Neandertal's death, new theory.

[john]

All -

Who sez - Homo n. aside - that

Everyone who came outta Africa

Lo these many years ago,

Had to be black?

Assumptions are invidious.


hoka hey

john

[Minimalist]

That's a good question, John, and I've danced around it before. So this time, I'll go right for the jugular.

IF HSS in Africa were uniformly black and IF HSS subsequently left Africa and populated the entire world by replacing/killing/out competing HNS or HE, then WHY are not the populations of modern Europe and Asia also Black?


I think the issue is more complicated.

[AD]

Hi Minimalist...

If I remember correctly (not taking the time to research this right now), the favored hypothesis is that as humans migrated from sunny to northern climes natural selection produced lighter skin (less UV-attenuating melatonin) in response to the need for sunlight to synthesize vitamin D. This seems to make sense... Likewise, it's speculated that ethnic groups of more northerly origin retained hairiness for greater survivability in a colder climate.

Regards, AD

[Minimalist]

Hello, AD....it's like old home week around here all of a sudden.

I'd say that's the idea in a nutshell. The question is, how valid is it?


A wall painting from Seti I's tomb shows Nubians, Egyptians, Syrians, Berbers, and Canaanites.







Could it have really been that much warmer on the Nubian side of the border than the Egyptian?

[AD]

Hi again, Min...

Could it have really been that much warmer on the Nubian side of the border than the Egyptian?

Excellent question. As you said earlier, it's complicated. Clearly the classic ancient Egyptians (ca. 5000 BC onward, supposedly "Hamitic") were ethnically quite distinct from Nubians, but by then tens of thousands of years of migration to and fro had already taken place, so who knows? And as I (foggily) recall from archaeology and anthropology courses long ago, present-day Egyptians, after only 2000 years (little more than a blip on the time line), are ethnically quite different from those that built the pyramids, etc. And, Arabic language notwithstanding, modern Egyptians are quite distinct from "Arabs" as a whole. I sure don't know, and will leave it to others to sort it all out...

....it's like old home week around here all of a sudden.

Yeah... I greatly enjoyed participating in the discussions in this forum a couple years back, and still regularly read some of the discussion threads here (and it's nice to exchange words with you again). Like all of us, I have to budget my time, and along with everyday concerns I've been preoccupied recently with the time-consuming and often expensive pursuit of my own apparently unpopular archaeology projects. (If you like torches and pitchforks spectacles, look at some of my exchanges in archaeologyfieldwork.com.)

All the best, AD

[Minimalist]

present-day Egyptians, after only 2000 years (little more than a blip on the time line), are ethnically quite different from those that built the pyramids,

Of course but history also tells us that after Ramesses III, Egypt suffered a series of foreign conquests....including one from Nubia but also Libya, Assyria, Persia, Greeks and Romans before the Arabs.

Prior to Ramesses III ( c 1150 BC) Egypt had suffered only through one known foreign incursion, that of the Hyksos and they were from Canaan. Ramesses II is said to have had red hair. Seems a long way from a HNS mutation to Egypt.

I don't know. The more I think about this issue the more I twist my head into knots.

Thanks, John!

[Beagle]

Seems a long way from a HNS mutation to Egypt.

I don't know Min. Neanderthals lived in the middle east also. Mousterian tools have been found around the Nile delta, although no fossil remains.

We often read that Neanderthals found refuge in temperate Spain during the last Ice Age but the weather was fine in the Levant.

They lived from England to Siberia, and down through Georgia, Ukraine, and all of the Middle East.

And....as I've posted on before, the differences with Africans were more than skin deep. The femoral curvature of the modern European is the most pronounced of any of the other races today.

[Minimalist]

Neanderthals lived in the middle east also.

Exactly, and they wouldn't have needed cold weather adaptations while living there.

Then again, if the OOA claim that there was no interbreeding between HNS and HSS is correct then it wouldn't matter how many genetic adaptations that HNS had developed.

[Beagle]

Then again, if the OOA claim that there was no interbreeding between HNS and HSS is correct then it wouldn't matter how many genetic adaptations that HNS had developed.

Quite true, but when you look at the preponderance of the evidence, it appears that archaic humans evolved right where they were. And still are today. This is not only true in Africa and Europe, but also in China. There is no doubt about OOA, it just seems to have occurred 2 million yrs. ago.

When I get some time, I would like to post on the Neanderthal Genome Project. And look at it closely. I think we're closer to the truth than we ever have been.

[Minimalist]

There is no doubt about OOA, it just seems to have occurred 2 million yrs. ago.

But, yeah. HE has to factor in to this whole discussion.

[Nigel Di Salvia]

Could it have been a disease that finished them of?
Something that Cro-Magnon was immune to but Neanderthal wasn’t. Not necessarily a disease that wiped them out overnight, but something that might have caused a genetic mutation, along the lines of the iodine deficiency disorder mentioned in a previous post, that over a short period of time made them infertile. Or something along those lines.


Possibly??

[Minimalist]

Sure. As a matter of fact that's my pet hunch. The problem is that most diseases arose from the domestication of animals apparently and no one is willing to push that back to 35,000 BC.

One thought that sticks with me is typhus which is spread by lice and lice were all over HSS. Even incidental contact might allow lice to jump from HSS to HNS.

[Nigel Di Salvia]

OK. The two groups would obviously had to of had contact with one another over the thousands of years that they both shared in history. They both would have been following the same herds during the yearly seasonal changes, maybe even shook hands, so the chances are that they came into contact with the same animals.

The lice could have been transferred to the animals by HSS and then onto HNS.

But if it was a disease, does it have to be one we recognise today? What if the only creatures affected by it were Neanderthals? If this was the case then the disease could have died out with their demise.

[Minimalist]

It could have been almost anything. It surely had to be something that HSS had built up an immunity against.

Part of the argument that goes on is that there are any number of people around here who don't think that HSS and HNS were all that different.

[Cognito]

It could have been almost anything. It surely had to be something that HSS had built up an immunity against.

Min, it could even be simpler than that. Both HSS and HN could have been carrying diseases for which the other didn't have immunity. However, the increasing population (HSS) will eventually overcome the static population (HN) over time. It's similar to Grant's war of attrition upon the South. If he could kill an equal number of southerners at each conflict, he knew he would eventually win since he had superior numbers.