Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by Schmerika » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

broken-kebab wrote: post #142

Schmerika wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't imagine having to live with anxiety of just staying alive. Spoken like someone who easily affords both rent and food. > Constant diseases, infestations, starvation, animal attacks. Not really, no. Sometimes, sure. Not all the time. A lot of food was more abundant, and a lot of modern diseases weren't an issue. Animal attacks were probably a 'constant threat' - but not likely a daily, monthly, or even yearly o…

>pretty wide agreement that the nature of life back then was like 3–5 hours/day spent on food gathering, with the rest spent socializing, resting, storytelling It's more a pop culture artefact than accepted science. Original idea of paleolithic abundancy was made in sixties by rather artsy approach to the data collected in modern Kalahari. Later re-verification of the same data produced figures around 6.5-7.5 hrs. Wh…

> Later re-verification of the same data produced figures around 6.5-7.5 hrs.

Well, yes, climate and ecology matter a lot. Still, I believe that figure is including things like making sure a pot doesn't boil over, ie low intensity chores; and includes 'social' tasks which look and feel very different to, say, factory work.

Still, the idea that life was "nasty brutish and short" for most of human history is thoroughly debunked. Life wasn't constant misery for everyone, despite what many people learned in school.

I think it's important that we remember what we've lost, as much as what we've gained. Whether we worked 3 hours a day or 7.5, no one (outside slavery) was working 60 hours a week and just keeping their heads above water despite thousands of years of 'progress'.

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

#162

Post by mcv » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #132

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have enough nukes to sterilise large areas of the planet. But most of them are tac nukes, and they don't come with the support hardware needed to deliver them to large areas of the planet. Reality is that Europe, Russia, the US, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and parts of the Far East could have a really bad time. But most of South America and Africa would likely survive with only economic and political damage…

Not sure sterilisation lasts long on earth: life re-claims sterilised areas. See your favourite massive volcano outbreak, or look at the Chernobyl exclusion zone. (The impact of the disaster at Chernobyl is much smaller in area than a nuclear explosion would be, of course. But life has re-conquered everything there.) In any case, I largely agree!

It might be worth noting that the number of direct deaths caused by Chernobyl is very low (2 perhaps?). But there have been hundreds of thousands of birth defects in its wake.

The survivors of nuclear war would have a really bad time, but humanity would survive.

None of this is to suggest we should be careless about it; it would be a massive disaster. But not the end.

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

#163

Post by mcv » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #121

whymememe wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd bet that a lot of that in-camp work didn't feel excessively laborious when it was done while socialising within your group, and without a sense of "wish I was playing video games". Sitting around a camp fire now whittling away at something is more mucking around than chore.

Exactly. I don't think there really was a clear separation between work and not-work back then. It's just life. Consider wild animals: do they work?

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

#164

Post by AndrewKemendo » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

ralferoo wrote: post #157

snovymgodym wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually every population outside of Sub-Saharan Africa has Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA between 1-4%. This includes all of Eurasia, all pre-Columbian American populations, Aboriginal Australians, Papuans, etc.

Is there any research about why Sub-Saharan Africa doesn't have Neanderthal DNA? Is the argument that the tribe of humans from Africa was good at repelling outside invaders, but themselves expanded outwards and assimilated (and then outnumbered) the other populations, or something else? It just seems a bit bizarre given that all humans elsewhere have relatively similar amounts (but quite a low amount) of Neanderthal…

Yes tons of research

There were multiple waves out of Africa but Most early anatomical human groups never left Africa as a result, there’s more DNA diversity within the continent than outside Africa

Its confusing because the non-african group grew exponentially while the intra-African continent continued to mature

The anatomically modern humans that left Africa spread rapidly and aggressively across the world basically absorbing and destroying every proto-human group and ecological niche and

now the world is ruled by the aggressive narcissistic chimeral hybrid of human (African) Neanderthal (European proto human) and denisovian (Peking man) that survived the exit snd expansion

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4067985/

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

#165

Post by netcan » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

MadDemon wrote: post #129

jarjoura wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neanderthals from 400kya are often classed as Heidelbergensis. Heidelbergensis is the last common anscestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and us. We were all around for just as long, 400kya+, and before that, it was Homo Erectus. All of them, Erectus, Heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, Denisovans and Sapiens were walking around at the same time. There's plenty of fossil records we've uncovered that show that to be true.…

Did they really die out, or did the population just merge with modern humans? Most people on the planet have some Neanderthal DNA, so clearly there was some intermixing. If modern humans were a much larger population, it makes sense that the Neanderthals only contributed a small amount of DNA to the gene pool. I could imagine that they were just slowly absorbed into the much larger Sapiens population.

>Did they really die out, or did the population just merge with modern humans.

Most populations die out. Most sapiens. Most neanderthals. Most everything. The chance of becoming an ancestor is very, very low.

Neanderthals were not slowly observed. Most of our neanderthal DNA comes from a single mixing event/period.

Evolutionary history is a history of bottlenecks. Small populations that survive and become large populations. The rest don't make it.

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

#166

Post by pfdietz » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #77

t-3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cattle, oxen, horses, camels, mules, donkeys, etc. The animals that are capable of heavy labor at or exceeding human level weren't present in the Americas. Llama and alpaca are more useful for fiber and meat than labor. Buffalo might possibly be useful but they are too big, wide-ranging, and aggressive to be easily tamed and bred.

Remember chicken and pigs, too. Not useful for labour, but good sources of high value nutrition, and can be fed of scraps or whatever they find around the house and garden. In Europe, pigs like eating acorns, which are otherwise fairly useless to humans.

In North America, deer eat acorns, but apparently are not suitable for domestication.

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

#167

Post by OkayPhysicist » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

surgical_fire wrote: post #110

hax0ron3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That played a large role, but they were also pretty far behind Europe in military technology so I am almost certain they would have been conquered anyway. It would have just taken longer. I'm no expert in the matter, but from what I've read it seems to me that the Mesoamerican civilizations in 1492 were probably at about the military level that the Eurasian civilizations had already reached in the first millenium BC.

Around 90% of the people died of plagues. It's really impossible to speculate how things would have progressed without those plagues. Or worse, if Native Americans were full of plagues that the conquistadors would bring back to Europe to cull 90% of Eurasia.

There's some speculation that Syphilis may have been a new world plague. The first major outbreak was a couple of years after Columbus returned, but figuring out when the first ever case was has proven more difficult.

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

#168

Post by stvltvs » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

jarjoura wrote: post #81

netcan wrote: post #61

>somehow Neanderthals managed to survive across most of Eurasia for nearly 400,000 years, longer than modern humans have been on Earth. These narrative simplifications end up just being confusing. Neanderthals from 400kya are often classed as Heidelbergensis. These guys were less Neanderthal-ish and more similar to us... being closer to and less divergent from the sapiens-neanderthal LCA. Neanderthal-Denisovan diverg…

> Neanderthals from 400kya are often classed as Heidelbergensis. Heidelbergensis is the last common anscestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and us. We were all around for just as long, 400kya+, and before that, it was Homo Erectus. All of them, Erectus, Heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, Denisovans and Sapiens were walking around at the same time. There's plenty of fossil records we've uncovered that show that to be true.…

True, but I'm guessing they're referring to anatomically modern humans which have only been here for a couple hundred thousand years. Not sure that's a meaningful way to look at it since I'm assume Neanderthals also evolved somewhat during that time.

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

#169

Post by IAmBroom » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #164

ralferoo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any research about why Sub-Saharan Africa doesn't have Neanderthal DNA? Is the argument that the tribe of humans from Africa was good at repelling outside invaders, but themselves expanded outwards and assimilated (and then outnumbered) the other populations, or something else? It just seems a bit bizarre given that all humans elsewhere have relatively similar amounts (but quite a low amount) of Neanderthal…

Yes tons of research There were multiple waves out of Africa but Most early anatomical human groups never left Africa as a result, there’s more DNA diversity within the continent than outside Africa Its confusing because the non-african group grew exponentially while the intra-African continent continued to mature The anatomically modern humans that left Africa spread rapidly and aggressively across the world basical…

Wow, so many judgments and racist descriptions in one paragraph attempting to describe scientific knowledge.

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

#170

Post by IAmBroom » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

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…

> Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow.

The atlatl was undoubtedly earlier, and a bigger advance. It essentially doubled a hunter's arm length, and thus impelled speed - with force proportional to the square of speed. An atlatl can put a dart straight through an enemy's gut, or easily pierce a deer's hide.