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Ice Age
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21-07-2011 9:37am#1
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It's a colossal degree of climate change with colossal effects. The theory is not mine - I'm not that smart, I just watch too many archaeology programmes on the box. The one which prompted this was about Doggerlandsteddyeddy wrote: »Im not sure that neanderthal man who had survived 500,000 years in europe under varying conditions would have been wiped out by a 7 degree rise in heat but who knows, good theory!
I think it is a fairly well accepted view as to what happened to the hairy fellas.
Sea levels at the moment, are rising by about 2mm per year around the world due to global warming and the consequent melting of the polar ice sheets. To see evidence of the effect, you only need to take a trip along the Irish East coast - the sea has already claimed many houses and many more are on the edge. I helped to push the remains of a chalet over the edge around twenty years ago and I can remember when that chalet was about 20 metres in from the shoreline. And that is over a relatively long period - I can't say how long for sure.
The sea level rise must have been catastrophic. It was enough to completely submerge an entire land mass between the UK and Denmark (Doggerland).
A little info about the last surviving Neanderthals (so far discovered) can be found here0 -
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That's the current figure on best evidence alright.Mahatma coat wrote: »I'm fairly sure that the Neanderthal 'Extinction event' is put at about 25000BC
The thing is we simply don't know how hairy they or indeed we were at that time. Modern Euroepans are the hairiest modern humans and may well have been equally or more hairy back then. Neandertals were likely hairy alright. If they weren't they were the only large mammal not to be in ice age conditions. That said they didn't roam about on ice like heavily built eskimos. A common notion reproduced in pictures and movies. They stayed well below the ice line, retreating as it advanced and vice versa. They were mostly a tundra and forest people. They could also survive and thrive in warmer climes as they did in southern Europe and in the Levant. More to the point they were around in Eurasia for the guts of 200,000 years(ans their related forebears for nigh on 800,000 years). Through many ice ages and interglacials and flood events and volcanoes and climate shifts and they survived and thrived. They were well used to fluctuating temps long before we showed up. Indeed they were more used to them than we were.the rising sea level issue may be an interesting angle on the disaperarance of the Neanderthals, From What I understand we Modern Humans are a LOT less hairy than the Neanderthals were,
Well Neandertals ate fish and even seals and dolphins so water doesn't seem to have troubled them that much. All of the previously held notions about how different they were to us keeps getting chipped away. Which makes their disappearance all the more odd and hard to figure out.So of all the differences between the Modern human and the Neanderthal, in a world flooded by temperate waters the Modern human suddenly has a massive advantage over its bigger stronger cousin, meaning that we win all the food whilst they either starve or drown.
That's an interesting one. The recently discovered Flores "Hobbits" who appear to be a dwarf Erectus made it to Flores a million years or so ago. There was no land bridge and they had to navigate very strong currents, so it's very likely they used some sort of water vehicle. Erectus stone tools have been found on Crete which is out of sight of land, so they had to have had some sort of water transportation too and that's 800,000 years ago, long before us and indeed Neandertals. They would have used wood(bone and skins) in any construction and 800,000 year old wood and the like is going to be very rare indeed to find. With archaic humans all we find in the vast majority of cases is their tools and even more rarely their remains. Stones and bones. There is likely a huge amount of stuff they used that never ended up preserved except in really rare circumstances. IE European Homo Erectus wooden spear 400,000 years old IIRC. And they were advanced throwing spears to boot. Way more than had been thought. Canoes or decent rafts probably were used, but unless someone gets really lucky sadly we may never know. And it is sad, because we have such a tiny window into their culture and skills and trials and triumphs of those magnificent buggers. I'd give a year off my life to sit face to face and be able to talk to a Neandertal. A well fed one just to be safe and Id want to be armed to the effin teeth with some big bore handgun or better yet a taser. Just in case like.Mahatma coat wrote: »I wonder which Group invented Boats??
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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That's some image - Father Jack with a gun and a taser having a chat with a well fed Neanderthal. Sharing a bottle of pine disinfectant, no doubt......I'd give a year off my life to sit face to face and be able to talk to a Neandertal. A well fed one just to be safe and Id want to be armed to the effin teeth with some big bore handgun or better yet a taser. Just in case like.:D 0 -
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heres something I posted beforeMahatma coat wrote: »And some different Species in Asia and the Pacific Islands.
In the news recently it has been announced that Scientists can track 2 Separate intebreeding/divergences in Human evolution
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=10575837
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/neandertal-genetics-study-shows-theres-a-caveman-in-us-all/story-e6frg6n6-1225863446398
still not sure about the cutoff for Neanderthals tho0 -
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It used to. It was very much the complete replacement model.swordofislam wrote: »It is definitely proof unvarnished proof I would say rather than just evidence that there is some non homo sapiens sapiens blood in Europeans. I am not sure that it invalidates the Out of Africa hypothesis (cards on the table Out of Africa makes intuitive sense to me and no doubt that creates a bias). Out of Africa merely says that we evolved in Africa; I don't think it rules out some gene flow back from the archaic populations.
Well I was just using it as an example of how you might spot novel genes that would lead you to say this population had input to that population.I have thought about white skin and red/blonde hair but apparently
Because genetic markers unique to Neandertals don't show up in African folks. The Denisovan markers are even more unique to south east Asians and in greater percentages. Then there is some newer research into immune system markers that show even more archaic input.Also what is meant by this quantification of the amount of Neanderthal DNA? And how do we know that Africans don't have Neandrthal genes that flowed down from North Africa?
It makes for a neat explanation. Pity the evidence doesn't show that. It's a slow process over long periods of time. In our case we have some marks scratched in ochre in one site in south Africa at around 90,000 years ago. Evidence of some cultural thought. Then silence for at least 30,000 years. In that time it seems we did little. It sprang up and then died down. Looking at stone tools, unless you find the bones with the stones in situ the differences between us and Neandertals is very very hard to judge.That's basically what I believe. A light goes on and you have abstraction and imagination and from that your capacity to speak and remember skyrockets people develope symbologies and taboos and 100 years later you're 'the people'.
We were us. Anatomically modern humans. They could walk down the street and would look like any other human.A couple of questions.
Were we US when we borrowed the Mousterian toolkit. Or were some sort of archaic (maybe the idea of archaics isn't all that helpful):D
They weren't static. They evolved the basic technique throughout that time and this technique varied geographically. Different Neandertal populations made different tools with the technique. They had different tool cultures. Like I say they invented the first synthetic glue, long before we show up. They used wood too and since that so rarely preserves we've no idea how advanced they were on that score.I don't doubt that the Mousterian tools are hard to make but they were the same for 270,000 years. That isn't human. Humans aren't that static. (What am I missing here?)
Nope they're really not. They're very easy to make, even compared to very early handaxes.Also even Olduvan tools are hard to make if you can't work stone.
Highly unlikely. Thy had the genes for speech and the physiology for it. They could speak, what we don't is how deft they were at language.I amn't arguing against the capability of Neanderthals but against their actuality. Even though they could speak perhaps they didn't speak until we taught them and perhaps in speaking they became us
He has modern human type browridges. Very unlike the Neandertal ones. Neandertals looked very different and if one walked down the street he or she would stand out.(look at someone like Chabal the rugby player he has browridges for God's sake and he is from the French Neanderthal heartland.
They don't know for sure who made chatelperronian tools. However the technique is a further evolution in mousterian techniques, so it could well be Neandertal and there's no reason to believe it came from us. It's quite reasonable to assume it's a Neandertal invention. Others like Quina tools arose out of the basic mousterian technique.Under the influence of homo sapiens sapiens they changed their style of toolmaking from Mousterian to Chatelperronian.
I really really doubt it.Could it be that we taught them speech?
Does this change indicate assimilation?
No, they really couldn't. Not to build a viable population. Nay populations on a few islands out of sight of land. The currents in the Flores straits are and were not conducive to floating mats.Or they could have floated on mats of vegetation.
Oh yea certainly.Come on primitive is in the eye of the beholder.
We simply don't know. They had cultures that's for sure. We see this in their tools. Manhood rites don't fossilise, but religion might, or a spiritual sense anyway. The handaxe, the ubiquitous tool of erectus may well show this. Like I say there exist examples too finely made for use and show no signs of use. Others show signs of symbolism in fossils and other inclusions that look like they were purposely selected and framed. Others have incredible symmetry, others are chosen for their colour, a few are so huge that it would require two men to lift them so serve no practical purpose. IMHO this evidence of some votive/spiritual meaning.Do you think that homo erectus had manhood rites, taboos, religion or art?
Further evidence of this votive meaning comes in the form of the bone pit I mentioned earlier that Heidelbergensis(precursor to Neandertal) used. One single large handaxe was found among the remains of their dead. Of very fine red quartzite, expertly knapped and unused. The researchers nicknamed it excalibur. The remains in the pit were all defleshed. Possibly cannibalism(which some moderns made a part of funerary rites) or some form of sky burial like the Tibetans practice today. They were doing something and doing it repeatedly and consistently and threw in a valuable item into the midst of all this. That suggests, strongly suggests ritual to me. Which suggests spiritual thought.
I'd be of the very personal opinion that this may explain the so called Movius mystery line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movius_Line Basically handaxes are all over the place but seem to peter out the further east one goes. Many explanations have been given, my mad theory is that the reason the handaxe isn't found or found very rarely is not because of leaving a useful tool behind, but leaving a religion/spiritual artifact behind. A religious reformation writ in stone or lack of it. Indeed as a tool, handaxes are pretty limited. Quite a few researchers think they're not actually tools, but cores left over from striking blades from a core. Maybe, but some, many are too precisely knapped. I have a couple of stone cores and they're pretty distinctive and nothing like handaxes and look like cast off items(though one I have was used afterwards as a hammer stone).
They would be likely to do similar with any other actual human sufficiently different to them. It's happened more than once in history.If a modern hunter gatherer met homo erectus he would either venerate him as the wise man of the woods or kill him and eat him.
I contend they were. Certainly more human than any previous hominid.The bonds of species are broken homo erectus was not human.
No I think they would have looked very distinctive. Nothing like the more recent "put a suit on him and he'd pass for us" reconstructions. I believe they looked quite different because of different local evolutionary pressures.That's begging the question a bit though. If you believe that Neanderthals are US and that there are lots of US that have been through time and that we are US all the way back to Zhoukoudian then obviously you won't think that a Neanderthal would have been unreconisable as human.
Maybe, maybe not. Hard one to call.But that I think is the main question about Neanderthals and why they were so interesting. Their humanity is not at issue. Neanderthals were human but what does that mean?
You see if they were human in an unvarnished way so that the Cro Magnons who met would have said 'Who are these people, let's communicate' then terms like Pleistocene Holocaust have alot of resonance and relevance.
Like I said hunter gatherers can be quite xenophobic in thought and deed.I am not sure it would have been so clear to a hunter gatherer.
Rituals and stories don't fossilise. Art? Well that may well do. There is increasing evidence from Spain that the Neandertals there processed pigments and wore shell pendants long before they met us. They have yellows and reds and blacks and possibly blues. One lump was so concentrated it appears it was once held in a leather pouch that rotted away over te centuries. Some of the pigments even have little bits of "glitter" in them, just like some of the ladies apply these days.Maybe but they had art, rituals and stories. They also extracted much more from the land than the Neanderthals did.
Body art is art. (edit)
Well much higher density that we know of. Native Aussies have been there for 50-60,000 years that we know of. In that time, they decimated the megafauna and their populations waxed and waned. They became quite isolated as groups. To the degree that native Aussies have one of the widest range of languages in the world. Neandertals were around for at least 200,000 years, more like 350,000 and survived and thrived in wildly varying climates and habitats and kept a stable if not growing population. That's damned impressive(and one reason I don't buy the "oh climate changed killed them off". So they're major advantage for over a quarter a million years out of the blue made the extinct by the same pressure. Yea right Ted).Just read this bit again and I see that it question begging. But Australian aboriginals lived at much higher density than Neanderthals implying that they got more from the land.
They also produced stone tools more complex than any Neandethal tools including Chatelperronian.
They also worked stone as art objects.
(of course all this was done after 50,000 years ago long after the great leap forward :P)
Yea they're an interesting bunch of lads and lasses alright. African folks a long way from home.I wasn't aware of that. Very interesting.
Two practical questions after all these musings.
Yes but why were their numbers bigger if they were at first? We were better with changing climates? Hardly. We were a subtropical species that hadn't been exposed to the hugely variable climate shifts they had for over 200,000 years. We were better hunters? Again I doubt it. We ate more diverse foods? There's some evidence of that, but equally there's evidence that some Neandertal groups also had a variable diet. They needed more food to survive? That for me is one of the more likely ones. They were the SUV of hominids. Real gas guzzlers. Not that they starved or anything but maybe that need for more calories meant their population couldn't grow as fast as ours. We were more like a small diesel in needs. That might be all it took and little by little we had more and more kids than them. It wasn't a sudden thing either. It wasn't we show up they all die out. It took the guts of 10,000 years for this process to take place, which for me spells small but winning advantage.Is it possible that the culturally modern hunter gatherer peoples were so large in number and could take so much more from the land that they could have swamped the Neanderthals without the Pleistocene holocaust being true.
Say that 10,000 Neanderthals lived in Europe but 250,000 homo sapiens sapiens so wouldn't homo sapiens sapiens just overwhelm homo sapiens neanderthalensis?
But why?
Why us and not them?Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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To much to quote Wibbs. I think that my cognitive biases are really pandered to by this idea of the 'archaic' and 'fully modern' human. Not to mention 'cultural modernity'. It seems like a bit of a cheat when you look a bit harder.
Advocates for thinking Neanderthals have to prove that art objects are art.
Call someone fully modern and the assumption is that they are making art.
I need to change my perspective and do some more reading without the blinkers (or new blinkers anyway).
I also have the problem of anachronism (even though I am aware of that problem) Neanderthal tools are the same for 270,000 years (is that even true?) but of course archaic
homo sapiens didn't change his toolkit much for 200,000 years either. I need to get all the dates straight in my head.
I really think that you've nailed down the nub of the problem when you ask why we might have been able to live in larger numbers. But the Neanderthals needed twice as much food as us not ten times as much.
Humans have a comparatively short period between births (for great apes) if the Neanderthals had a longer period between births that could account for the overwhelming by HSS. Perhaps it was just a fluke.
Any books you'd recommend on the Denisovians?
Is there anywhere that I can download a matrix showing what everyone was doing at the same time.
Just going back to DNA for a second. We are 99.7% the same DNA as a Neanderthal. So again what does the 4% of Neanderthal DNA mean.0 -
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That would be me alrightswordofislam wrote: »To much to quote Wibbs.
Yea that's the problem alright S. We all assume human=us=art/culture/religion/technology. It's an odd thought to consider a human that isn't quite human, isn't quite us, having anything similar. Ugh the bent over grunting barely conscious caveman is more comforting in a way. Makes us keep our "special" status kinda thing. What I find interesting is the more we've learned about Neandertals having more "human" attributes the more "human" we've made them look in reconstructions. As if to say, Oh they must have looked like us if they kinda thought like us". Again the comfort thing. IMHO they would have looked very different in the flesh. Hairier for a start.I think that my cognitive biases are really pandered to by this idea of the 'archaic' and 'fully modern' human. Not to mention 'cultural modernity'. It seems like a bit of a cheat when you look a bit harder.
Advocates for thinking Neanderthals have to prove that art objects are art.
Call someone fully modern and the assumption is that they are making art.
for the guts of 150,000 years we weren't making any obvious art either(with some very rare isolated examples). Neandertal tools vary over time and geography. That's just the stone tools. We know they utilised wood a lot, but it doesn't preserve so well, so we have no clue what wooded stuff they had(though they had expertly balanced throwing spears 300,000 years ago). They also used leather, the amount of scrapers of varying design shows that. It seems they had leather pouches and may have had leather satchels etc. They collected and concentrated pigments for some reason, likely body art and may also have used pendants. All very "human" sounding and this is before we meet in the Levant or Europe. Were we differ from very early on is we're bigger wanderers from home base. You can see this in the middle east where we lived together for the first time. They collect food and stone material with in an area of a ten mile radius circle around home. We can have circles running out to 50-60 miles.I also have the problem of anachronism (even though I am aware of that problem) Neanderthal tools are the same for 270,000 years (is that even true?) but of course archaic homo sapiens didn't change his toolkit much for 200,000 years either.
Apparently some bloke has worked out they needed 6000 calories a day, so around three times more than us. A lot of food.I really think that you've nailed down the nub of the problem when you ask why we might have been able to live in larger numbers. But the Neanderthals needed twice as much food as us not ten times as much.
Maybe not. One site with a number of bodies of different ages laid down at the same time has been examined and funny enough it looks like Neandertals have the same birth interval. If true that takes another thing out of the equation(as a huge advantage anyway).Humans have a comparatively short period between births (for great apes) if the Neanderthals had a longer period between births that could account for the overwhelming by HSS.
NOt that I know of sorry. The Denisovians are so new I suppose publishing has to catch up.Any books you'd recommend on the Denisovians?
Is there anywhere that I can download a matrix showing what everyone was doing at the same time.
You'd really want to be asking a geneticist that oneJust going back to DNA for a second. We are 99.7% the same DNA as a Neanderthal. So again what does the 4% of Neanderthal DNA mean. Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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steddyeddy wrote: »"why would anyone sleep with a neanderthal woman"!
Never been to Copperface Jacks then?
This is a great thread - quite cheered me up to see such informed discussion. One theme I keep coming back is the artificiality of the notion of species, especially within so short and close a genus as homo (or even the hominina, but brother do I hate that term). As Gould argued in more general terms, we make up these names and divisions, then we argue about them - the reality proceeds unaffected.
I like to borrow the familiar mental image from discussions of mitochondrial DNA, the picture of an unbroken chain of hand-holding mothers and daughters stretching back across maybe 50,000 women (a line maybe only 50km long) until we find our common ancestor with the Neanderthals. The question has to be asked of 'our' ancestor, one of the three (minimum) women holding hands at position 50,000: how do you get to be called 'human', but your mother and your sister don't?
It's a question that can only be asked in retrospect, because it's only from the other end of that chain of hands that we can know which lady is our manytimes grandmother, and which is not - at the time, 800,000 years ago, the question means nothing. The notion of species is applied within the homo genus by looking at what 'lines' survived, and for how long - a teleological argument from the perspective of the individuals involved.
Earning the badge of being 'us' looks like a happy accident of descendants - perhaps it's better to think of 'humanity' as not being restricted to a group that only includes our verifiable ancestors. Perhaps seeing homo as a mixing milling weave of strands of culture and genome that touch and part and touch again seems more apt - without denying the essential truth of an geographically African origin.
Obviously I'm pushing things a long way back from the OP's question here, but it keeps me busy.0 -
Absolutely not a problem with me, anyway. The discussion has become much more interesting and informative than the OP.Tordelback wrote: »Never been to Copperface Jacks then?
This is a great thread - quite cheered me up to see such informed discussion. One theme I keep coming back is the artificiality of the notion of species, especially within so short and close a genus as homo (or even the hominina, but brother do I hate that term). As Gould argued in more general terms, we make up these names and divisions, then we argue about them - the reality proceeds unaffected.
I like to borrow the familiar mental image from discussions of mitochondrial DNA, the picture of an unbroken chain of hand-holding mothers and daughters stretching back across maybe 50,000 women (a line maybe only 50km long) until we find our common ancestor with the Neanderthals. The question has to be asked of 'our' ancestor, one of the three (minimum) women holding hands at position 50,000: how do you get to be called 'human', but your mother and your sister don't?
It's a question that can only be asked in retrospect, because it's only from the other end of that chain of hands that we can know which lady is our manytimes grandmother, and which is not - at the time, 800,000 years ago, the question means nothing. The notion of species is applied within the homo genus by looking at what 'lines' survived, and for how long - a teleological argument from the perspective of the individuals involved.
Earning the badge of being 'us' looks like a happy accident of descendants - perhaps it's better to think of 'humanity' as not being restricted to a group that only includes our verifiable ancestors. Perhaps seeing homo as a mixing milling weave of strands of culture and genome that touch and part and touch again seems more apt - without denying the essential truth of an geographically African origin.
Obviously I'm pushing things a long way back from the OP's question here, but it keeps me busy.0 -
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