The Old World is a reference to those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia and Africa.
Neanderthals may once have been considered to be our inferior, brutish cousins, but a new study is the latest to suggest they were smarter than we thought - especially when it came to hunting.
The research found that the now extinct species were creating weaponry advanced enough to kill at a distance.
Scientists believe they crafted spears that could strike from up to 20m away.
So another supposed advantage of Homo Sapiens vanishes!
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
The spears found at Schöningen were in a cache of eight (primarily spruce) and weighed just under 2lbs apiece. Being carved and shaped like a javelin, and weighing the same as modern javelins, didn't anyone think that they could be flung like a javelin?
They were an excellent tool for bagging horses at a distance.
didn't anyone think that they could be flung like a javelin?
LOL. They did.... which would sort of mean that Heidelbergensis was more advanced that HNS which does not make a lot of sense since HNS was supposed to be the descendant of Heidelbergensis.
I've noted before that I'm not overly convinced that all these designations were actually separate species.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
I've noted before that I'm not overly convinced that all these designations were actually separate species.
Given the amount of hybrids that we are aware of so far, I agree. These are pretty much the same species changing over time due to different environmental habitats, but not enough so they couldn't interbreed.
I had always thought that the dominant opinion that Neanderthals (& their ancestors) hunted mega fauna at close quarters was silly. They even cited the prevalence of serious injuries noted on the skeletal remains as 'proof' of how dangerous it was to hunt for subsistence in the time before HSS became the dominant human species. I always wondered how a species that survived & probably thrived for hundreds of millennia, under varying climatic conditions, could suddenly become so 'fragile' when confronted with HSS's magnificence... In other words, I felt that what Victorian/Edwardian anthropologists theorized about them was nothing more than a spin agenda that exalted our species as the crown of creation, having no real proof. (and was carried forward into later generations of anthropologists) Even though Neanderthals have been proven to be 'human' they wanted to somehow show that the 'us' were superior to the 'them'. So they looked for ways in which they could show them to be primitive & backward. At every turn, whenever they could, they cited any little difference as a negative. The longest standing assertion is that Neanderthals are not our cognitive equals. With more & more of these cited differences falling to the wayside,
what's next?
"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." ~ Alexander Pope
I always wondered how a species that survived & probably thrived for hundreds of millennia, under varying climatic conditions, could suddenly become so 'fragile' when confronted with HSS's magnificence...
The HN population was incredibly low in Eurasia when HS showed up, most estimates I have seen are about 16,000. More likely, HS simply outbred them (and occasionally with them) in addition to introducing enough new diseases that their numbers died out quickly in the face of an expanding population of newbies.
The longest standing assertion is that Neanderthals are not our cognitive equals. With more & more of these cited differences falling to the wayside, what's next?
Their braincase was shaped differently, but they had just as much neural matter if not more. They may have had superior cognitive abilities in some respects, but we just don't know.
The HN population was incredibly low in Eurasia when HS showed up, most estimates I have seen are about 16,000. More likely, HS simply outbred them (and occasionally with them) in addition to introducing enough new diseases that their numbers died out quickly in the face of an expanding population of newbies.
Exactly. I believe that they were as fit HSS, just separated & isolated from us for long enough to have no immune defense against the communicable diseases that we carried along with us in our travels. I've also read that because of their low population size & long term isolation they were forced to inbreed more than was healthy for a species. A case of really rotten luck in the scheme of things. They did leave a legacy though. It lives on in most non sub Saharan African humans.
"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." ~ Alexander Pope
Neanderthals once inhabited Europe and western Asia, spreading as far east as the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia, but the geographical origin and time of arrival of the Altai populations remain unresolved. Excavations at Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai foothills have yielded 90,000 stone artifacts, numerous bone tools, 74 Neanderthal fossils, and animal and plant remains recovered from 59,000- to 49,000-year-old deposits. The Chagyrskaya Neanderthals made distinctive stone tools that closely resemble Micoquian artifacts from eastern Europe, whereas other Altai sites occupied by earlier Neanderthal populations lack such artifacts. This suggests at least two dispersals of Neanderthals into southern Siberia, with the likely ancestral homeland of the Chagyrskaya toolmakers located 3,000 to 4,000 kilometers to the west, in eastern Europe.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Researchers have described the first "articulated" remains of a Neanderthal to be discovered in a decade.
An articulated skeleton is one where the bones are still arranged in their original positions.
The new specimen was uncovered at Shanidar Cave in Iraq and consists of the upper torso and crushed skull of a middle-aged to older adult.
Keep digging, boys!
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
I had thought that Shanidar Cave was like a worked out mine... I really thought that they had excavated down to sterile horizons. It just goes to show you that surprises still pop up. The article that I read stated that the burials were placed in an existing water erosion channel that HNS had dug out a bit to deepen it. That shows cognitive skills & planning in my opinion. Perhaps the lower half of the remains were washed away to another part of the cave by water running through that channel. Maybe they'll find the rest of the skeletal remains from that individual burial. They also stated that a certain part of the cranium that often harbors usable DNA was intact & could possibly provide the DNA needed for a genomic study. That's pretty exciting news. I hope they don't drag their feet on publishing this discovery. I'm still waiting on fresh news about the structures in Bruniquel Cave...
"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." ~ Alexander Pope
So, while the discovery of the healed fracture at Manot is not unique, it adds to the growing body of evidence that shows that prehistoric hominins were anything but primitive brutes, researchers say.
“They didn’t leave people who were sick to die somewhere, they took care of those who were weaker,” Hershkovitz says. In fact, he adds, the creation of complex societies that led hominins to cooperate on difficult tasks and mutually support each other when an individual faltered is probably the main reason for the survival of these groups, and ultimately proved to be the key to the success of our species.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
In order to read articles on the Haaretz website you must be a paid subscriber...
"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." ~ Alexander Pope
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Siberian Neanderthals originated from various European populations
Quite the little travelers!
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
