Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, I think we coexisted for most of our evolutionary history, it makes me think that something happened with modern humans, some technological advantage or form of warfare that led to rather rapid extermination of our fellow humans species. I don't think competition was enough. It must have been intentional at some level. A lot like the rather shocking mass extinctions in the megafauna about the same time (12-15 ky bp).
I had a college professor who was of the mind that Neanderthals while smart in many ways were but were burdened by a childlike trust. Thus they couldn't conceive of humans murdering them, waging war, or destroying excess food to starve even when they'd seen it before.m it would explain why humans in some areas seem to have learned techniques for tool making from Neanderthals even though we made it while they didn't.
I have to agree with you, I have read the "Little House on the Prairie" series; "Farmer Boy" is a good example of what was expected of an 8 year old boy, chores that would be a task for many modern men. Only in modern times do kids have the luxury of playing video games, texting on their phones or watching TV.
Neanderthal was homo neandertalensis, possibly arisen out of late homo erectus as it was evolving into homo sapiens that were not yet us for we had to proceed through cromagnon man before we became homo sapiens sapiens.
Studies of the skeleton of both the Hobbit and Lucy/australopithecus show many similarities, but further analysis shows that the Hobbit may have had an ancestor that was a primitive homo line that more closely resembled the australopithecus line it evolved out of. Which does make sense that the earliest lines to leave Africa were both pushed to their borders as more advanced hominids displaced and assimilated them absorbing the victors genes along the way. Hobbit had a flat face, a homo trait, early homo lines still had a bit of a prognacious face. Every wave of advanced homo's that developed absorbed the genes of those they conquered along the way. Hobbit was of the homo line, just had more of the earliest homo traits. It is amazing to think that 12,000 years ago we had two homo/human lines on the planet and 30,000 years ago to 40,000 years ago we had four with Neanderthal, Hobbit, Denisovan man and Homo sapiens sapiens or Modern man. It was the great ocean divides that kept the next stage of our development and that is the melding of all the different humans that have developed to adapt to different environments. That is one of the reasons why we are now the Anthropogenic Age.
Indeed. I have often wondered if this should be considered in a revised Drake Equation.
Isn't it true that there is actually more genetic variation between various groups of sub-Saharan Africans than between all other populations north of the Sahara?
Unsure. I have seen South Africa said to have the most genetically diverse people, but when you did into those studies the group they are referring to is the population locally know as "Cape Colored" who have European, African, and Indian ancestors so it is sort of a no brainer that they would be genetically diverse as well as not saying much about the genetic variability of the indigenous people of the area.
I had a college professor who was of the mind that Neanderthals while smart in many ways were but were burdened by a childlike trust. Thus they couldn't conceive of humans murdering them, waging war, or destroying excess food to starve even when they'd seen it before.m it would explain why humans in some areas seem to have learned techniques for tool making from Neanderthals even though we made it while they didn't.
That sounds a little too "sweet" to be true - although it may be, but our nearest relatives show no such trust.
It's natural for us to focus on anatomical and cultural changes as proxies for evolution, but I suspect that the biggest part of evolutionary change still remains hidden from us.
I think of the coelacanth, which is supposed to have remain unchanged for umpteen years. Well, just because its *skeleton* has remained unchanged for umpteen million years, doesn't mean it's still the exact animal found in the fossil record. While major behavioral changes are often documented by changes in bone structure, I doubt that all such changes are. Not to mention metabolic and immunologic changes.
We don't really know why neanderthals went extinct. It's fun, and actually useful, to speculate as to why, but we shouldn't fall too deeply in love with our speculations.
At this point, the most we can say for sure is that the environment changed, so the species mix changed. That leaves a lot of ground to be explored!
We don't really know why neanderthals went extinct. It's fun, and actually useful, to speculate as to why, but we shouldn't fall too deeply in love with our speculations.
They did not go extinct. They were mixed into the human population.
They did not go extinct. They were mixed into the human population.
Umm, if they no longer exist as a separate breeding population - they are extinct. That's pretty much the definition.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
