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Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

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Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#61

Post by spideymans »

cletus wrote: post #24
lqet wrote: post #5

I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that…

Two things spring to mind: The first is that how we think is deeply intertwined with language. There's tons of evidence of this, not the least of which is Helen Keller's description of her world before she learned language. We'll probably never know what language existed 50,000+ years ago, how sophisticated or simple it was and how it affected how our ancestors thought. The second is the evidence we have from the anc…

> The second is the evidence we have from the ancient world, which was a mere 2,000 years ago. We have written records going back another 3,000-4,000 years before that. I find this period fascinating for many reasons but a big one is how alien we would find the ethics and how societies worked

Can you elaborate some more on these differences? I’d love to learn more.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#62

Post by agumonkey »

lqet wrote: post #5

I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that…

about intelligence, being in post agricultural has benefits, but it removes the constant stimulation and challenge of wild life indeed. The former allows for slightly more explicit and abstract thinking, the latter for intuitionistic skills (ability to find quick solution that work for critical situations). I'm interested in this topic because spending time in the woods made my brain operate very differently. Also crafting with no evolved tooling is very hard.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#63

Post by usrusr »

lqet wrote: post #5

I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that…

"I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes?"

If population density was as low as we like to imagine (was it? Or is it just sites where traces survived into the present being so rare?), perhaps a neanderthaliensis tribe was just as alien to them as any foreign sapiens tribe would be?

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#64

Post by ivan_gammel »

HappyDreamer wrote: post #52
Juliate wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intelligence is also highly context-specific. Context today is not the same for the average human 200 years ago, even more different 2000 or 20k years ago. I'm not sure high IQ people from today would make it far in more ancient times, and not because smarter or dumber, but only because they are unadapted.

> Intelligence is also highly context-specific It's not though. It's the opposite, and that's what makes it interesting, and why it's being measured. The g factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) General intelligence is related to the ability to learn new things in general, no matter the context. And today's humans, would, if they got to start as babies 20k years ago, learn all there was to kno…

> And they'd start feeling bored.

Likely not. Agafia Lykova is not bored, she‘s still not using any of the modern technology and she’s still living like her ancestors lived 500-100 years ago. And she was young when her family was discovered.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agafia_Lykova

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#65

Post by ed_balls »

idiotsecant wrote: post #46
lqet wrote: post #5

I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that…

As far as I know the commonly accepted meme of neanderthals as dopey slow caveman versions of us is not as well accepted as it once was. I've read that the current idea is that neanderthals were stronger, faster, and possibly even smarter than sapiens but that they were less efficient, suited more for quick sprinting and hard fighting in environments with plentiful food sources and less suited to long distance travel…

If I were to bet my money I would bet it on social structure or a disease.

- Homo Sapiens had tribes 100-200 people when Neanderthals had 20-30. They were outnumbered. I'm not suggesting brutal wipe out, but competition for resources.

- we "won" because we were immune to a disease be brought from Africa.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#66

Post by alcover »

ethbr0 wrote: post #49
idiotsecant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the commonly accepted meme of neanderthals as dopey slow caveman versions of us is not as well accepted as it once was. I've read that the current idea is that neanderthals were stronger, faster, and possibly even smarter than sapiens but that they were less efficient, suited more for quick sprinting and hard fighting in environments with plentiful food sources and less suited to long distance travel…

As someone with an abnormal amount of Neanderthal DNA (relatively speaking for modern populations), I do seem to run a higher metabolic rate. I'd never thought to associate the two though.

How much do you have ? If very high I wonder how it can happen, since I'd guess ancient admixtures should dilute a lot over time.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#67

Post by randmeerkat »

snicker7 wrote: post #50
ivan_gammel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why most people assume that humans today are, on average, more intelligent than our ancestors 40,000 years ago. Evolution of our species continues and some changes in our anatomy are being observed even in the last 100 years of our history. The evolutionary pressure never stopped, it just changed its form. We are no longer competing with nature, we are competing with ourselves, adjusting our diet…

We are not smarter than our ancestors. Human brain size is down 20% from peak, and is continuing to shrink.

> We are not smarter than our ancestors. Human brain size is down 20% from peak, and is continuing to shrink.

Processors in 2000 were ~42nm in size, now they’re ~5nm in size. Not only did they get faster as they grew smaller, they became more efficient as well.

https://www.technotification.com/2021/06/what-is-nm-in-proce...

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#68

Post by ivan_gammel »

snicker7 wrote: post #50
ivan_gammel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why most people assume that humans today are, on average, more intelligent than our ancestors 40,000 years ago. Evolution of our species continues and some changes in our anatomy are being observed even in the last 100 years of our history. The evolutionary pressure never stopped, it just changed its form. We are no longer competing with nature, we are competing with ourselves, adjusting our diet…

We are not smarter than our ancestors. Human brain size is down 20% from peak, and is continuing to shrink.

If size of brains were any measure of IQ, elephants and whales would be the smartest animals on this planet.

Brains consume a lot of resources, so evolution had to optimize their efficiency. They need energy, they need cooling, they need removal of waste, they must deliver signals faster - all those things are pushing for miniaturization.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#69

Post by willmw101 »

snicker7 wrote: post #50
ivan_gammel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why most people assume that humans today are, on average, more intelligent than our ancestors 40,000 years ago. Evolution of our species continues and some changes in our anatomy are being observed even in the last 100 years of our history. The evolutionary pressure never stopped, it just changed its form. We are no longer competing with nature, we are competing with ourselves, adjusting our diet…

We are not smarter than our ancestors. Human brain size is down 20% from peak, and is continuing to shrink.

Most of the newer research on this topic suggests that it's neural connection complexity, and specifically frontal lobe volume, rather than overall brain size that determines intelligence or brain power.

https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/ask-neuroscientist-do...

>Luckily, there is much more to a brain when you look at it under a microscope, and most neuroscientists now believe that the complexity of cellular and molecular organization of neural connections, or synapses, is what truly determines a brain’s computational capacity. This view is supported by findings that intelligence is more correlated with frontal lobe volume and volume of gray matter, which is dense in neural cell bodies and synapses, than sheer brain size. Other research comparing proteins at synapses between different species suggests that what makes up synapses at the molecular level has had a huge impact on intelligence throughout evolutionary history. So, although having a big brain is somewhat predictive of having big smarts, intelligence probably depends much more on how efficiently different parts of your brain communicate with each other.

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Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#70

Post by HappyDreamer »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #64
HappyDreamer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intelligence is also highly context-specific It's not though. It's the opposite, and that's what makes it interesting, and why it's being measured. The g factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) General intelligence is related to the ability to learn new things in general, no matter the context. And today's humans, would, if they got to start as babies 20k years ago, learn all there was to kno…

> And they'd start feeling bored. Likely not. Agafia Lykova is not bored, she‘s still not using any of the modern technology and she’s still living like her ancestors lived 500-100 years ago. And she was young when her family was discovered. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agafia_Lykova

But there's around 10 billion people on the planet, you can always find some unusual person to make a point.

In this case, though, she might agree with me, I'd say -- in that she spends part of her time reading and constructing things, from the article you linked: "reading and construction".

Modern tech? I think there's lots of cool not-modern tech, ancient tech.

Edit: She's an amazingly cool person! Thanks for linking the article, I might have a closer look at her & her life (now done. I wonder how many books she has to read, and after how long she's forgotten them so she can re-read)

Edit2: Sorry if my first version of this post sounded a bit grumpy. Now edited

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