Dry Period In Spain Explains Neanderthals' Last Stand

New Scientist ^ | 5-18-2007

[LantzALot]

Great dye job on the hair.

[ComputerGuy]

I've got one on each side - several dentists have commented on them because they are very pronounced.
Until now I never knew anything about them, other than they are only present in a relatively small group of the population.
My wife has called me a Neanderthal a time or two.
I'm going to ask her to change that to Cro-Magnon.

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, be proud of your Neandertal heritage. :')

blam: A 24,500 year old 'hybrid' Neanderthal skeleton was found in Portugal. Doesn't that find refute this theory?

I don't regard this as a theory per se -- the claim that this particular drought delayed the Neandertal extinction just shows that those authors ignore the fact that Neandertal has descendants, and didn't go extinct anyway, so there isn't any reason to look for reasons for the extinction to have had a different end date. :')

[Pelham]

Sepulchre needs to hook up with my coworker, whose last name is LaMorte.

[shuckmaster]

It’s interesting that your map puts the ancestors of the Vikings on the shore of the Black Sea below the glacier/tree line. J. P. Mallory’s “In Search of the Indo-Europeans” suggests that same region was the root origin of all the Indo-European languages.

[blam]

"It’s interesting that your map puts the ancestors of the Vikings on the shore of the Black Sea below the glacier/tree line. J. P. Mallory’s “In Search of the Indo-Europeans” suggests that same region was the root origin of all the Indo-European languages."

My Theory:

7,600 years ago there were hundreds of thousands of farmers (Irrigation farming too) living around the fresh water Black Sea in an otherwise very arid region. When the 'dam' at the Bosporus broke and flooded (200-300 foot water rise) the Black Sea with salt water, these farmers became refugees and fled up the rivers leading into Europe taking their language (Indo-European) and farming skill all over Europe with them. They also fled toward the direction of China and are the Caucasian mummies found in the Tarim Basin.

[shuckmaster]

Ryan and Pitman’s book is one of my favorites. Have there been any updates or other source studies done on that subject? It would seem that a hypothesis that important would have other researchers either supporting or disputing it.

[blam]

"Ryan and Pitman’s book is one of my favorites. Have there been any updates or other source studies done on that subject? It would seem that a hypothesis that important would have other researchers either supporting or disputing it."

Yes. Ballard went down and found what are believed to be some underwater manmade structures. There was a one hour documentary on his work. I don't remember any specifics...well, they did locate a very old ship too.