The ancient Homo sapiens Thread

For me Otzi's more real. Well he was a modern human and we know what we look like. Aunty Mary IMHO has a few things dubious about it. The blue eyes being one biggy. That's a very recent adaptation/mutation in moderns. The red hair is possible alright as they have genetic evidence for it. White skin possible too. Where are her brow ridges? She's also got fairly strong cheekbones and a chin and a pretty high forehead too. Her mid face seems a lot flatter than skulls would suggest. Looks to me more like fitting her face to be more modern looking as we've discovered how more modern acting they were. The "oh, they acted more like us? Then of course they must have looked more like us too" kinda thinking.

Adam Khor wrote: »

What do you think about that?:cool:

I dunno. It's possible. Looking at other examples of Neandertal visual culture I think it possible. I(very much)MHO at least some of the Aurignacian period ascribed to us moderns may well be Neandertal, more a Neandertal response to the newbies based on their existing cultural expression.

Maybe, or maybe it was a mutual thing that stressed both into innovation.

Oh (again IMH) they defo were a different people to us. On so many levels genetically, physically and behaviourally, but like distant cousins removed enough to be different but with the spark of mutual recognition going on.

+1. They also had much better formed dental arches too, no overcrowding. While I've seen prehistoric jaws with missing teeth - the old man of La Chappelle, a Neandertal an example* - the kind of misalignment that is very common today is nowhere to be seen**. Plenty of space for the full set of gnashers including the wisdom teeth. In a pre modern society without the science of dentistry an impacted wisdom tooth would likely spell death from infection. Then again Neandertals in particular seemed real bloody tough bastards on that score, given the range of injuries inc limb loss that they survived so maybe not...

While I'd go along with the bacteria theory and think it an important factor, I'd also add another and IMHO bigger influence, to whit the toughness of food. Today and since farming we've tended to eat much more soft foods, particularly in childhood. I call it the Liga Hypotheses(tm)(do they even have that anymore ). We quite simply chew less than we did back in the day. Again IMHO this causes developmental issues in the arch and the teeth as we grow. Like a muscle if you don't work it it atrophies. Ditto with the mouth, jaw, dental arches and teeth. If you look at modern folks who live the hunter gatherer lifestyle their kids aren't eating rusks and semolina etc, they're chewing hard on adult foods, not long after weaning and while age related wear and tear occurs they generally have better teeth with no dentists around compared to us. Some tribes that purposely break and point teeth as a cultural thing don't have the rates of decay western types do, or at least it's slower and they're exposing the tooth pulp to do so. Do that with the average westerner and you're looking at abscess time in short order.

I'd also add another factor, vitamin D. Very few people living the western lifestyle produce enough vit D. Yep diet can make a difference but you'd want to be eating a lot of oily fish. Vit D is very important for bone growth and health(among a startlingly varied amount of other stuff it does) and I would presume that impacts on dental health too.

Someone page one of the Dentistry mods to get some pro input on this.




*one reason I reckon he's much older than the 40 plus they attribute to the chap is because of this tooth and jawbone loss(never mind the poor bugger was riddled with arthritis). We have others of his kind we reckon are around the same 40 odd age and they've got the full set going on. IMHO I reckon the man was 60 plus, if not knocking on the door of 70. Why? Hunter gatherers are more robust in skeletal structure than us and farmers, so that could skew things if you're used to looking at modern/farming folk. Plus while I say they're as "human" as you or me, they're slightly removed from us moderns in a few developmental areas. They matured faster it seems, so why apply modern age markers to them?

** Neandertals do have a unique dental signature in one way. They show excessive wear on the front teeth, with some outward splaying. One theory has it that they used their teeth as a third hand while preparing hides and the like and this is were the wear came from