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Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

science.org

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Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#111

Post by jojobas »

zkmon wrote: post #102

The phrase "survived on a knife edge" or the dramatization is a product of awareness of modern living. For them at those times, neither "survival" nor "struggle" has any meaning. There was likely no consciousness of such concepts. They just continued via instincts and evolutionary goals such as reproduction, food gathering, hunting etc, which were just the same activities their ancestors did, with no changes. Lack of…

Hunter-gatherers were always on a knife edge, as they were in equilibrium with the food supply. Killing children in dry years, constant fighting over resources, massacres of entire tribes. Of course they didn't know they were on the knife edge, so what?

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#112

Post by whymememe »

mcv wrote: post #109
jarjoura wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't imagine having to live with anxiety of just staying alive. Constant diseases, infestations, starvation, animal attacks. You would never feel like you have time to just, be. Instead you're focused on getting your next meal, and finding a place to sleep. It only took a few ice-ages to force us to get smart about how we organize and then here we are.

Most hunter-gatherer tribes had exactly that: time to just be. Their lives weren't governed by this rat race to always move up. Except for the harshest circumstances, they probably worked only 15 hours a week. Of course their play was partially training for that work, but I think in many ways, they lived more relaxing lives than we do. Work, disease, etc only really became a thing with the agricultural revolution. It…

I mostly agree, but the whole worked only 15 hours a week stat is almost certainly not correct. It came from a paper that only counted time outside of camp as work, so time spent in camp processing food wasn't counted. The actual number of hours varies massively - seasonally and geographically - but probably closer to 30-40.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#113

Post by mcv »

eru wrote: post #72
Fricken wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also nukes. We've got the whole place rigged to blow in case a few of us just doesn't feel like it anymore.

Nuclear war would be a major inconvenience, but it wouldn't nearly destroy the world.

Unless it's a very limited nuclear war, it would probably destroy the world as we know it, but that's a vague and flexible concept. It would likely destroy countries, societies, our way of life. Many people would die, but humanity would survive.

Some countries might survive. If the war takes place on the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere might be much less affected.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#114

Post by zkmon »

jojobas wrote: post #111
zkmon wrote: post #102

The phrase "survived on a knife edge" or the dramatization is a product of awareness of modern living. For them at those times, neither "survival" nor "struggle" has any meaning. There was likely no consciousness of such concepts. They just continued via instincts and evolutionary goals such as reproduction, food gathering, hunting etc, which were just the same activities their ancestors did, with no changes. Lack of…

Hunter-gatherers were always on a knife edge, as they were in equilibrium with the food supply. Killing children in dry years, constant fighting over resources, massacres of entire tribes. Of course they didn't know they were on the knife edge, so what?

Relative terms such as "living on edge" require normative references. It was just business-as-usual, normal life for them, in their own normative reference frame. Just like how cultures in some parts of the world today see things as normal, which would be abnormal to others. It's all your reference frame. There is no permanent or universal norms that can tell what is normal.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#115

Post by seanalltogether »

solids wrote: post #87
jarjoura wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't imagine having to live with anxiety of just staying alive. Constant diseases, infestations, starvation, animal attacks. You would never feel like you have time to just, be. Instead you're focused on getting your next meal, and finding a place to sleep. It only took a few ice-ages to force us to get smart about how we organize and then here we are.

Having one clear short term goal after another may sound to freedom for some people.

I think about this a lot. How much anxiety do most people feel from the millions of options that are available to them daily, or young adults that are told they can be anything they want, but clam up and choose to do nothing instead.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#116

Post by krapp »

seanalltogether wrote: post #115
solids wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having one clear short term goal after another may sound to freedom for some people.

I think about this a lot. How much anxiety do most people feel from the millions of options that are available to them daily, or young adults that are told they can be anything they want, but clam up and choose to do nothing instead.

Most people don't have millions of options available to them daily, at least not in any meaningful sense. Anxiety and choice paralysis is very much a first world privilege.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#117

Post by jstanley »

surgical_fire wrote: post #104
tyre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlocked much of the subsequent technological progress by enabling more food security and larger populations. It definitely did. Also note that agriculture was invented in multiple places over time. Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough, so they had far less time for technological development before Europeans arr…

Er, Aztecs and Incans definitely had agriculture. They actually had highly complex societies. What they mostly lacked were antibodies against the numerous diseases brought by the Europeans. Measles, Mumps, Cholera, Tuberculosis, and so on.

They had agriculture, yes, but they hadn't had it long enough to bootstrap an advanced civilisation before the Europeans arrived.

If they had, perhaps Europe would have been conquered by South Americans instead of the other way around.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#118

Post by jstanley »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #7

It's wild to think how long very human-like beings and modern humans existed before the technological revolution really took off. Hundreds of thousands of years of existing on the technological level of stone tools, spears, cloth made out of hides, and fire. Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow. Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlock…

There is a good post on this topic: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mFqG58s4NE3EE68Lq/why-did-ev...

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#119

Post by Fokamul »

Seventy years ago, a scientist published a book about Neanderthals. According to his scientific opinion, they didn’t speak; they communicated only through hand gestures and had to go to sleep early because they couldn’t see those gestures at night, lol.

In my country, there is an area with archaeological sites of Neanderthal villages and their mammoth hunting grounds. In one area, there are thousands of mammoth bones. Imagine having only wooden spears and ordinary stones at your disposal. Maybe flint spears, maybe not. In this area, flint is too rare and is mainly used for cutting, because the nearest flint deposit is 400 km away.

Re: Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

#120

Post by circlefavshape »

riffraff wrote: post #99
circlefavshape wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing a zero. It was EIGHTY thousand, not 8000.

I thought so too, but wikipedia says 8k

Ah weird - the text of the page says Atahualpa had 80k troops, but then the infobox describes the Inca forces as 3-8k in size. I guess not all the 80k were involved in the battle
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