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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

#61

Post by netcan »

>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 divergence occurs at this time.. so calling them Neanderthals rather than Neanderthal ancestors is kind of messy.

There is a shortage of fossil evidence from this and earlier periods... It's called the "muddle in the middle."

In any case.... Sapiens also had ancestors at this time. We don't have fossils, but something has to be our ancestors. So if we are calling Neanderthal ancestors from this period Neanderthals... it would be more consistent to call sapien ancestors sapiens.

Individual populations may have been insular, small and most died out. But... there were people everywhere.

Humans existed over a vast range. From south Africa to Northern Eurasia. East to west. At this point in time... I think it's confusing to think of neanderthal/denisovan/sapiens as different species.

Individuals may have been inbred... but the overall genetic diversity across the whole range was greater than the genetic diversity we have today. In some sense, we are the inbred ones.

Also... population estimates are pretty dicey. We don't really know. Could have been booms and busts. Could have been ideal habitats with higher populations.

We still have a fairly poor grasp of human "natural history"

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

#62

Post by t-3 »

Auracle wrote: post #57
AJMaxwell wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of animals to domesticate meant fewer zoonotic diseases in Native American populations, so they were ill equipped when those diseases appeared. IIRC, there was a massive plague in North America a decade or so before Columbus arrived.

I never understand the “lack of animals to domesticate” angle. They did domesticate animals, such as the llama and alpaca. More could have been domesticated and presumably would have been if the had more time to advance. It’s a shame giant sloths were killed off…

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.

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

#64

Post by hax0ron3 »

alsetmusic wrote: post #52
hax0ron3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The person you're replying to never implied that the Natives were stupid savages. They did. Natives didn't have agriculture: > 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 arrived. At which point, it was too late. The unfortunate t…

He wasn't claiming that the Native Americans didn't have agriculture, he was claiming that Native Americans didn't develop large-scale agriculture as early in history as Eurasians did, and as a result had less time to develop the kinds of technologies that are enabled by having large-scale agriculture.

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

#65

Post by netcan »

Nevermark wrote: post #10

> Harmful mutations can accumulate through inbreeding. Yet somehow Neanderthals managed to survive across most of Eurasia for nearly 400,000 years It is also true that inbreeding for extended periods weeds out both dominant and recessive bad genes very effectively. As long as at least one good or not-so bad alternative is maintained. So not as surprising that small groups can last a long time, once they reach a thres…

In captive breeding, it's a brutal way to "improve stock" but in wild populations this is pretty normal for large mammals. It also generally happens more slowly... so isn't that different from every other ambient process that selects some genes and culls others.

Fwiw... something similar also occurs with outbreeding/hybridization. Novel gene combinations can be maladaptive, just like double recessives.

These are all pretty normal population dynamics.

There are billions of us now... but that's not normal for a large animal, especially predators. How many leopards, or bears, or elephants are there at any given time?

These tend to be sparse, structured populations.

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

#66

Post by mkl »

mock-possum wrote: post #45
jandrewrogers wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There was a hemorrhagic fever in ~1545 an ~1576 that killed tens of millions of people I haven’t heard of this - do you have any material to recommend on the subject?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoliztli_epidemics

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

#67

Post by ViscountPenguin »

poisonarena wrote: post #56
ViscountPenguin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wheel isn't that useful if you live on terrible terrain and have nothing to drive it with.

llamas and alpacas

Llamas were used for some logistics, but they're not the most sturdy, modern Llamas can carry around ~40kg but I'm unsure if it would've been higher or lower with the breeds they used back then. Either way, better than nothing, but definitely no horse.

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

#68

Post by kelnos »

alsetmusic wrote: post #52
hax0ron3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The person you're replying to never implied that the Natives were stupid savages. They did. Natives didn't have agriculture: > 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 arrived. At which point, it was too late. The unfortunate t…

Commenter upthread said they "did not invent it quickly enough", as you quoted, which is not the same thing as "did not invent it". They just meant that the Native Americans invented it later than the Europeans did, such that the natives had less time to develop advanced (military) technology.

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

#69

Post by mkl »

lobf wrote: post #29
vintermann wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it has any relation to Celtic languages, then it's Indo-European by definition. We can tell how much neanderthal ancestry someone has, more or less. Basque people have no more than others. Despite their odd language, they are much like other Europeans genetically: a similar mix of European hunter gatherers, Anatolian farmers and the bronze age invaders which we believe brought the IE languages to Europe.

Oh! Sorry- I meant to refer to the hypothetical proto-Celtic language! This is what vibe-commenting from memory gets me.

The proto-Celtic that is Indo-European? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Celtic_language

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

#70

Post by sph »

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

You forgot the enlightened ~200 years when we tried to kill God, to finally be in control of our destiny.

Then some idiots decided it's time to create an artificial one in their image. Enjoy your golden idol, pray it doesn't decide to turn you into biofuel.

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