of the calories and the men the rest. The men are mostly responsible for the high-protein meat, though. All of this adds to your point...


250 posted on 02/25/2006 10:06:14 AM PST by Pharmboy (The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones.)
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To: ThreePuttinDude

I've always wondered how evolutionists can eat meat. After all, what's the moral difference between humans and creatures that we eat? If we stem from the same ancestor, why is one considered "sacred" (in a sense) and another not?

I've also wondered how evolutionists cannot be racists. After all, Australian Aborigines, for example, very well could be less evolved versions of those fully-human. Where are the less-evolved forms of humans or new-humans? Is it right or wrong to see them as deserving of less rights than those fully human?

It seems very problematic, morally-speaking, to believe in evolution. Seems like an evolutionist wouldn't be able to challenge Hitler's (and Nietchze's) superman....


251 posted on 02/25/2006 10:06:20 AM PST by Theo
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To: AntiGuv
hot cave sex between Cro-Magnons and Neandertals

Hot cave wall porn?


252 posted on 02/25/2006 10:09:43 AM PST by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk, those who talk don't know.)
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To: VadeRetro

Yes, but in Templeton's analysis he does not find evidence that the Neanderthals were assimilated. He states explicitly that their status is "indecisive". So, in light of the mtDNA research, I still think the balance of the weight is against Neanderthal assimilation. Though point well taken about the multiregional hypothesis!


253 posted on 02/25/2006 10:11:24 AM PST by AntiGuv
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To: blam
there's only so much that can be said.

True, but it did give me a chance to post Red's photo again.

254 posted on 02/25/2006 10:12:33 AM PST by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk, those who talk don't know.)
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To: PistolPaknMama
My personal theory is that there was no interbreeding, more along the lines of the horse/donkey scenario, otherwise as homo sapiens became more abundant on the Neanderthal turf, interbreeding would have become more prolific. This would have given the Neanderthals more human-like qualities thereby increasing their chance of survival, or would mean that eventually Neanderthal and homo sapien would merge into one species.

I agree. I believe the recent reconstructions of Neanderthals often found in National Geographic and seen on the Discovery Channel programs that show them as looking much like modern humans with heavy brow ridges are wrong.

What if Neanderthals bodies, like other ice age mammals living in Europe at the time (wooly Mammoth, etc.), were completely covered with hair for protection from the cold? That would give them a somewhat apelike appearance and be less than appealing to our ancestors as potential breeding partners.

255 posted on 02/25/2006 10:12:46 AM PST by Inyo-Mono (Life is like a cow pasture, it's hard to get through without stepping in some mess. NRA.)
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To: Graymatter
I did not say that the women would be kept close to home. I merely said that they would be protected by the community.
256 posted on 02/25/2006 10:14:38 AM PST by AntiGuv
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To: brazzaville
I will say it one last time. When I wrote that, what I was imagining was consensual intermixing. I did not write that, so it is good for everyone to point it out, and it's only my fault for not writing more clearly.

Yes, by all evidence, women have been the spoils of war since time immemorial. Even unintelligible butt ugly musclebound women, for whatever they're worth.

257 posted on 02/25/2006 10:18:07 AM PST by AntiGuv
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide
magnon-sexuals LOL!
258 posted on 02/25/2006 10:21:20 AM PST by Ragnar54
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To: patton
Good morning.
"Humans are of the group, that have few children and invest their lives in them.

Would not neanderthal do the same?"

Maybe they listened to a Neanderthal version of an imam and began to think it was righteous to send their children off to die en mass. Maybe they developed a primitive version of Bushido. I wonder what a Neanderthal banzai charge would look like.

Michael Frazier
259 posted on 02/25/2006 10:28:38 AM PST by brazzaville (no surrender no retreat, well, maybe retreat's ok)
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To: AntiGuv

How about women taken in battle and raped, or whatever?


260 posted on 02/25/2006 10:28:47 AM PST by Torie
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