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Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

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Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#91

Post by kuhewa »

mellavora wrote: post #75
whodidntante wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also quite possible that the Neanderthals were stronger, faster, smarter, and more moral/ethical, and that sapiens were simply crueler, more diabolical, more savage. It is quite difficult to imagine a species that is more vicious to even its own members, let alone members of other species, than ours is.

the percentage of deaths caused by other members of the same species: Hylobates lar - 8.93% Gorilla beringei - 5.00% Pan troglodytes - 4.49% Hylobates agilis - 4.17% Nomascus hainanus - 1.00% Pongo abelii - 0.82% Pan paniscus - 0.68% Nomascus gabriellae - 0.59% Nomascus leucogenys - 0.59% Nomascus siki - 0.59% Nomascus concolor - 0.36% Gorilla gorilla - 0.14% Modern humans - 0.14% Medieval Age, Old World - 12.08% (±…

The paper indicates that at times and levels of.social organisation our lethal violence rate increases well above the phylogenically predicted 2% — see Fig. 3c the contemporary band and tribe median estimates of 5±1% which are probably considerably more accurate than inferring from prehistoric remains). Other work suggests during resource scarcity hunter gatherer lethal violence shoots way up as well. I'm actually not sure what my point was, other than I suppose early humans under the conditions of contact with Neanderthals probably were on par with the most violent of phylogenetically similar animals.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#92

Post by ncmncm »

ed_balls wrote: post #65
idiotsecant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the commonly accepted meme of neanderthals as dopey slow caveman versions of us is not as well accepted as it once was. I've read that the current idea is that neanderthals were stronger, faster, and possibly even smarter than sapiens but that they were less efficient, suited more for quick sprinting and hard fighting in environments with plentiful food sources and less suited to long distance travel…

If I were to bet my money I would bet it on social structure or a disease. - Homo Sapiens had tribes 100-200 people when Neanderthals had 20-30. They were outnumbered. I'm not suggesting brutal wipe out, but competition for resources. - we "won" because we were immune to a disease be brought from Africa.

A paleoanthropologist remarked that the most striking and reliable difference between finds at Neanderthal and contemporaneous sapiens sites was that Neanderthal artifacts were never from sources far away, which he interpreted to mean they had no trade network.

There are many ways to interpret that: xenophobic? susceptible to disease? militantly self-sufficient? not interested in decoration? (Most trade goods are decorative.) no language skills?

There is other evidence that Neanderthals had no reliable access to fire: that if their banked coals died, they could not start a new fire, or get a light from another band.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#93

Post by DaltonCoffee »

ethbr0 wrote: post #49
idiotsecant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the commonly accepted meme of neanderthals as dopey slow caveman versions of us is not as well accepted as it once was. I've read that the current idea is that neanderthals were stronger, faster, and possibly even smarter than sapiens but that they were less efficient, suited more for quick sprinting and hard fighting in environments with plentiful food sources and less suited to long distance travel…

As someone with an abnormal amount of Neanderthal DNA (relatively speaking for modern populations), I do seem to run a higher metabolic rate. I'd never thought to associate the two though.

How did you find this out? Also could I use my genome data from ancestry.com etc to do the same

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#94

Post by samplatt »

arbitrage wrote: post #80
nxmnxm99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Neanderthals were also less pack oriented, so humans just had bigger powers in numbers. It's also fascinating that Neanderthals soundly beat us in the first round of incursions, and 50k years later humans presumably wiped them out entirely + all other variations of homonids

Neanderthals were better able to cope in colder climates than modern humans. The climate may just have pushed the immigration of them many several thousand years back.

From the comments above, I thought it was the other way around? More energy efficient metabolism resulting in greater range of biomes to permanently settle?

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#95

Post by davidgay »

cletus wrote: post #81
spideymans wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second is the evidence we have from the ancient world, which was a mere 2,000 years ago. We have written records going back another 3,000-4,000 years before that. I find this period fascinating for many reasons but a big one is how alien we would find the ethics and how societies worked Can you elaborate some more on these differences? I’d love to learn more.

Look into Roman and Greek history. Slavery, the treatment of slaves, the attitudes towards minors (slaves and otherwise) for sexual purposes and so on. It's actually pretty abhorrent. Another example: the origin of the word "decimate". "Decimation" was a Roman military punishment to military units in provinces that rebel against Rome. I don't believe it was widespread but it was common enough to spawn the modern word…

There's plenty of horrific human-on-human violence in the 20th century, so I find this claim that the Romans were so different quite unconvincing.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#96

Post by nradov »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #7
lqet wrote: post #5

I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that…

If that were true, I'm not sure we'd use the term "extinct" to refer to Neanderthals. (Some) humans are willing to mate with just about anything. There would be human-dog hybrids if it wasn't genetically impossible, as unsettling as that thought is. Seems more likely that we treated Neanderthals as humans do with other outsiders: we exterminated them and took their resources. Word has it that you can find their desce…

There is a fringe hypothesis that humans are hybrid product of chimpanzees and pigs. (I don't necessarily believe this, just found it entertaining.)

https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#97

Post by nradov »

soperj wrote: post #48
Spooky23 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the assumption that past rivals are dumb, as we tend to roll over the details. I think overall there’s an assumption that modern humans = better. Looking at contemporary history, there are dramatic differences in power dynamic between different human cohorts. There’s nothing that separates the biological abilities of any two populations on earth, but the one with the machine guns and artillery will always bea…

>Europe didn’t send its best people, but disease, better weapons and toxic politics carried the age. It was mostly disease. The muskets at the time were tragic. A properly trained infantry soldier could fire at most 4 rounds per minute.

The muskets (arquebuses) used by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century were even slower than that. They were lucky to fire 2 rounds per minute. But they also had crossbows, steel weapons, armor, and horses — as well as tactical doctrine which completely outclassed any of the primitive New World civilizations.

But disease did wipe out the majority of their adversaries, so they had a relatively easy time dealing with the survivors.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#98

Post by nradov »

davidgay wrote: post #95
cletus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look into Roman and Greek history. Slavery, the treatment of slaves, the attitudes towards minors (slaves and otherwise) for sexual purposes and so on. It's actually pretty abhorrent. Another example: the origin of the word "decimate". "Decimation" was a Roman military punishment to military units in provinces that rebel against Rome. I don't believe it was widespread but it was common enough to spawn the modern word…

There's plenty of horrific human-on-human violence in the 20th century, so I find this claim that the Romans were so different quite unconvincing.

Romans appeared to have a more casual acceptance of violence than those of us in modern Western civilization. We moderns might actually kill more people in wars (and related genocides), but we still regard those deaths as exceptional aberrations rather than a normal part of daily life.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#99

Post by riffraff »

lqet wrote: post #5

I would love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that…

> On a side note regarding early sapiens: I never understood why most people assume that humans today are, on average, more intelligent than our ancestors 40,000 years ago.

because "intelligence" is a vague thing and it connects with education.

For example, the average person with a school education today can do math better than Leonardo da Vinci, which enables some stuff to be invented today more easily than before.

Re: Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

#100

Post by markdog12 »

imbnwa wrote: post #76
cletus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things spring to mind: The first is that how we think is deeply intertwined with language. There's tons of evidence of this, not the least of which is Helen Keller's description of her world before she learned language. We'll probably never know what language existed 50,000+ years ago, how sophisticated or simple it was and how it affected how our ancestors thought. The second is the evidence we have from the anc…

I mean Ridley Scott's The Last Duel features the last instance in France of its eponymous jurisprudence technique which came from Germanic tribal law before they were even literate (Germanic tribal warlords becoming the aristocracy everywhere but Ireland in post-Roman Western Europe), and this is about 500 or 600 years ago, never mind how much further back into the Bronze or previous time periods that dueling as juri…

> Wasn't an American President killed in a pistol duel not 130 years ago or so?

You're probably thinking of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who died of his wounds from a duel with Vice-President Aaron Burr. It was 1804.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr–Hamilton_duel

I believe Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel before he became President: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/andrew-jackson-k...

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