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In a one on one physical confrontation between HNS and HSS, who would most likely survive?
I go with HSS. HNS had the brute strenght but HSS had the brains and would probably outwitted his opponent.

Perhaps HSS had a faster metabolism, and quicker reflexes?
I don't know what part the metabolism may have played but HSS surely had the better reflexes. Just look at weight lifters today (or any other sport where bulk is paramount, except maybe football players) strength doesn't necessarily mean they are agile and fast.

And why haven't we found any physical evidence of physical confrontation between the two species? Is it out there waiting to be found?
If there was physical confrontatin, I'm sure that we will find it eventually. But I don't think that there was a much as some people like to think. When I went to college and majored in Anthropology, everyone thought that early man was extremely violent and that we went around bashing each other over the head with tree branches, rocks or whatever. Thank you Raymond Dart for starting that way back in the early 1920s.

Given the weapons involved it would probably have proven difficult to tell the winner and loser apart.

"I go with HSS. HNS had the brute strenght but HSS had the brains and would probably outwitted his opponent. "

Was HSS really "smarter? Maybe they just tested better!

Or in other words, smarter based on our own preception of intelligence.

Why would direct conflict and confrontation have been the cause of HNS' demise in the face of HSS? There's no evidence, yet, to that effect. But how about direct competition as a cause? Maybe HSS were so much more effective hunters that HNS couldn't find enough prey and simply starved? That could go a ways towards explaining the relative brevity of that "fade-out span" – approx. 5,000 years – from 46,000 to 41,000 years BC.

BTW, why do we refer to these guys as 'HNS'? What's the 'S' stand for?
Afaik them bozo's are 'Homo Neanderthalensis'. So 'HN' for short, imho.

As to interbreeding, or perhaps we should call it
intermarriage, even the newly cited 5,000 year period is a looong time...Lookit, here we are, only about 2000 AD...and think how much has happened in these last two millennia...
If a generation is about 20 years, that would be 1,000 generations during those 5 prehistoric millennia.
This may be a factor in the inheritance or reproduction of diseases/immunity, plenty of time for evolving/adapting to various changes, plenty of time for intermarriage or maybe even other positive (as well as negative) cultural/biological developments.
I would think that the Neans would be able to migrate to get to "greener pastures, " unless the were stopped, maybe hemmed in, by HS. Is that plausible?

Given the timeline of when HN died out and the fact we have no evidence of what transpired , maybe looking at how other species became recently extinct and the reasons thereof .
Example the Australian tiger wolf , became extinct in australia because man introduced the dingo and it couldnt compete for food , but survived on tasmania until man cut away its habitat and hunted it to extinction.
The same can be said for so many species , the dodo , the quagga,the Carolina parakeet , the Blue Pike ,the Eastern Elk , the Sea Mink , the list goes on. If man has such an impact on so many species now then I imagine Hss could do the same then , we just dont now how yet.

Rokcet Scientist wrote:Why would direct conflict and confrontation have been the cause of HNS' demise in the face of HSS? There's no evidence, yet, to that effect. But how about direct competition as a cause? Maybe HSS were so much more effective hunters that HNS couldn't find enough prey and simply starved? That could go a ways towards explaining the relative brevity of that "fade-out span" – approx. 5,000 years – from 46,000 to 41,000 years BC.

BTW, why do we refer to these guys as 'HNS'? What's the 'S' stand for?
Afaik them bozo's are 'Homo Neanderthalensis'. So 'HN' for short, imho.

But HNS was a successful hunter for a very long time prior to the arrival of HSS. It could be argued that his experience with existing fauna should have given him an advantage over the newcomers.

The HNS *female* skeleton was also more robust. And more narrow, simian, than HSS. The HNS females all died trying to birth hybrids, but the HSS females could handle it. Ergo, we are all HSS except for some HNS Y chromosome still swimming in the gene pool.

Minimalist wrote:But HNS was a successful hunter for a very long time prior to the arrival of HSS. It could be argued that his experience with existing fauna should have given him an advantage over the newcomers.

The newcomers, HSS, were accomplished hunters as wel. They had survived almost 100,000 years before they arrived in "HN land" roaming vast African and Asian landmasses with a great variety of game, probably a greater variety than Europe offered.
So HN may have had greater hunting experience in Europe, but HSS probably had greater hunting experience per sé!
But whether that – and how – contributed to HN's demise is not at all clear.

It's a fascinating idea though, R/S. Let's face it, HSS did not "invade" Europe in the sense of "D-Day." They, too, were small groups of hunter gatherers advancing into the European countryside, killing and eating as they went.

Did they have a sense of conquest or exploration? Unlikely but possible. In military terms, knowledge of the terrain usually helps the defender so that should have been on HNS' side as well.

Assuming for the moment that both groups were capable hunters (as they almost certainly would have to have been in order to survive at all) that leaves climate change, war or disease as the most likely instruments of HNS' demise.

Let's consider that even a victorious engagement by HNS over HSS would in all probability have resulted in casualties to the winning side. If the adult male hunters of the group were doing the fighting and some were killed or seriously wounded the implications for long term survival of that particular band would have been seriously impaired. If even as a result of "winning" they lost the battle to survive it just means that the next band of HSS wanderers to chance upon that particular spot would find an empty landscape.

Rokcet Scientist wrote:
Why would direct conflict and confrontation have been the cause of HNS' demise in the face of HSS? There's no evidence, yet, to that effect. But how about direct competition as a cause? Maybe HSS were so much more effective hunters that HNS couldn't find enough prey and simply starved? That could go a ways towards explaining the relative brevity of that "fade-out span" – approx. 5,000 years – from 46,000 to 41,000 years BC.

I don't really think that direct confrontation was the reason for the demise of HNS, but I am sure it did happen on occaison. Just a digression on my part.

There have been studies of caves that were occupied over time by both HNS and HSS. The remains showed that they both hunted and killed the same animals. The both showed the same portions of animals in thier prime. It has been surmised that this shows they were equally effective hunters. Sorry I can't show a source for this.

It may be as simple as HSS being more fertile and prolific. Reproducing faster and more often. HNs had a longer gestation period, (I think I heard somewhere) so didn't have as many babies. I'm speaking off the top of my head and have nothing to back this up. I just seem to remember hearing that. I don't know how anyone would know the gestation period for a long extinct creature. Just rambling.........

YOu still need to get to a situation where that superiority of numbers makes a difference, Frank. Larger HSS bands would have a military advantage over smaller HNS bands but they still have to be close enough to fight it out. Sooner or later increasing numbers of HSS would have come into actual conflict with HNS.

The fact that we have no bones showing battle damage proves nothing. The old 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' stipulation means that such evidence could be there but has merely not been discovered.

I dunno bout the gestation either Frank. But I recall that the Shanidar HNS had seven medicinally important herbs buried with him, including an emmenagogue. This herbal knowledge from 52,000 years ago.

And the witches and midwives of Europe had lots of gynecological herbs with plenty of time to expand on the base we see at Shanidar. Today, we see babies proudly displayed noting they weighed 8 pounds or more. This would have horrified the ancient midwives who knew personally what a bitch it was to push a neonate that large out the birth canal. The fact that nothing is said about it now, is a testament to how patriarchic the culture still is.

And why the maternal death rate under patriarchy has been so high. HNS females, with a more narrow and more rigid pelvis would have required ergot or some other uterine stimulant to deliver at 8 months, say 5-6 pounds, in order to not have perineal tissue torn and thus not be exposed to infection.

Since HNS all lived in caves, and HSS had new shelter technology, it wouldda been natural for the latter to move into regions that had no caves, and thus no wildlife familiar with hunters. But maternal mortality was the cause of the extinction of HNS.

daybrown wrote:[...] But maternal mortality was the cause of the extinction of HNS.

Says who?