Climate Change A Main Cause In The Fall of Neanderthals

The Iberian Peninsula, better known as present-day Spain and Portugal, was one of the last Neanderthal refuges. Many scientists have thought that out-hunting by Homo sapiens and interbreeding with them brought Neanderthals to their demise, but climate change has also been proposed.

To figure out the temperature, water supply, and windiness of Iberia from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, the scientists looked at sediments on the ocean floor off Spain and Portugal. Because wind or water erode rocky minerals differently, the pebbles and fragments wash into the sea in different ratios, creating a steady track record of land conditions at the bottom of the ocean.

The study reveals three rough climatic periods for Neanderthals, with the last and harshest period starting about 26,000 years ago. “The last event was very, very cold and dry,” Jiménez-Espejo says, “and other than 250,000 years ago, such a harsh climate was never reached before.”


SOURCE:
LiveScience.com

Note:
This is not to become a debate about climate change, the climate
change talked about in this article is the natural kind.

This is very interesting to me, as I've never believed that humanity was
the one main cause of the extinction of Neanderthal man.

I think what will end up being found out, is that Neanderthals faded out
of existence through a mixture of climate change effects, less prey and
interbreeding with humans.


Comments, Opinions?

Interesting. Altough I don't think it was climate change alone, if not why didn't it also affect sapiens? I guess it was climate change + homo sapiens + disease.

Originally posted by iori_komei
I think what will end up being found out, is that Neanderthals faded out
of existence through a mixture of climate change effects, less prey and
interbreeding with humans.

I agree with you. As the climate began to change, the adaptaion abilities of the Neanderthal must have been stretched. What rudimentary crops that they might have harvested might have succumbed to the climate changes. With indigenous plants threatened, animal stocks and migrations would certainly have been altered. Battles would have, indeed, taken place between Neanderthal tribes over food and water supplies. Survival would have been extremely difficult. Ultimately, victory -- in the form of the survival of the species -- would have gone to plants, animals and primates who could 'weather the storm', so to speak. That is, survival was granted on the basis of adaptability.

Ironically, it would not take much to extrapolate a similar fate for our present day society as we confront our own climatological fate.

Edit:
B-T pretty much summed it up.

[edit on 5/4/2007 by iori_komei]

Last night on Coasttocoast AM. Nancy Leider was channeling the Zetas and the Zetas said that the Neanderthals had a problem with digesting the food that was here at that time. So the Zetas did something to make them infertile and they died out. They talked about several other species of man that did not make it as well. They said that once they made a genetic modification, that they had to give it time to play out and see whether it would be a success or failure.

But then a few years back they also said PlanetX was going to cause a pole shift and put all of us back into Little House on the Prairie days.

Neaderthal women had very narrow pelvis' which means that they would not have been able to breed with homosapiens. If interbreeding it did occur between homosapien males and neaderthal females it would have resulted in a high level of still-births and death in labour of mothers. Since the pattern of expansion generally involves the stronger males subverting the males and assimilating females, this evolutionary difference would have been the death knell of the neaderthal.

Additonally bottle-necks of neaderthal populations caused by isolation (environmental or via homosapien expansion) resulted in interbreeding and the proliferation of abnormalities. In the end they died out because they weren't the fittest and the homosapiens were.

Originally posted by KilgoreTrout
addditonally bottle-necks of neaderthal populations caused by isolation (environmental or via homosapien expansion) resulted in interbreeding and the proliferation of abnormalities. In the end they died out because they weren't the fittest and the homosapiens were.

Neanderthals were not the fittest because they were not able to adapt.
Any way you slice it, the Neanderthals were not able to meet the challenges posed by changing climates, changing game patterns, changing rain and water availability patterns and, ultimately, the societal pressures by these variations from their "normal" conditions.

Charles Darwin seemed to have made quite a name for himself over the concepts described here -- adaptability. Neanderthals became extinct because they could not adapt.

I have a big problem with adaptation and a solution. Natural selection is a definite Principle of nature when applied to bacteria, fungi and some multicellular organisms. However for the eponymous (and ubuiquitous) Darwinian finches the natural selection takes place as a reult of migration of birds of inappropriate size. Incidentally it appears that the degree of gene expression of calmodulin the calcium binding protein is a determinant of beak size in these birds.

However, natural selection in hominids precludes the ability of these to MOVE AWAY. Surely, if we need to look back in history we see mass waves of migration when afgricultural and climatic conditions are unfavourable NOT largescale death. Nomadic existence and natural micr-migration seem to be the rule not staying to see your crops fail and participating in internecine warfare.

interesting thought about Neanderthals here;
orbis-quintus.net...

paraphrased; The neanderthal communities in Spain/Iberia are
remarkably similar to the communities found in North Africa...


question- -Why would the Iberian Neanderthal remnant not migrate
out of the then turned hostile, harsh, long term severe climate change
that Spain/Iberia was encountering around 24-26,0000BCE??

the Iberian remnant of neanderthals? were they the only surviving communities which ranged from Asia, near and middle-east, Europe and Africa. Did the supply of Mammoth run out? and Iberia was where the neanderthal culture and their cultural imperative, the Mammoth, both met their water-loo?

something kept the neanderthal in that area, as they were once farflung and
did not only travel on ice sleds as the establishment of neanderthal communities in a wide range of locations indicate, they also likely navigated over water & of course by land.


[edit; the link doesn't show the page intended, titled: Neanderthals by Sea] can't say just Why !!
[edit #2, Oh....incorrect #, too mant '3's)

[edit on 5-5-2007 by St Udio]

[edit on 5-5-2007 by St Udio]