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Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

archaeologymag.com

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Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#171

Post by amarait »

timschmidt wrote: post #113
b800h wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the chances that we discover that in some ways they were more advanced than early homo sapiens (I'm not saying "us" here, as I have a lot of Neanderthal DNA)?

Well they hard larger brains, more muscle mass, larger sinuses which aid in breathing in cold weather and possibly smell, denser bone structure, and a number of other possible advantages. It has been proposed that the advantage we wield which led to out-competing / interbreeding with them may have been a superior ability to starve - i.e. use fewer calories - during periods like the last ice age.

Ive also read some out of wack theories like some conditions like autism could come from them since its more prevalent on white people. This would explain that a group that engages more socially creating bonds and more complex societal tribes in number would outnumber and extinguish these weird less verbal humans

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#172

Post by amarait »

neanderthaul wrote: post #155
slow_typist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And neanderthalensis was not outcompeted, their genes survived in Homo sapiens until today.

What if we are actually neanderthals with some homo sapien genes

Seems putting neanderthal on your username increases the percentage tenthfold

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#173

Post by mr_toad »

sfn42 wrote: post #102
williamdclt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting somewhat off-topic and maybe it's more evident to other people, but for me understanding this energy transfer was eye-opening for my cooking abilities! Like, my mushrooms aren't going to actually cook as I want as long as they render water because the water is cooling the pan down. Obvious in retrospect, never really fully realised it. Also means I can blast the heat up to get rid of this water faster, it's n…

It's a common mistake. Just this weekend I followed a recipe from a well known cooking website for beef stroganoff that said to brown the beef in batches together with batches of onion. That's not a good idea, the onion will release liquid which prevents the beef from browning and once that cooks off the heat required to brown the meat will burn the onion. So I cooked the beef and onion separately instead. The onion…

> I explained that it doesn't matter, the water won't get any hotter. I'll just waste electricity making steam. He didn't believe me

I think we had the same roommate. I used to call him Captain Humidity because he filled the kitchen with steam.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#174

Post by amarait »

Gupie wrote: post #12
14 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am convinced that early humans were a lot smarter then given credit for. My guess is the same as yours and that they were part of a long chain of steps of learning and development that went back much farther then we have evidence for.

Possibly however homo erectus used the same design for their hand axes for over a million years. This implies the design was hardwired in their brains, in the same way the design of nests are hardwired in bird brains, as opposed to a rationally thought out design.

The deeper you go into those thoughts the more you realize theres no rationalization if you go the hard deterministic way

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#175

Post by mr_toad »

b800h wrote: post #95
fransje26 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment, your comment is being heavily down-voted for what seems to be a totally reasonable point of view. In recent years we've went from "completely primitive and segregated Neanderthals", to "oh, we share quite a bit of DNA with the Neanderthals", and "the Neanderthals engaged in complex symbolic thought", as well as "the Neanderthals were pretty advanced artists". The current article is a further demonstrat…

What are the chances that we discover that in some ways they were more advanced than early homo sapiens (I'm not saying "us" here, as I have a lot of Neanderthal DNA)?

They did have significantly larger brains than modern humans. There are many explanations of why they weren’t smarter than us, which I think is because many people would really like that to be true.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#176

Post by Orbital_Armada »

jbotz wrote: post #6

When I first read this a question jumped out at me: Wait, Neanderthals were able to render fat? That requires boiling, and doesn't boiling require pottery? This led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole. It turns out that no, you don't need pottery to boil things, because you can do it just fine in combustible materials like animal hide or birch bark... so long as you keep the water level consistently high enough, because t…

Your first source does not support your argument that paleo-anthropology believed pottery was required for boiling. Reading just the abstract it's clear that the source is auguring for the appearance of boiling earlier than the common view that fire cracked rocks (that would have been used for boiling by placing in any water container) marked the earliest point of boiling. The Upper Paleolithic mentioned as the first appearance of fire cracked rocks, and thus assumed initial boiling, is ~5,000+ years before the appearance of pottery.

Ignoring the reference to pottery the assumption that boiling must require heated rocks is probably incorrect. I think this is a common failure mode of archeology, where evidence is preserved (cracked rocks) is favored despite obvious selection biases.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#177

Post by timschmidt »

amarait wrote: post #171
timschmidt wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they hard larger brains, more muscle mass, larger sinuses which aid in breathing in cold weather and possibly smell, denser bone structure, and a number of other possible advantages. It has been proposed that the advantage we wield which led to out-competing / interbreeding with them may have been a superior ability to starve - i.e. use fewer calories - during periods like the last ice age.

Ive also read some out of wack theories like some conditions like autism could come from them since its more prevalent on white people. This would explain that a group that engages more socially creating bonds and more complex societal tribes in number would outnumber and extinguish these weird less verbal humans

There are some relevant studies which suggest a connection for at least some autism spectrum folks:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02593-7

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06440-4

It's far from conclusive, not representative of the majority of folks with autism diagnoses, and needs more replication and investigation. But it could be a thing. Speaking as a spectrum-y red-haired middle-european.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#178

Post by netsharc »

sfn42 wrote: post #160
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a cook (America’s Test Kitchen?) where they explored different ways of thinking of heat management in pasta. The unbelievable one that worked: boil water, add pasta, turn off heat. The water retains the heat and will still penetrate the pasta. I have never actually tried it myself, but it makes sense.

It's not really that unbelievable. The pasta just has to be in hot water, whether it's 99.9C or 95C doesn't make much of a difference. I use this technique to boil eggs - boil water, turn off heat, add eggs. It seems to help avoid cracked eggs. I also hadn't thought to boil pasta that way though.

FWIW, I boil my eggs in steam: 5mm-1cm of water in the pot, put the egg in, put the lid on it, heat it up until the water starts boiling, and then turn it off, and wait, the steam will continue boiling the egg, and the residual heat will continue producing steam for a while.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#179

Post by mobilejdral »

Roark66 wrote: post #15

And how could they've done this without language? I've heard this statement that neanderthals were "outcompeted" because homo sapiens had language and they did not (something about the way their anatomy didn't allow for making complex sounds). I call BS on that now. You can't do this kind of stuff without ability to communicate your intentions, future plans, rewards for other people and so on. Next we'll discover the…

Neanderthals had the FOXP2 gene, which is associated with speech and language.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#180

Post by hollerith »

mobilejdral wrote: post #179
Roark66 wrote: post #15

And how could they've done this without language? I've heard this statement that neanderthals were "outcompeted" because homo sapiens had language and they did not (something about the way their anatomy didn't allow for making complex sounds). I call BS on that now. You can't do this kind of stuff without ability to communicate your intentions, future plans, rewards for other people and so on. Next we'll discover the…

Neanderthals had the FOXP2 gene, which is associated with speech and language.

That doesn't mean it was used for speech and language: evolution frequently finds a new purpose for a gene, and the previous purpose does not have to be human-comprehensible.
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