Archaeologica.org

http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blo ... rthal.html

What, according to the researchers, are some of the most relevant findings of the paper?

Neanderthals were different from modern humans already at birth. This implies that most species-specific characteristics such as the Neanderthal's heavy brow developed during embryonic and fetal development, rather than after birth.

Brain size at birth, a typically human feature, appears to be an old evolutionary achievement, inherited from a common ancestor.

Neanderthal women had to face similar child-bearing problems as modern human women. The female Neanderthal pelvis was wider than in modern human females--but the head size of Neanderthal newborns was also larger.

After birth, Neanderthal brains grew faster than those of modern humans, but they had to reach larger adult brain sizes. Faster growth did not imply earlier completion of growth, the scientists said.

Growing large brains at a fast pace is an energy-intensive process, which can only be sustained by large, late-maturing mothers."Compared to modern humans, it thus appears that Neanderthals had somewhat slower life histories," the researchers said. This meant they reached sexual maturity later and may have lived longer.

The slow life history of the Neanderthals might be a feature shared with Ice Age populations of Homo sapiens. These early modern humans had larger adult brain sizes than people today.

"Brain size reduction in modern humans over the past 40,000 years is well-documented," the researchers said in their notes. "We hypothesize that growing smaller but similarly efficient brains might have represented an energetic advantage, which paid off in faster reproductive rates in modern [humans] compared to Pleistocene people. Reducing brain size thus might represent an evolutionary advantage."

kbs2244 wrote:So:
We are dumber and sexier;
Therefore we win?

I don’t know if I like the implications of that argument!

"Brain size reduction in modern humans over the past 40,000 years is well-documented," the researchers said in their notes. "We hypothesize that growing smaller but similarly efficient brains might have represented an energetic advantage, which paid off in faster reproductive rates in modern [humans] compared to Pleistocene people. Reducing brain size thus might represent an evolutionary advantage."

We are dumber and sexier;
Therefore we win?

Barbara Tedlock’s marvelous new book, The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine, documents how, “despite the proof of language and artifacts, despite pictorial representations, ethnographic narratives, and eyewitness accounts, the importance—no, the primacy—of women in shamanic traditions has been obscured and denied.” By reviewing archaeological and legendary evidence indicating that women have held prominent positions as shamans dating back as far as the Stone Age, and by collecting anthropological research showing that women shamans remain active today in many parts of the world, Tedlock challenges the prevailing anthropological view that shamanism has been primarily a male vocation, closely associated with hunting activities.

Citing historic accounts recorded in the twelfth-century shamanic Chinese epic Wubuxiben Mama and the thirteenth-century Manchurian legend The Tale of the Nishan Shamaness, Tedlock argues that women shamans have long held high-ranking positions in North Asia.

Indeed, she points out that some of the oldest Neolithic graves excavated in Siberia have yielded skeletons of women shamans, who were buried with carved mammoth-bone figurines noticeably similar to the bird-headed figures depicted in nearby rock paintings and on drums used by Siberian shamans today.

As further evidence of the continuity of female shamans in Siberia, Tedlock notes that many contemporary Mongolian shamans—both males and females—trace their lineage back through their mothers’ clans for nine or more generations. She reports that, while conducting field research in Mongolia, she observed a shamanic seance performed by a contemporary Siberian shaman woman, Bayar Odun, who is a tenth-generation shaman. Significantly, Bayar hung a special bag—described as a “sacred childbirth bag”—on her wall for use during her healing rituals, highlighting her work as a midwife, and the bag reportedly contained the “deified souls of deceased shamans in Bayar’s lineage, who served as her protective spirits.”

... Tedlock also challenges the denigratory theory proposed by some male archaeologists that Paleolithic female figurines—such as the Venus of Willendorf and the Venus of Lespugue—were “fertility symbols, erotic amulets, or sexual playthings” made and used by men. Based on the fact that many of the Paleolithic female figurines are anatomically correct—“when considered from the perspective of a woman looking down upon her own naked body” —Tedlock proposes that it is more likely that they “might have belonged to women shamans whose specialized skills included midwifery.”

As she later explains, the habitual failure of many anthropologists to recognize the importance of women in shamanic vocations can be explained partly by the reality that “women shamans are almost always midwives,” and “midwifery has rarely been acknowledged as a shaman’s art.” This misguided bias has effectively obscured a major portion of women’s shamanic work from the anthropological record.

As she later explains, the habitual failure of many anthropologists to recognize the importance of women in shamanic vocations can be explained partly by the reality that “women shamans are almost always midwives,” and “midwifery has rarely been acknowledged as a shaman’s art.” This misguided bias has effectively obscured a major portion of women’s shamanic work from the anthropological record.

Cognito wrote:
Midwives

Cognito wrote: That could explain the difference between HN and HSS at about 50,000 years ago - assuming that women gained entry to shamanism at that time.

This is illustrated in the Homeric myths where all the noblest men in Greece vie for the hand of Helen (and the throne of Sparta), as well as the Oedipian cycle where Oedipus weds the widow of the late king at the same time he assumes the Theban kingship.

This trend is also evident in many Celtic myths, such as the (Welsh) mabinogi of Culhwch and Olwen, or the (Irish) Ulster Cycle, most notably the key facts to the Cúchulainn cycle that Cúchulainn gets his final secret training with a warrior woman, Scáthach, and becomes lover to both her and her daughter; and the root of the Táin Bó Cuailnge, that while Ailill may wear the crown of Connacht, it is his wife Medb who is the real power, and she needs to affirm her equality to her husband by owning chattels as great as he does.

A number of other Breton stories also illustrate the motif, and even the Arthurian legends have been interpreted in this light by some. For example the Round Table, both as a piece of furniture and as concerns the majority of knights belonging to it, was a gift to Arthur from Guinevere's father Leodegrance...

Arguments have also been made that matrilineality lay behind various fairy tale plots.

For instance, the widespread motif of a father who wishes to marry his own daughter -- appearing in such tales as Allerleirauh, Donkeyskin, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, and The She-Bear -- has been explained as his wish to prolong his reign, which he would lose after his wife's death to his son-in-law.[11] More mildly, the hostility of kings to their daughter's suitors is explained by hostility to their successors. In such tales as The Three May Peaches, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, or The Griffin, kings set dangerous tasks in an attempt to prevent the marriage.[12]

Fairy tales with hostility between the mother-in-law and the heroine -- such as Mary's Child, The Six Swans, and Perrault's Sleeping Beauty -- have been held to reflect a transition between a matrilineal society, where a man's loyalty was to his mother, and a patrilineal one, where his wife could claim it, although this is predicated on such a transition being a normal development in societies.[13]

Problems in the present-day Ainu culture derive from internal conflicts, fragmentation of traditional knowledge, stereotyping, and gender inequity. It is widely believed today among the Hokkaidô Ainu that it is inappropriate for Ainu women to pray to kamuy; if they wish to do so they must ask permission from men.

A historical study (Tanaka 2000) indicates that the present male-dominated ceremonial and ritual practices of the Hokkaidô Ainu likely resulted from contact with the feudal Japanese, who came under the influence of Confucianism and its patrilineal system during the Edo period (1603-1867).....