Solving the mystery of Neanderthal short legs

Adam Khor · 10-11-2011 6:40pm #1

Yeah I know we have a thread on Neanderthals but I'm too busy/lazy/on a hurry to look for it :cool:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-mysteries-short-legged-neandertals.html

Galvasean · 11-11-2011 3:20pm

I for one, wish to hear Wibbs' opinions on the matter before commenting further.

Yitzhak Rabin · 13-11-2011 7:52pm

You can see this adaption in people who live at high altitudes in present populations.

Like the Sherpas

Short, stocky and with an ever present grin, Sherpas are superbly adapted to their environment. Their legs are shorter than Westerners' in comparison to their trunks,making steep trails less effort. After centuries of living at high altitude, their bodies have developed a greater capability of getting oxygen into their bloodstream and to their muscles in thin air that leaves lowlanders gasping.

As a short-arse myself, who has been in the army for years, I can attest to the fact that on the flat I am a terrible runner, but increase the gradient, and add on a heavy pack and mountain walks are a doddle to me, while my comrades in excess of 6ft struggle a lot more.

Adam Khor · 14-11-2011 2:59am

yekahS wrote: »

You can see this adaption in people who live at high altitudes in present populations.

Like the Sherpas

As a short-arse myself, who has been in the army for years, I can attest to the fact that on the flat I am a terrible runner, but increase the gradient, and add on a heavy pack and mountain walks are a doddle to me, while my comrades in excess of 6ft struggle a lot more.

Hmm how tall are you? I am 5'9'' and a very fast runner but only for short distances XD

Yitzhak Rabin · 14-11-2011 5:42am

Adam Khor wrote: »

yekahS wrote: »

You can see this adaption in people who live at high altitudes in present populations.

Like the Sherpas

As a short-arse myself, who has been in the army for years, I can attest to the fact that on the flat I am a terrible runner, but increase the gradient, and add on a heavy pack and mountain walks are a doddle to me, while my comrades in excess of 6ft struggle a lot more.

Hmm how tall are you? I am 5'9'' and a very fast runner but only for short distances XD

I'm 5 7. But my upper body is disproportionately large and ny legs shorter.

Wibbs · 14-11-2011 11:33am

Could well be this mountain adaptation alright. Our African forebears were more flatlanders by comparison. That said, where's the evidence that Neandertals were mountain living people to the degree the Sherpa folks are? Especially in the cold snaps they often lived in and the lack of evidence so far of tailored clothing the valleys and plains and forests would be far more habitable for them. Indeed in Europe when we come along the living arrangements are the opposite. We live near the valley summits they live below us on the valley floors. Actually on that score, maybe it's not a mountainous terrain adaptation, but an adaptation for moving in heavy growth forest? Maybe also along the lines of yekahS build, better suited to carrying heavy weights over uneven ground in said forest?

Galvasean · 14-11-2011 2:51pm

I'm a bit on the short side too with stumpy legs. Mountain climbing and forest wandering have never been a problem for me. Ditto for massive camping bags. Must be a good center of gravity as i seem to have good balance.
Screwed in a flat out race though.

Wibbs · 14-11-2011 6:44pm

Well my Neandertal genes clearly didn't code for this at all. I'm more leg than body

When fit I was a good middle distance runner. Climbing tended to kill me, never mind carrying big weights.

Rubecula · 20-11-2011 11:40am

Running? Carrying weights? Are you guys insane?

Walking and carrying myself is all I will do, and this despite the fact that my upper body is that of a 6 foot Hercules. (Ok maybe not a Hercules more of a Falstaff :pac: ) My legs seem to be a little short though. I am actually 5'10".

I used to do a lot of running and I was pretty quick over a long distance.

As there is a lot of variety amongst modern humans I assume that Neanderthal also had some variations.

Wibbs · 20-11-2011 12:57pm

Rubecula wrote: »

As there is a lot of variety amongst modern humans I assume that Neanderthal also had some variations.

Yea they seemed to. They varied in height for a start. Contrary to popular they weren't all short. One guy found was close to a six footer in life. Facially they varied too. One guy is very long faced another short. They were probably more of a "standard" than moderns though. Smaller population overall. It would be my take that as far as body shape goes, the reason for that body shape is going to be informed supposition at best. The cold adaptation one as an example. They lived in Europe and west Asia for nigh on 200,000 years, longer if you take their close ancestors who were very similar and in all that time their climate and environment changed, sometimes radically, yet they remained pretty unchanged. This would suggest to me anyway that like us their technology offset the need to evolve radically different shapes over that time.

I suspect we're only scratching the surface of that technology(in clothing, housing etc). Their stone toolkit contains a lot of scrapers as a proportion of their toolkit going back a long way. Scrapers for what purpose? Leather and wood preparation? There are very rare clues like the pre Neandertal 400,000 year old wooden spears found in Germany that show a high level of skill in working wood. They had birch pine glue technology that required very careful preparation and understanding of the material to produce. Sadly these finds are impossibly rare so who knows what they actually crafted?

Yitzhak Rabin · 20-12-2011 9:50am

Wibbs wrote: »

Yea they seemed to. They varied in height for a start. Contrary to popular they weren't all short. One guy found was close to a six footer in life. Facially they varied too. One guy is very long faced another short. They were probably more of a "standard" than moderns though. Smaller population overall. It would be my take that as far as body shape goes, the reason for that body shape is going to be informed supposition at best. The cold adaptation one as an example. They lived in Europe and west Asia for nigh on 200,000 years, longer if you take their close ancestors who were very similar and in all that time their climate and environment changed, sometimes radically, yet they remained pretty unchanged. This would suggest to me anyway that like us their technology offset the need to evolve radically different shapes over that time.

I suspect we're only scratching the surface of that technology(in clothing, housing etc). Their stone toolkit contains a lot of scrapers as a proportion of their toolkit going back a long way. Scrapers for what purpose? Leather and wood preparation? There are very rare clues like the pre Neandertal 400,000 year old wooden spears found in Germany that show a high level of skill in working wood. They had birch pine glue technology that required very careful preparation and understanding of the material to produce. Sadly these finds are impossibly rare so who knows what they actually crafted?

New reports released the other day from a French team in the Ukraine about a neanderthal house.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8963177/Neanderthals-built-homes-with-mammoth-bones.html

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 44,000 year old Neanderthal building that was constructed using the bones from mammoths.
The circular building, which was up to 26 feet across at its widest point, is believed to be earliest example of domestic dwelling built from bone.
Neanderthals, which died out around 30,000 years ago, were initially thought to have been relatively primitive nomads that lived in natural caves for shelter.

The new findings, however, suggest these ancient human ancestors had settled in areas to the degree that they built structures where they lived for extended periods of time.
Analysis by researchers from the Muséum National d'Histories Naturelle in Paris also found that many of the bones had been decorated with carvings and ochre pigments.

Interesting about the pigments and carvings. Nothing new but further proof that they were creative art loving apes too. Not sure has there every been any evidence to show whether art/decoration was an independent pursuit that both moderns and neanderthals developed, or whether it was something that one learned from the other.

Adam Khor · 20-12-2011 6:29pm

From the article posted by YekahS:

"The oldest known remains of a building ever discovered, however, are more than 500,000 years old, built by the ancient human ancestor Homo erectus on a hillside outside Tokyo using wooden posts sunk into the ground."

Poor small-brained Homo erectus wasn´t bright enough to rent an apartment in Tokyo itself?

Wibbs · 20-12-2011 10:11pm

Hang on...*rubs eyes and reads again* pigments and carvings?! :eek: The house thing is an interesting side show if this is true. While pigments have been discovered in Neandertal sites in Spain and Italy, no definitive decorative art has been ever directly associated with them. Even jewelry is debated by some(not me) It's almost a mantra among scientists that they didn't have that cultural trick of modern humans. Not a mantra I subscribe to myself. Indeed I suspect some of the very early art ascribed to us could well be them. If there are carvings, if they're painted. Blooooooooody helllll! :eek::eek: This is HUGE.

yekahS wrote:

Not sure has there every been any evidence to show whether art/decoration was an independent pursuit that both moderns and neanderthals developed, or whether it was something that one learned from the other.

My humble? Some conjecture mind...

:) I reckon we moderns had sparks of creative art that flew from the minds of some unnamed geniuses at different times in our long 200,000 year history. I reckon ditto for earlier humans, particularly Neandertals. These sparks never really caught fire in the larger diaspora of mankind. Mostly down to low population density. Not enough kindling to really stretch the analogy.:o When we started to get bigger in population there was enough fuel to transmit these innovations, but I think a major point where it really took off was when we met them.

IMHO that was the real stimulus to drive the creative art forward. The "Lennon McCartney moment". Each on their own would have been OK but likely more "meh" and highly unlikely to have been globally famous and regarded. The respect and internal competition drove it. Even if it turns out Neandertals didn't have much art, us having slightly more may have forced us to select for that as a cultural difference between our two peoples.

It seems to have happened more in Europe. Funny enough though we lived with each other in the Levant thousands of years before we met again in Europe, the dynamic is quite different. 1) we got jiggy in the Levant. That's where their DNA that survives in humans today comes from. No evidence of that from the European era of cohabitation. 2) we lived together in the Levant, but in Europe we lived in different areas. They took the lower valleys, we took the higher places. Odd. Hey who knows maybe we were friendly enough so long as resources were plentiful. There may be some evidence of trade between us.

Carvings. Fooooook me. More info pleeeeeeeeeee *breath* eeeeeeeese.

Wibbs · 20-12-2011 10:23pm

Seems it was big enough too. 26 foot across, well constructed, solid build with possibly a wooden roof(more likely thatch?) and a load of hearths that show long use. But carvings *hopping up and down here*

EDIT if there are carvings they predate the oldest modern human one by nearly 10,000 years.

Solving the mystery of Neanderthal short legs

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