>> Neanderthals were simple folk, but lasted about 200,000 years.

typo: 400,000 years

source: transcript

DANIEL LIEBERMAN (Harvard University): Humans have a very intensive way of using the environment. Humans move into the Middle East, the Homo erectus goes extinct. When humans move in to Europe, the Neanderthals go extinct.

NARRATOR: For almost 400,000 years the Neanderthals lived in Ice Age Europe. Superb hunters, they had brains bigger than ours and a record of survival twice as long. They were the most advanced humans on Earth, until we arrived; and then they vanished. Why?

">> Neanderthals were simple folk, but lasted about 200,000 years."

But everybody was simple folk back then! :)

">> Neanderthals were simple folk, but lasted about 200,000 years."
> But everybody was simple folk back then! :)

Ah ... seen their artwork around Tarrascon? Not too simple.

But then, I can think of a few 'simple folk' today too...

Cheers

Simple and artistic aren't mutually exclusive now, are they?

Regardless, Neanderthal art was no more embellished than anybody else's back in their time. My point - everybody was basically on subsistence hunting and gathering back then -- without anywhere near the complications we have today.

Wonder how many Neanderthal youths took a "gap year" to find themselves??

And speaking of Neandethals and "primitive" living -- didn't they discover a supposedly isolated and never before known tribe in the Brazilian Amazon a few years ago? Anyone know what happened after? Did Nat. Geo or any other group go in for a look? Or did everyone decided to leave them alone?

Can't remember where I saw it, but recently I read in a science journal that there is evidence now that the Neanderthal probably interbred with our species and that most likely there are something like 1 in 100 people who have Neanderthal genes. So the Neanderthal never really died out.

Edit: One source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8660940.stm

Edited by butuki on 09/25/2010 12:11:28 MDT.

I believe I'm one of them....I've always had a fairly prominent supraorbital ridge.

From my readings, the Neanderthals were not stupid, but lead simple (as in not complicated) lives. For example, they perfected their spear and stayed with it.

Us humans adapted to geography and climate. For example, learned how to use spears and arrows that could kill prey from further away. Humans learned to fish, on and on.

What I find interesting is that the layers upon layer of complications did lead to civilization. Advanced we tend to think. But we invent cars and then we invent text messaging. Some advancements converge into additional problems.

Neanderthals dying out...

I've always thought it preposterous that a species capable of making tools, starting fires, burying their dead, etc. could just "completely" die out -- and also how two "species" that share 99.9% of their genes would somehow never, ever interbreed!! Just flies against "common sense".

And behold, indications are that there was indeed interbreeding!

Edited by ben2world on 09/25/2010 14:12:42 MDT.

They did mix. The documentary explains the gene. It's just that their way of life as they were during the 400,000 years of living pretty much the same way - "died".

They had bigger brains that needed more calories, for example, were replaced with humans with smaller yet more adaptable brains.

Their fossils show a lot of breaks. Probably because they had to be so close for a kill. Dangerous. But they never figured out how to make a spear thrower, etc

"They had bigger brains that needed more calories, for example, were replaced with humans with smaller yet more adaptable brains."

Neaderthals were human too. Homo Sapiens (us) is 'Thinking Man'. Neanderthals survived through 4 ice ages though, so they were adaptable too.

It's about time we homo sapiens got our thinking caps on about the forthcoming ice age too. Our 15,000 yer interglacial ain't gonna last forever. The temperature has on average been going down for the last 9000 years. Sooner or later it will take the big dip.

Agree. The stable weather over the past 9000 years definitely made farming and then industry and beyond possible. It will be interesting how we adapt with our complicated ways to rare unexpected weather events.

We assume the high visibility experts will lead the masses out of harms away. Like they did during the global financial melt down. Using that example the most of the experts were way wrong. A few were spot on, but were mocked and made fun of.

Image if a rock whirling through space does hit us. There have been enough near misses. The black swan is somewhere.

A super volcano. A hugh earthquake under the sea.

Global cooling just when we all agree on warming.

"blue moons seem to like watching me standing alone"

There actually is such a thing as a blue moon: basically it's an extra full moon that occurs because the solar year is longer than the lunar year.

Hence they're pretty rare.

Like the green flash.

"Can't remember where I saw it, but recently I read in a science journal that there is evidence now that the Neanderthal probably interbred with our species and that most likely there are something like 1 in 100 people who have Neanderthal genes. So the Neanderthal never really died out."

I saw a multi-part documentary on the Neanderthals with detailed reconstructions from the skeletons found over the years: fascinatingly I thought the female one looked a bit like my wife - but I decided against sharing that observation with her.

Edited by Arapiles on 09/26/2010 05:48:59 MDT.

DW - good call -- your "self preservation" gene is working properly. :)

Edited by ben2world on 09/26/2010 09:32:15 MDT.

Does that mean DW is or isn't a Neanderthal?

"We assume the high visibility experts will lead the masses out of harms away. Like they did during the global financial melt down."

Lol. Over here in the UK, the banks, which are private institutions, lost their shirts betting on bad gambles with bad US housing stock. So they presented the govt with an ultimatum. "Give us 200 billion of the taxpayers cash or we'll crash the money systm". The Govt blinked and paid up. The banks took the cash, trousered big bonuses for the 'experts' and then refused to lend anyone any of their own taxed money back.

Our climate experts think it's going to get warmer again after 12 yers of pretty stable temperatures, and so we should dismantle our capability to deal with big infrastructure issues and pay more tax to build useless windmills (and pay more fat research grants for them).

Lord protect us from 'experts'.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
H. L. Mencken

"DW - good call -- your "self preservation" gene is working properly. :)"

This may be why Homo Sapiens survived and the Neanderthals didn't: they probably said things like "yeah, your bum does look big in that, why do you ask?"