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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

#71

Post by whodidntante »

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…

It is also quite possible that the Neanderthals were stronger, faster, smarter, and more moral/ethical, and that sapiens were simply crueler, more diabolical, more savage.

It is quite difficult to imagine a species that is more vicious to even its own members, let alone members of other species, than ours is.

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

#72

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mc32 wrote: post #18
sillysaurusx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true, I'm not sure we'd use the term "extinct" to refer to Neanderthals. (Some) humans are willing to mate with just about anything. There would be human-dog hybrids if it wasn't genetically impossible, as unsettling as that thought is. Seems more likely that we treated Neanderthals as humans do with other outsiders: we exterminated them and took their resources. Word has it that you can find their desce…

Isn't it possible that humans simply outbred them? You don't have to "get rid" of a population if you can interbreed and outbreed a given stock, no? It's not like one day they exist and the next they don't; rather, they slowly get absorbed into the larger, faster breeding pop. Or even disease they had no natural immunity for. I presume there would be some conflict as even among human pops conflict is a given --but no…

A clearer view might be, the population distribution changed. Fewer 'purebred' anything existed over time, and more mixed individuals. Until today we have a large fraction of humanity with both genes.

It's not necessary to posit a catastrophic change. There were simply more of the new kind, so there were more of their genes in the mix and fewer Neanderthal.

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

#73

Post by BitwiseFool »

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

This is fascinating, and now I've fallen down "See Also" Wikipedia rabbit hole. I'm glad you shared this.

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

#74

Post by enriquto »

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 a male homo sapiens, I have to say that if Neanderthal women looked like this [...]

Apparently, this is not what happened. It seems that there are no neanderthal traces on human mitochondrial dna. This means that all neandertal legacy comes from neanderthal males mating with human females.

It's not a question of how attractive you found a neanderthal girl. Maybe as a human male you wouldn't be strong enough to seduce her!

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

#75

Post by mellavora »

whodidntante wrote: post #71
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…

It is also quite possible that the Neanderthals were stronger, faster, smarter, and more moral/ethical, and that sapiens were simply crueler, more diabolical, more savage. It is quite difficult to imagine a species that is more vicious to even its own members, let alone members of other species, than ours is.

the percentage of deaths caused by other members of the same species:

Hylobates lar - 8.93% Gorilla beringei - 5.00% Pan troglodytes - 4.49% Hylobates agilis - 4.17% Nomascus hainanus - 1.00% Pongo abelii - 0.82% Pan paniscus - 0.68% Nomascus gabriellae - 0.59% Nomascus leucogenys - 0.59% Nomascus siki - 0.59% Nomascus concolor - 0.36% Gorilla gorilla - 0.14%

Modern humans - 0.14% Medieval Age, Old World - 12.08% (± 7.15%)

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19758.epdf?referrer_ac...

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

#76

Post by imbnwa »

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…

I mean Ridley Scott's The Last Duel features the last instance in France of its eponymous jurisprudence technique which came from Germanic tribal law before they were even literate (Germanic tribal warlords becoming the aristocracy everywhere but Ireland in post-Roman Western Europe), and this is about 500 or 600 years ago, never mind how much further back into the Bronze or previous time periods that dueling as juridical adjudication came from and what the world looked like to make such an idea palpable.

Wasn't an American President killed in a pistol duel not 130 years ago or so?

My grandfather grew up on a farm and never went to high school (which was a perfectly fine life decision in that milieu) and fought in WWII at 16 by lying about his age cause there were no birth certificates to prove otherwise

I think we very much underestimate how different human reality is as far back as 4000 years ago, nevermind 50k

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

#77

Post by robbedpeter »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #45
robbedpeter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also lived in caves for several tens of millenia across multiple stretches of time, without written language. There may have been some sort of ephemeral symbolic transfer (knots, beads, wood carvings,) but it looks like those cultures used primarily oral traditions. We know many non literate cultures develop memory palace techniques, so rigorous oral traditions can be incredibly durable and stable, with lots of in…

Nobody ever lived in caves. Artefacts were left in caves because they're the only place where the artifacts can persist for hundreds and thousands of years, and ancient man knew this just like the modern man.

Cavemen are a trope, for sure, but there were cave dwellers, known as troglodytes. There were extensive periods of time where caves represented a really good solution to environmental and climate changes over the last 300,000 years.

Troglodytes were relatively rare, and most prehistoric humans were probably of the nomadic or small village types of hunter gatherer cultures.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-humans-wea... - the toba catastrophe was one such event that likely forced humans to live in caves extensively.

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

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

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

#78

Post by ivan_gammel »

HappyDreamer wrote: post #70
ivan_gammel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 linki…

My point is, our intelligence requires some activation. It is context-specific in the sense, that pure brain cannot develop it alone, in isolation or in a low tech culture. Configuration of our brain takes time and education, so modern human in prehistoric context may not reach the same IQ as if this person would have studied in one of the best schools on this planet. Agafia is modern human being, but she never had a chance to learn all the things that others had access to. When she met the civilization, she was already an adult person and her ability and desire to learn more was limited. She ran away from civilization back to her hut in taiga, and never wanted to live another life. She does not read a lot and, if you watch the documentary about her, she‘s reading Bible or books for children, so it’s not the same being fond of reading as for someone with university degree. She is unusual, yet she is normal, and she is a good illustration of what would happen if modern human had to become a hunter-gatherer, losing almost all cultural baggage except faith.

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

#79

Post by wcoenen »

alcover wrote: post #66
ethbr0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's about 0% for sub-Sahara Africans, and in the 1% to 4% range for the rest. [1]

This may not mean exactly what you think it means though. Your non-Neanderthal genes are also almost identical to the Neanderthal ones, otherwise interbreeding would have been impossible. It's just that genes come with slight variances that can be used to trace ancestry.

E.g. you may also have heard that humans and chimpansee DNA is 98.8% identical, so there is obviously a different type of similarity metric being used there

[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1245938

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

#80

Post by arbitrage »

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #55
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…

I believe Neanderthals were also less pack oriented, so humans just had bigger powers in numbers. It's also fascinating that Neanderthals soundly beat us in the first round of incursions, and 50k years later humans presumably wiped them out entirely + all other variations of homonids

Neanderthals were better able to cope in colder climates than modern humans. The climate may just have pushed the immigration of them many several thousand years back.
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