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

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

#31

Post by bryanrasmussen » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #15

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…

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

Yeah when you read it in Dune "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing". sounds super cool and badass and like totally brilliant strategy but in real life not so much.

Although I expect this strategy will be employed soon

https://medium.com/luminasticity/predicting-the-worst-and-st...

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

#32

Post by nozzlegear » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:01 AM UTC

RealStupidity wrote: post #21

nozzlegear wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What some otherwise intelligent people will convince themselves is God, anyway.

To our pets we're gods - in some ways it's just a matter of perspective

I don't think my stubborn ass dog thinks of me as a god lol, but I understand your analogy

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

#33

Post by riffraff » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:06 AM UTC

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #17

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…

> Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough This is false. Most native Americans throughout both continents— especially those in Mesoamerica—were powerful civilisations in their own right with plenty of agricultural history. What finished many of them off was a lack of resistance to smallpox, which was brought over by the first explorers/colonists.

In things like the battle of Cajamarca the Incan lost a battle against the Spanish with 8000 warriors against 150. All the 150 survived.

Disease was important but there was a large technological and cultural gap too (e.g. the Incan didn't fight at night!).

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

#34

Post by peyton » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #17

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…

> Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough This is false. Most native Americans throughout both continents— especially those in Mesoamerica—were powerful civilisations in their own right with plenty of agricultural history. What finished many of them off was a lack of resistance to smallpox, which was brought over by the first explorers/colonists.

There’s some more recent scholarship than Guns, Germs, and Steel. See Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600 [1]. The truth is maybe a bit more complicated. We had doctors volunteering to visit tribes who recorded what they observed firsthand.

Personally, given the evidence at hand, I think it’s likely the populations on this continent were caught in large boom/bust cycles, and we happened upon them right at a bust cycle. It’s definitely up for debate. There’s also modern work on smallpox using genetic clocks etc to consider.

[1]: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674013056

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

#35

Post by alsetmusic » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #11

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 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…

[flagged]

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

#36

Post by justonceokay » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

oceanplexian wrote: post #19

atleastoptimal wrote: post #13

350,000 years of just chilling, picking berries, you die in identical technological and cultural environment as when you were born. Now we got to be around when God is made in a data center

Correction: 350,000 years being riddled with parasites, fending off wild animal attacks, and avoiding being eaten alive by cannibals when your tribe runs out of food.

Parasites are my main go-to when I meet someone complaining about the modern world. In the history of multicellular organisms on earth, only (some) humans—and only in the last ~100 years—have had the luxury of not being completely infested with parasites.

Even now we have more parasites than we probably know or care to admit.

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

#37

Post by justonceokay » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

RealStupidity wrote: post #21

nozzlegear wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What some otherwise intelligent people will convince themselves is God, anyway.

To our pets we're gods - in some ways it's just a matter of perspective

To paraphrase an Arabic saying: “dogs believe man is god and follow his word, but cats are aware of the one true god and so stand unmoved”

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

#38

Post by jandrewrogers » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:19 AM UTC

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #17

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…

> Unfortunately, the Native Americans did not invent it quickly enough This is false. Most native Americans throughout both continents— especially those in Mesoamerica—were powerful civilisations in their own right with plenty of agricultural history. What finished many of them off was a lack of resistance to smallpox, which was brought over by the first explorers/colonists.

There was a hemorrhagic fever in ~1545 an ~1576 that killed tens of millions of people. This is well-documented. The exact nature of this hemorrhagic fever is a major open question in the history of North America, and the natives attested its existence before the Europeans arrived AFAIK.

We know about hantavirus in the southwestern US and Mexico but that seems unlikely to be the source based on its epidemiology. This is one of the most interesting scientific questions about North America, the possibility of a latent hemorrhagic virus that has heretofore not been isolated due to a few hundred years of dormancy.

Smallpox definitely added to the problem, especially in more northern parts of the Americas, but there is substantial evidence of brutal culling by a disease we can’t explain in the southern parts of North America.

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

#39

Post by hax0ron3 » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #35

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…

[flagged]

It's just objectively true that the Native Americans were far behind Europe in military technology and many other technologies in 1492. The person you're replying to never implied that the Natives were stupid savages.

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

#40

Post by conductr » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

hax0ron3 wrote: post #9

conductr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t see it mentioned in the article, but I think it’s hard to fully appreciate how at risk they were to predators and that they were certainly not the top of the food chain yet. Humans and similar aren’t naturally adept for survival in the wilderness. We developed coping mechanisms but it took some time. Had to extinct a few big cats, bears, wolfs, etc along the way.

Were they really not at the top of the food chain before modern humans came along? It's hard for me to imagine big cats and wolf packs being higher in the food chain than beings that had their own social groups, language, fire, and spears and that are known to have effectively hunted big game.

They/we also are weak and helpless for large portion of early life. Can’t reproduce unless they survive a dozen or so years. And even then pregnancy and child birth are also huge risks to life. This probably really stunted our ability to grow large populations.

Fossil evidence exists pointing towards large eagles scooping up 3-5 year olds. It’s been a long time since we had to think of our toddlers safety the same way we think of a lap dogs.