"Stupid" Neandertal upgraded

[Digit]

I've got a terrible feeling that it's going to be HSS that turns out to be the congenital idiot, not HSN!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

LOL, Roy.

Starting to look that way, huh?

[Minimalist]

And yet more on the smart-and-getting-smarter HNS.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/0 ... mmoth.html

ept. 9, 2008 -- They may have been stronger, but Neanderthals looked, ate and may have even thought much like modern humans do, suggest several new studies that could help explain new evidence that the early residents of prehistoric Europe and Asia engaged in head-to-head combat with woolly mammoths.

Together, the findings call into question how such a sophisticated group apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth around 30,000 years ago.

The new evidence displays the strengths and weaknesses of Neanderthals, suggesting they were skilled hunters but not as brainy and efficient as modern humans, who eventually took over Neanderthal territories.

Neanderthal Vs. Woolly Mammoth

Most notably among the new studies is what researchers say is the first ever direct evidence that a woolly mammoth was brought down by Neanderthal weapons.

Margherita Mussi and Paola Villa made the connection after studying a 60,000 to 40,000-year-old mammoth skeleton unearthed near Neanderthal stone tool artifacts at a site called Asolo in northeastern Italy. The discoveries are described in this month's Journal of Archaeological Science.

[Digit]

Of course we are much cleverer, we have THE BOMB!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Not to mention online porn!

[Rokcet Scientist]

Evolution is a crapshoot

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n11283371-dinosaurs/

If the analogy holds for hominids, and why not, then we must face the very real possibility that HN was defacto a 'superior' hominid version to HSS, to us, but HN just had tough luck. Like a fatal, species specific influenza, or something else we simply haven't yet conceived of. And we, HSS, had the break(s). Sofar.
It may all be just a matter of a throw of the dice.

[Minimalist]

I'm more and more convinced that disease was the mechanism that brought down HNS.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I'm more and more convinced that disease was the mechanism that brought down HNS.

So am I. OTOH: I have difficulty to accept that a scenario like that would have taken 10,000 to 15,000 years to play out. That seems awfully long for a disease induced extinction. Of course (HS) people were roaming hunter-gatherers. They didn't live in close contact next door to each other in cities, or even in villages. And current thinking is that there were only a few tens of thousands of HS in existence. In the whole of (ice age) Europe and the Middle East. So HS groups/tribes probably met other HS groups/tribes only very rarely. Like once or twice a year. But 10,000 to 15,000 years still seems like a awful long time to me for a disease scenario...

[Minimalist]

I've thought about that also, R/S....in fact, participated in a discussion at Internet Infidels about it. Something like Typhus may have done the trick.

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/At ... typhus.jsp


In particular the lice-borne version is particularly deadly and it is fair to say that lice were common. The transmission of infected lice from HSS to HNS would require contact. As you say, these were scattered groups and contact would have been limited to the "front" of the advance.

[Rokcet Scientist]

But typhus would have affected HSS too. (Unless there was a species specific strain. But is that possible with typhus? Afaik great apes are just as susceptible to diseases like typhus as humans are. HIV/AIDS in fact originated in chimps!) And if both HN and HSS were seriously affected, shouldn't we find signs of that in skeletal remains and such?

And it still doesn't explain that 10,000 to 15,000 year 'incubation' time for me.

[Rokcet Scientist]

OMG, that's him!

Wonder why the artist trimmed his whiskers on his face but not his neck? Isn't the neck where a beard is itchiest?

Only when it's (very) short, patty. If it is long (enough) hair is soft.
Which is one reason why many people shaving their pubic hair need to repeat that every (other) day, for instance....

Is that from personal experience, RS?

Since you and Dig are so interested: yes! Which is why don't have it shaven* smoothly as is fashionable today, but just (very) short. Prevents itchiness, and also considerably increases the intervals that it needs to be done at. Once a week is enough for me.

* yes, I've got very cute personnel to do that for me! Doesn't everybody love a visit to the barber/hairdresser?

[Minimalist]

Typhus also confers immunity on survivors. There is nothing to suggest that HSS did not suffer from typhus but the survivors may have built up a degree of immunity. Of course...they could still pass it on to others.

[Rokcet Scientist]

But if so many people died of it – be they HN or HSS – shouldn't we be able to find signs of it in remains? Shouldn't those signs in fact be staring us in the face? Afaik, they aren't!

[Digit]

In essence RS you have raised an objection that I was going to bring forward.
Currently, and historically there is, has never been, a disease that has 100 % mortality rate.
Granted the number of survivors could be below the rate of sustainability, but I would expect such a disease to show results on the skeletons of those who survived, if only as malnutrition.
Personally I have long believed that we simply interbred to produce our present form, this would also account for the physical and mental differences between those areas frequented by HSN and those areas that did not spread to.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I have no idea if that disease leaves distinctive markings on bones...which is all we have left of HNS.

Is there a doctor in the house?