Why did the Neanderthals disappear?

reply to post by andre18


I don't see how that is relevant. Scientists can't, and shouldn't, examine a video or personal interviews for morphological similarites to other homo species.

We would likely need bones for that.



[edit on 15-11-2007 by melatonin]

John, hope you and your family are doing well.

Found something that reminded me of this post you made earlier on.

Originally posted by NGC2736
I'm sure a photo hunt would show many images of people with physical characteristics of the Neanderthal (Neandertal). I have personally met some individuals that displayed the brow ridge commonly associated with them. I hold for a merging of the two cultures.

40,000-year-old Skull Shows Both Modern Human And Neandertal Traits

Humans continued to evolve significantly long after they were established in Europe, and interbred with Neandertals as they settled across the continent, according to new research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) USA.

By comparing it with other skulls, Professor Zilhao and colleagues found that Oase 2 had the same proportions as modern human crania and shared a number of modern human and/or non-Neandertal features.
However, there were some important differences: apparently independent features that are, at best, unusual for a modern human. These included frontal flattening, a fairly large juxtamastoid eminence and exceptionally large upper molars with unusual size progression which are found principally among the Neandertals.

Related link


www.sciencedaily.com...

A reexamination of ancient human bones from Romania reveals more evidence that humans and Neandertals interbred.

There just seems to be so many alternate theory's from the scholars, perhaps your right and we may never know the full story.

mojo

reply to post by melatonin


Humans simply do not fit the pattern of primate development on Earth. Notice the word development instead of evolution. Species that appear here do undergo changes in morphology over time. It's called microevolution, because it describes changes in body parts. Darwinists use the undeniable reality of microevolution to extrapolate the reality of macroevolution, which is change at the species-into-more-advanced-species level. That is blatantly not evident in the fossil record, especially when it comes to human physiology.

Humans have been shoehorned by Darwinists into having a place in the fossil record that doesn't belong to them but to living hominoids (Bigfoot, etc.). Furthermore, humans have been shoehorned into being primates, when there is little about them--certainly nothing of significance--that fits the classic primate pattern. In fact, if it weren't for the desperate need of Darwinists to keep humans closely linked to the primate line, we would have had our own appellation long ago--and we'll surely have it once the truth is out from the Pandora's box of Darwinist deception.

Relatively speaking, primate bones are much thicker and heavier than human bones. Primate muscles are five to 10 times stronger than ours. (Anyone who's dealt with monkeys knows how amazingly strong they are for their size.) Primate skin is covered with long, thick, visible hair. Ours is largely invisible. Primate hair is thick on the back, thin on the front. Ours is switched the other way around. Primates have large, round eyes capable of seeing at night. Compared to theirs, we have greatly reduced night vision. Primates have small, relatively "simple" brains compared to ours. They lack the ability to modulate sound into speech. Primate sexuality is based on an oestrus cycle in females (though some, like bonobo chimps, have plenty of sex when not in oestrus). In human females, the effects of oestrus are greatly diminished.

This list could go on to cite many more areas of difference, but all of them are overshadowed by the Big Kahuna of primate/human difference: all primates have 48 chromosomes, while humans have "only" 46 chromosomes. Two entire chromosomes represent a heck of a lot of DNA removed from the human genome, yet somehow that removal made us "superior" in countless ways. It doesn't make sense. Nor does the fact that even with two whole chromosomes missing from our genome, we share what is now believed to be 95% of the chimp genome and around 90% of the gorilla genome. How can those numbers be made to reconcile? They can't.
Something is wrong here. Someone has been cooking the genetic books.

Originally posted by andre18
but all of them are overshadowed by the Big Kahuna of primate/human difference: all primates have 48 chromosomes, while humans have "only" 46 chromosomes. Two entire chromosomes represent a heck of a lot of DNA removed from the human genome, yet somehow that removal made us "superior" in countless ways.

And carp have 104 chromosomes. Chromosome number isn't related to 'superiority'. A bit like writing, it's not size that matters, but what you do with it.

Moreover, the fact of this chromosome difference is actually evidence of the relationship between humans and other apes.



Then we can add endogenous retroviri, redundant pseudogenes et al as evidence of this relationship.

I am going to back out of this thread now, I'd rather let mojo's thread focus on his topic - neanderthals. If you want to open a thread about human relationships to apes, do so. We'll go there.

reply to post by mojo4sale


I have been reading through this thread which reminds me of an interesting site full of info. check it out;

www.metmuseum.org...

reply to post by MrUniverse


Thanks for the link, i'll check it out in full when i get the chance.

I wonder if Neandertal females had this capacity too.
If not perhaps it points to another of those quirky little things that in the end may have seperated us from other hominid species and led to our dominance.
Imagine a Neandertal woman pregnant, with a seriously bad backache pissed of by a male. They may have killed off all the males everytime they got pregnant.

Pregnancy evolution

Pregnant women may stand out a mile away with their characteristic backward-leaning stance, but that clumsy-looking position is a unique adaptation that evolved over millennia, anthropologists said on Wednesday.

The bodies of women do two things when they are pregnant -- they adjust their stance to move the center of gravity to accommodate the growing fetus, and the lower vertebrae have evolved a distinct shape to allow this shifting to take place without damaging the spine, Katherine Whitcome of Harvard University and colleagues found.

I just added this cause i thought it was funny.

Men do not have this adaptation, either, Shapiro said.
"We can only conclude that men can't resist the forces of their big bellies as well as women. They are at a disadvantage," she said.

mojo




[edit on 13/12/07 by mojo4sale]

I skimmed through many posts, read a few. Lots of em here you know!
Idid not see, but I may have missed, the one thing that modern humans are so fricking good at. Killing off other species.

I read a paper once where this Doctor explained how human kind, upon encountering Neanderthal, could have waged a centuries long war of eradication against them. A thought. Evidence? Probably nothing substantial.

I remember hearing at one point that humans began being born earlier due tot he size of our heads, basicly a fully formed infant would remain womb locked, to large to the leave. Part of the reason why we are not able to scamper around like other critters soon after birth is due to basically being preemies as a race. Makes me wonder what affect this had on humans as a species, might be part of the reason human species became continuously lighter as time went on. To look at a reconstructed Neanderthal and a modern Human and say you see nothing similer to the point of being a complete change of species is a bit far fetched to me. Also that Darwinists are a massive cult intended to keep humanity blind for some reason is a bit off to, to me.
Anyway, thanks for the thread, this is one of my favorite subjects.Found a book once where Neanderthals had become dominant instead of humans, I forgot the title unfortunately, but it was pretty good.

Heres some new research that suggests that they died out due to the fact they were not able to make warm clothes during the last glacial maximum. Problem i have with this is that some Neandertal fossils and artifacts have been found after this period, unless these were just from the last remnants of the Neandertal population?

Neanderthals Stitched Too Little Too Late

Neanderthals probably froze to death in the last ice age because rapid climate change caught them by surprise without the tools needed to make warm clothes, finds new research.
Ian Gilligan, a postgraduate researcher from the Australian National University argues his case in the current issue of the journal World Archaeology. By the time some Neanderthals developed sewing tools it was too little too late, said Gilligan.

Page 2

mojo

reply to post by mojo4sale


How does the idea of sewing relate to survival? The Neanderthals had survived other ice ages during their time on Earth?

And it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a bear skin is warm, even if you have to tie it into place. This guy may be a scientist, but his logic sounds a bit strained to me.

reply to post by NGC2736



I agree it sounds pretty simplistic and not very plausible to me.
The Neandertal physique was intended for survival in colder climates i thought.
I think what this shows is that there are just so many alternate theory's about the demise of the Neandertals its difficult to sort the chaff from the hay!

A 40000 year old tooth found in Southern Greece has experts now believing that Neandertals were much wider travelled than previously thought.
www.archaeologynews.org

Analysis of a 40,000-year-old tooth found in southern Greece suggests Neanderthals were more mobile than once believed, paleontologists and the Greek Culture Ministry said Friday.
Analysis of the tooth — part of the first and only Neanderthal remains found in Greece — showed the ancient human to whom it belonged had spent at least part of its life away from the area where it died.

"Our findings prove that their mobility was significant and that their settlement networks were broader and more organized than we believed," she said.
Given that Neanderthals also coexisted with modern man in some parts of Europe, "one could presume that this mobility would facilitate the contacts of the two populations on a cultural and, perhaps, on a biological level."

Does that rule out one of the proposed reasons for their demise, that they weren't able to hunt as widely as Homo Saps.

reply to post by Tinhatman


We can look at "primitive" cultures existing in the world today that go to war. For the Papuan or Amazonian natives, warfare is an extreme last resort, and always has some greater root cause. Both sides bust their humps trying to negotiate away from the possibility of an actual fight. In these tribal societies, every single person is crucial. The loss of one or two people in a tribe can spell doom in adverse conditions.

Given that both sapiens and neanderthals were pretty damn bright, certainly had language capabilities and an understanding of the concept of "future" it's almost certain that these guys would have found a way to settle differences peacefully, because war is a horribly inefficient and dangerous way for a tribal society to do anything.

Of course, that's not to say that there is zero credibility to the idea - after all, chimpanzees are still considered a food source in the areas where they live, it's not too far fetched that in the absence of preferable game, sapiens might have gone after their bigger, lumpier cousins as a food source.

Mojo,

Yeeeeah, that idea reeks of "they died because they were dumber than us." I find it hard to swallow... Plus the idea of these guys running around in glacial-period Europe with their nuggets hanging out seems, well... unlikely as hell. They were well-adapted to the environment, but they're still suck with the same traits as the rest of the hominid tree - such as having no undercoat. Brrrr.

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox

Plus the idea of these guys running around in glacial-period Europe with their nuggets hanging out seems, well... unlikely as hell.

Thanks a lot, i just laughed so hard i spat coffee out through my nose.
Thats the trouble with a vivid imagination.

rofl.

I think it is going to boil down to a number of factors, but primarily climate change and interspecies conflict.

I watched a very convincing Discovery channel documentary that analysed the physique of a neaderthal man. They then made a computer simulation of how he ran. It wasn't very graceful, and compared to a human, not very fast (not that I could have run much faster, but years of big macs will do that to a man).

This program postulated that as the ice age waned, being stumpy and hardy became less important than being able to run like a gazelle. Neanderthal man's physique was not designed for long sprints over open ground, it was designed for short bursts of stumping through heavy snow.

Apparently this neanderthal skeleton had a ridiculous popeye right arm. The ligament attachments were so deep on the bone as to have actually bent the bones of the forearm apart (god knows what they are called) and were clearly visible even on the little finger. This was done by short sharp charges at something with a spear, using the right arm to take the impact of the blow, and the left to aim.

So what this meant is that he was an ambush hunter. He was a double-hard bastard too (ambush hunt what, a mammoth? Yeah, you first mate!), but when the climate started favouring those who could run like Linford Christie, he was left waddling behind homo sapiens.

Given enough time, I imagine this would lead to a serious food shortage for the Neanderthal population. So whats next? Well, when someone is monopolising the resources you need to the extent it is get them or die...well, you have to stop that someone from monopolising them.

Although they might have been hard, starvation does not make for large populations, unlike those smarmy, long-legged humans. We had the food, so we had the numbers. They eventually brung it, and we probably finished them off. It was going from bad to worse for the poor neanderthals because they were hard to kill.

Judging by the hybrid skeletons found, I suppose it is possible they were bred out, but someone posted a link contradicting it (which it is too late in the evening for me to start on now). But ultimately, who has seen the reconstructions of neanderthal faces? Good grief, would you do that? Exactly. Would your great....great-grandfather want to hit that too? I'm sure the cro-mag women weren't all Jessica Alba, but they surely had to be a better choice than bigfoot's little sister.

I have seen nothing to indicate disease was a major factor in the extinction of the neanderthals. Anyone got anything to suggest it was?

I recall reading an article that stated that remote colonies of neanderthals existed up until 10,000 BC, however I can't recall where the article was.

If this is true, it could be that Cain and Abel are just transpositions of much earlier racial memories. Perhaps the Laestrygonians from the Illiad are an ancient throwback (obviously distorted through time). Who knows how long these people were telling their children what their parents told them?

reply to post by C.C.Benjamin



Good post.

I think it was likely a combination of all those events plus the many others stated throughout the thread. One small thing after another conspired against them until in the end it wore them down.
And i guess in the end we were just a slightly better version, bit like trading up when the old car starts to leak oil.

I going to bet that the dieing out of most of the mega fauna at the end of the ice age helped do them in as well, seeing as many of the larger creatures started dieing out around the same time. Large bodies call for large food sources, and if the large food sources are dieing out well... then you're soon to follow, right?

What makes you think that Neanderthals died out? I could show you half a dozen unibrow, knuckle-dragging, monosyllabic, grunting, hairy-backed ape-like creatures that I work with. Neanderthals aren't extinct. They just moved to Oklahoma.

Originally posted by andre18
Humans simply do not fit the pattern of primate development on Earth. Notice the word development instead of evolution. Species that appear here do undergo changes in morphology over time. It's called microevolution, because it describes changes in body parts. Darwinists use the undeniable reality of microevolution to extrapolate the reality of macroevolution, which is change at the species-into-more-advanced-species level. That is blatantly not evident in the fossil record, especially when it comes to human physiology.

Humans have been shoehorned by Darwinists into having a place in the fossil record that doesn't belong to them but to living hominoids (Bigfoot, etc.). Furthermore, humans have been shoehorned into being primates, when there is little about them--certainly nothing of significance--that fits the classic primate pattern. In fact, if it weren't for the desperate need of Darwinists to keep humans closely linked to the primate line, we would have had our own appellation long ago--and we'll surely have it once the truth is out from the Pandora's box of Darwinist deception.

Relatively speaking, primate bones are much thicker and heavier than human bones. Primate muscles are five to 10 times stronger than ours. (Anyone who's dealt with monkeys knows how amazingly strong they are for their size.) Primate skin is covered with long, thick, visible hair. Ours is largely invisible. Primate hair is thick on the back, thin on the front. Ours is switched the other way around. Primates have large, round eyes capable of seeing at night. Compared to theirs, we have greatly reduced night vision. Primates have small, relatively "simple" brains compared to ours. They lack the ability to modulate sound into speech. Primate sexuality is based on an oestrus cycle in females (though some, like bonobo chimps, have plenty of sex when not in oestrus). In human females, the effects of oestrus are greatly diminished.

This list could go on to cite many more areas of difference, but all of them are overshadowed by the Big Kahuna of primate/human difference: all primates have 48 chromosomes, while humans have "only" 46 chromosomes. Two entire chromosomes represent a heck of a lot of DNA removed from the human genome, yet somehow that removal made us "superior" in countless ways. It doesn't make sense. Nor does the fact that even with two whole chromosomes missing from our genome, we share what is now believed to be 95% of the chimp genome and around 90% of the gorilla genome. How can those numbers be made to reconcile? They can't.
Something is wrong here. Someone has been cooking the genetic books.

that made no sense at all, there are logical/rational theories for all the problems you posed, but i wouldn't know were to start you posted so much ****.

you first claim we are nothing like other primatives, despite sharing (varying studies) 95-99% of genetic material with chimps, let alone being morphologically/psychology the same compared with any other animal in the kingdom.
you obviously have no/little understanding of genetics making claims like have two less chromosomes means having less genetic material.

everyone likes a good conspiracy, but at the least get off the stichen band wagon and come back to reality.

ill also just like to add even though you probably wont take any notice, the chances of a organism being fossilized is extremely rare. we are obviousaly not going to have every single million intermediate stages of human evolution in quantifiable fossil record due to them probably not even being fossilized. just taking a stab, maybe only 1 in every 10,000-100,000 human ancestors in the past 5 million years have been fossilized in good condition. and even if all the "million stages" were fossilised which they aren't, governments have better things to do with their money than spend it on disproving jockies.

[edit on 27/2/08 by cheeser]

As people said earlier, its simply because they couldn't adapt to the environment. For example, homo habilis was able to make a hand ax, the first tools. But his brain was not complex enough to understand that if you strap the stone onto a stick, you'd have another type of tool.

Which begs the question: Just how complex are our own brains? We'd like to think that we are the final species, the most superior, but perhaps there are things that even our brains cannot even begin to comprehend. Perhaps we will never achieve travel past Mars because our brain is not complex enough to understand how to do so.