Humans and the 6th Mass Extinction

a reply to: UK2315

Maybe they jsut weren't as effective at procreation? Maybe we just bred them out of existence through attrition?

I love the guy who does the stones video its easy to see just how humans can find ways to do things .
Here in FL we have coral castle it was made BY one man who kept the way he did it secret all alone .

o it was NOT aliens

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: UK2315

Maybe they jsut weren't as effective at procreation? Maybe we just bred them out of existence through attrition?

That definitely seems to be part of the puzzle. The lack of Neanderthal Y DNA in HSS gives us some useful information. Part of which appears that while male HS engaging in admixture with female Neanderthal, the lack of Neanderthal Y DNA suggests that male HN werent able to impregnate female HS. Additionly a study from 2015 or 2016 did a comparison between archaic HS, HN, Denisovams and modern HSS. The result of this study showed that after 100KA Neanderthal Y DNA began to look more like that of HSS than Denisovam who they are more closely related to. This appears to suggest that as admixture continued, our own Y DNA replaced their own. So our prehistory is much more complex than we thought just a few years ago.

It's always possible that a society that was initially 50% HN and 50% HS just gradually drifted away from HN until it only made up 4%.

Maybe HN just couldn't subsist on plants, and had to eat meat. So when agriculture started to become the dominant source of nutrition, the male HN in the population started growing up sickly and scrawny, and the females of the tribe found them uninteresting.


This part of the article is interesting to me:

The answer lies in population growth. Humans reproduce exponentially, like all species. Unchecked, we historically doubled our numbers every 25 years. And once humans became cooperative hunters, we had no predators. Without predation controlling our numbers, and little family planning beyond delayed marriage and infanticide, populations grew to exploit the available resources.

The population doubling has really only been true since the arrival of agriculture. The need for more laborers motivated family size to become larger. Also staying in one place meant they didn't have to figure out how to carry young, helpless children as they migrated.

It's also the main reason why agri-driven cultures pretty much always win against gatherer cultures.

In some of Col. Custer's diary entries he points out that, actually, the native Americans he was chasing around had BETTER guns than his men did. They had been participating in the fur trade, and buying European weapons for a long time.

The whole guns vs. bow/arrow thing is a Hollywood myth.

But Custer had numbers. And a reliable supply chain, so his soldiers didn't have to stop and hunt to feed themselves.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous


It's always possible that a society that was initially 50% HN and 50% HS just gradually drifted away from HN until it only made up 4%.

Aside from there being no evidence of an isolated founder population comprised of 50/50 hybrids, you actually aren't that far off base. Otzi, the Iceman for example has a higher percentage of HN DNA than we do just 5000 years later by about 2 points. We've also found the remains of children from an archaic population who were between 1st and 3rd generation hybrids showing anywhere from 50/50 to 70/30 (HS to HN) genetics. There are other factors to consider as well. One being the marked decrease in genetic diversity in some populations. This led to some groups becoming cannibals to survive. In the end, people of European descent have anywhere from 2-5% HN DNA representing roughly 20% of the total HN genome after all is said and done. Another thing most people don't realize because of the focus on Denisovan admixture, is that some East Asian population

Maybe HN just couldn't subsist on plants, and had to eat meat. So when agriculture started to become the dominant source of nutrition, the male HN in the population started growing up sickly and scrawny, and the females of the tribe found them uninteresting.

HN weren't around long enough to see the advent of agriculture but there is plenty of evidence that they were omnivores as traces of plant based foods, such as berries for example, have been found trapped in the plaque on their teeth

This part of the article is interesting to me:

The answer lies in population growth. Humans reproduce exponentially, like all species. Unchecked, we historically doubled our numbers every 25 years. And once humans became cooperative hunters, we had no predators. Without predation controlling our numbers, and little family planning beyond delayed marriage and infanticide, populations grew to exploit the available resources.

The population doubling has really only been true since the arrival of agriculture. The need for more laborers motivated family size to become larger. Also staying in one place meant they didn't have to figure out how to carry young, helpless children as they migrated.

I can't really disagree with your assessment here. Though I personally wonder if having larger families due to sedentary lifestyles led to a larger workforce to begin large scale cultivation as opposed to the need for more farm hands led to larger families to work the land. But that's just my view as well as making sure I block the doors so as many as possible can stay open until more definitive answers can be found.

It's also the main reason why agri-driven cultures pretty much always win against gatherer cultures.

In some of Col. Custer's diary entries he points out that, actually, the native Americans he was chasing around had BETTER guns than his men did. They had been participating in the fur trade, and buying European weapons for a long time.

The whole guns vs. bow/arrow thing is a Hollywood myth.

But Custer had numbers. And a reliable supply chain, so his soldiers didn't have to stop and hunt to feed themselves.

I don't know if Custer was such a good example here because shoddy leadership led to a less than pleasant ending for he and his men at Little Bighorn. Overall though I tend to agree with most of your points.

It's not as big a surprise as you would think, when you consider what the ideal of beauty was back then:



en.wikipedia.org...



Considering the difference in proportional body mass overall, I wouldn't be surprised if NH females matched that ideal better than HS females.

Do we know how big their boobs were?

As for the rest, most guys with daughters hope their daughter will marry the most successful (among other traits) guy she possibly can. If Sapiens were engaged in trade with the HN, and Sapiens traders were bringing things that made the (usually smaller) HN clans feel better off, I could see the tribe's leader offering his daughter to the guy, so he'll have his family there, and then always keep coming back.

Here in FL we have coral castle it was made BY one man who kept the way he did it secret all alone .

Not really a secret.Just old ways of doing things.Engineering has been around for a long time.