It is very hard to take this "study" seriously.

"What is not clear is why the Neanderthal would not have simply copied the advanced culture or technology developed by early humans once it became clear there was an advantage."

Well, you would think our government here in the U.S. would adopt some best-practices from governments of other countries, but they never do.

Neanderthal reproduction had most likely become seasonal like most species living in temperate and Arctic environments. The farther north a species resides, the more seasonal it's reproduction becomes.

As such they were no match for the tropical cromags who could reproduce year round. Cromags simply outgrew and overran them.

There likely were several contributing factors. It is known that the forest edge habitats that Neanderthals hunted in - with spears, so needed forest densities that were "just so" - were in decline as the glacial age ended.

@TGO: Interesting hypothesis, but I think it is believed they had much the same reproductive capabilities in that regard, that they split after cryptic estrous/repeating estrous. (I'm not sure though.) And the climate issues would have been the same.

@cgsperling: I'm not sure if it is a fair comparison as US is nearly a continent by itself. I am sure states adopt other states's best practice at times.

But compared to other large entities they are not always the best. (E.g. China has better health care, et cetera.)

BECOMING HUMAN / INTELLIGENCE : FINALLY SOLVED. NEW COMPREHENSIVE THEORY STARTS FROM THE END by establishing the working theory of functioning of the human brain-IQ, and assuming that the transfer of collective knowledge - from mother to incapable baby - is what created us, i.e. our (collective C+IQ) intelligence through multiple self-projection – MSP. The biggest picture (the framework) for all scientific data (even A.I. because start, origin of original, in making AI is crucial / what has been missing) is FEST theory.
https://evolutionofhumanintelligence.wordpress.com/

They're not extinct. Only way to account for all the trolls with a 250,000 BCE world view that regularly comment here.

I like the theory that says they were obsessed with big game and when the megafauna died out that homo sapiens starting eating rabbits and Neanderthals didn't. The thing I like most about it is when some beef eater says you're cruel for eating rabbits, you can always reply, "What a Neanderthal!".

Seriously, doing it by the numbers, the carbon footprint and environmental effects are hugely better, and thanks to the beef industry's influence over legislative bodies, rabbits farmers are subjected to incredibly strict regulations. I wish I lived as well as those rabbits do for the two months they're alive. Yeah, two months is the typical age for a meat rabbit.

Have we ever found any evidence of intra-Neaderthal violence? Maybe they were just peaceful people who liked to mind their own business, we showed up and do what we always do. Maybe it wasn't that they could not fight back but, rather, that it wasn't part of their make up.

TGO: Interesting hypothesis, but I think it is believed they had much the same reproductive capabilities in that regard, that they split after cryptic estrous/repeating estrous. (I'm not sure though.) And the climate issues would have been the same

They arrived in Europe a few hundred thousand years before cromags and had much more time to adapt.

They were not farmers or herders and would have faced the same seasonal food shortage as any other animal. Babies born out of season would had lower survival rates.

For modern humans, the tendency toward seasonal repro is expressed in the June wedding, may day, and spring fertility rites traditions. Perhaps we inherited these from neanderthal or just adopted them for practical purposes.

Have we ever found any evidence of intra-Neaderthal violence?

Good point and the absence may be further evidence that neanderthal repro rates had adjusted to their environment.

It has been suggested that they lived in small, isolated family units and met only to exchange females. Humans lived in tribes. Human conflict throughout our existence has been caused by overpopulation and the struggle for resources.

Tribes formed as a result of this conflict. Bigger tribes that were better organized could be expected to prevail over smaller social units.

Neanderthal has no defence against cromags with a long tradition of tribal warfare and the necessity of taking what they needed to sustain themselves.

the transfer of collective knowledge - from mother to incapable baby - is what created us, i.e. our (collective C+IQ) intelligence through multiple self-projection – MSP blah

Modern humans 'evolved' in the context of chronic tribal warfare. Tribes whose members were better able to communicate, cooperate, formulate complex plans of engagement, and gather info about their environment and their enemies, and develop and master new technologies, would be expected to win out in conflict.

Further, victorious tribes would kill all the males (and most likely eat them) and incorporate the females.

This very unnatural process forced the development of intellects and large brains over a very short period of time.

Darwin was among the first to suggest this process.
http://rint.recht...rid2.htm

Further, victorious tribes would kill all the males (and most likely eat them) and incorporate the females.

This makes me think of horizontal gene transfer for some reason...

Since it is postulated that Neanderthal man was smarter than modern humans, my hypothesis is that we prostituted them out of the gene pool with our dumb pretty faces.

We traded sex for meat and pelts and bred them out of existence.

I like this sentence:
but then, approximately 45 thousand years ago, modern humans arrived in the area after migrating out of Africa
Where are modern human come from? How did they appear suddenly 45 thousand years ago?

@jljenkins: Good idea, but the future of meat seems to be cockroaches. (Or ants, if you dislike larger bugs.)

Some arachnids are known to taste nutty [but not by me! =D], so they could be future snacks.

The resource footprint is about the same as for grains & vegetables.

@huckmucus: "any evidence of intra-Neaderthal violence?"

The famous El Sidrón cave may have it:

"Although there are not carnivore tooth marks on the bone, the bones are heavily fragmented and show cutmarks made by stone tools, indicating that they were almost certainly killed and cannibalized.

Evidence for cannibalism includes cut marks, flaking, percussion pitting, conchoidal scars and adhering flakes on the bones. Long bones show deep scars; several bones have been cracked open to obtain marrow or brains. The bones of the neanderthals have evidence of nutritional stress during their entire lives, and these data together lead researchers to believe this family was a victim of survival cannibalism by another group."

[ http://archaeolog...dron.htm ]

[tbctd]

[ctd]

To balance that, there is also a famous example of elder care, a Neanderthal group were the oldest one had to have been fed by others. (IIRC severe arthritis, little to no teeth, et cetera.) These examples are no different from other human groups when we get more extensive evidence of what they did.

@Dug: "Considering most of carry 2-3% Neanderthal genes - it isn't likely we just killed them off, or that resulting hybrids didn't have the immune systems necessary to compete."

Actually their immune system alleles have been very successful, indicating later usefulness in us (the resulting hybrids of everyone except Africans).

@eric: "Since it is postulated that Neanderthal man was smarter than modern humans". They, like anatomically modern humans at the time, had larger average skull volumes, Neanderthals the largest. But those small differences doesn't matter, c.f. males vs females. Intelligence is unknown, but likely were about the same.

@mreda: That age is when Asians moved into Europe as the climate let them. The ages for the migration out of Africa is in flux - it is an open question of number of attempts, how many failed (stayed in the near area and then became extinct), ages, et cetera - but the successful attempts of anatomically modern humans seem to have happened way before that. (New finds of Asians ~100 kyrs old.)

Anatomically modern humans arose in Africa, IIRC the oldest fossils that has that physiology are dated to ~150 kyrs. The usually quoted lineage split estimate is ~ 200 kyrs, I think.

This comment has been removed by a moderator.

This comment has been removed by a moderator.

This article about 'human' cultural superiority over Neanderthals was confusing me, until it became apparent that Bob Yirka considers Neanderthals to have been non-human. The Oxford Dictionary's zoological definition of 'human' ("of or belonging to the genus Homo") clearly applies to Homo neanderthalensis as much as it does to Homo sapiens.

On the other hand, I see that the actual abstract by William Gilpin et al. refers to 'modern humans', which obviously excludes Neanderthals.

This makes me think of horizontal gene transfer for some reason... - lol

Simply exhausted after a hard day killing.

Much easier just to lay horizontal and gene transfer.

This comment has been removed by a moderator.

Thanks to Bob Yirka for this summary of thought provoking research. The article contributors to phys.org are among the best in the business. Thanks Bob, keep up the good work.

isn't likely we just killed them off

Well no. Victorious cromags got the pick of the litter. Perhaps some of them werent so hairy and ugly -?

or that resulting hybrids didn't have the immune systems necessary to compete

Another good point. Perhaps cromags were like conquistadors. Do fossils indicate tropical disease?

evidence of cannibalism

-And I don't know if evidence tells us if they were eaten by each other or by cromags?

Chronic food shortages has often resulted in cannibalism among modern humans. We are immune to certain prion diseases as a possible result.

Fighting is very similar to hunting. The best tactic is to drive game into an ambush. Tribalism consider members of other tribes less human than they.

And after a battle why leave all that good protein to rot?

Ape meat is the favorite of African indigenes - very hard to get them to give it up.

And it is basically cannibalism. We may have developed a taste for it by hunting each other.

The unifying elements of tribal society like the large family and firm emphasis of religion could outweigh our seeming civilization superiority easily.

Living in tribes required the human animal to give up many behaviors which were natural to him. Biologically, a males best strategy is to impregnate as many females as he can. But a woman will select quality over quantity because she has much more invested in a single pregnancy.

And the best way for her to discern quality is to entice suitors to compete for her.

These behaviors endanger tribal cohesion. This is why successful religions have always tended to limit a woman's ability to entice, by covering her up from head to toe and restricting her interaction with males besides her husband.

And the hymen may be evidence that the guarantee that champions and leaders would reproduce was an extremely important factor in husbanding humans.

Forcing animals to give up their natural tendencies is called domestication.

Obviously, seasonal mating would solve many of the problems humanity faces today. It would reduce growth and reduce the influence of religion.

It would be much easier for women to achieve equality. They would be free from harassment and feel much safer on their own.

As tropical animals we are constantly distracted by the urge to reproduce. It is the single most important factor of human behavior, whether we realize it or not.

Without it we could think and act far more rationally.

This propensity must've developed very early on, and is present in the genes of most species. Perhaps we could cause it to reappear in humans with only a little constructive engineering?

2 waves of anatomically modern humans (AMH) migrated from Africa, the second wave vastly larger than the first.

Consider 1st generation hybrids.

Of all 1st generation hybrids sequenced (~18 to date, I believe), all but one had Neander patronage, indicating Neander sexual dominance. This likely implies Neander superiority of some sort on contact - but overwhelming greater numbers from AMH.

Long before humans became stupid and supported the perpetuation of inferiors with massive welfare subsidies.

Oh, just for accuracy, Neanderthals did not become 'extinct'. They remain in our genetic pool in varying percentages with the lone exception of the San people in South Africa. On not-so-rare occasion (as noted by Loren Eiseley and others), we produce clastically perfect Neanderthals that, had their bones been uncovered in situ in Europe, would have been recognized for what they are. We live among you.

British colonization of Australia could be used as a model to try to figure out what happened when the first modern humans settled in post Ice Age Europe. Neanderthal territory was probably explored and settled by groups that were mostly men. Some of those men looking for mates settled with Neanderthal women. The first modern humans were dark skinned, similar to Africans, India Indians and Australian Aborigines. Other arctic Ice Age mammals such as polar bears and arctic foxes are white so it could be assumed that, despite drawings we see, Neanderthal were also white with long thin noses. Probably the source of our legends of the abominable snowman. Modern light skin Europeans are the result of the mixture of the two. If the British in Australia were not subsidized by their mother country when they arrived in Australia and had to make it on their own, the descendants of those British that had children with Aboriginal women could have also thrived and won the competition for survival.

This comment has been removed by a moderator.

All organs and systems in the living organisms must be fully functional from the beginning to be able to live in health and leave offspring. In emergence of some problems in one of them begins disease states.
How do evolutionists explain the gender segregation that requires hundreds of different interconnected genes necessary for this functionality in both sexes? How the female organism acquires functionality to wear child in the womb, which is connected with large physiological changes and subsequent breast feeding the child functionality a few months later? This functionally can not develop gradually by unconscious random events. It must exist 100 % from the beginning to be able female and male organisms to leave the next generation.

@TGO: "the hymen may be evidence that the guarantee that champions and leaders would reproduce"

The "hymen" known to be folk biology, which overlaps with a rare deformity (1/1000 - 1/10,000 births). The real biology is a fold of mucous membranes surrounding the vaginal opening.

*** Importantly though, you can't tell from the sheath wreath whether or not someone has had sex.***

[ https://sv.wikipe...ki/Hymen ; seems the english version is relating the folk biology.]

I'm underlining that only because the folk biology idea leads to much misery.

@brightred: As far as I know the migration process is currently open, before but very much after the find of 100 kyrs AMHs in Asia.

Re Neanderthal introgression, the Mota sequence was erroneous, a retraction is public (but not published) this week, and Africans outside the Horn has little Neanderthal alleles. [ http://www.scient...-genome/ ]

Interesting on parental introgression. Do you have references (a review perhaps)?

torbjorn_b_g_larsson 5 /5 (2) 17 hours ago
I'm underlining that only because the folk biology idea leads to much misery.

Indeed. Like the idea that trolls are human beings. Prevents a much needed cull.

You are all the sons and daughters of WHORES who bred the Neanderthal man out of existence.

viko_mx 1 /5 (8) Feb 03, 2016
There is no way something that is never exited to disappear.Such an idea violates cause and effect relationship.

Another idiot xtian drooling out of their festering gob. So, if it's not in your damnable Bible, it doesn't exist? OK, hypocrite. Infanticide isn't mentioned or condemned in the Bible. Abortion didn't even exist. If that's such an important issue, why didn't fucking Jeebus ever get around to it?

He does take time to condemn "those that love to pray on the streetcorners to be noticed by others". I read Hebrew and Greek. Let me guess. The Bible is the center of your life, you just can't be bothered to learn to read it. At least Muslims do that much.

Religion is a sign of being weak minded, domesticated, factory farmed, human vermin. We must end taxpayer subsidies supporting it immediately. Look how the religious right have destroyed the US. FUCK RELIGION!!!

"What is not clear is why the Neanderthal would not have simply copied the advanced culture or technology developed by early humans once it became clear there was an advantage."

The specific reasons may not be obvious but it's not surprising because we have many historical examples among modern human groups. For example:

Why didn't the Incas "simply" copy the advanced technology of the Spaniards once it became clear there was an advantage?

Why didn't the Australians "simply" copy the advanced technology of the British once it became clear there was an advantage?

Why didn't the British "simply" copy the advanced technology of the Germans once it became clear there was an advantage? Charging tanks with cavalry?!?

Why haven't the Congolese "simply" copied the advanced technology of Silicon Valley?

Why hasn't the Mideast "simply" copied the successful example of Japan?

"...the cultural superiority of humans."

Modern humans have religion, which facilitates the organization of large groups in the pursuit of genocide.

I'm not sure the term "cultural superiority" is appropriate here. But no doubt it would have been a selective advantage in that context.

Sort of like the mutation for sickle cell anemia... a great selective advantage for its carriers when malaria was rife but otherwise a scourge on our species.

AMH/Neanderthal - a distinction without a difference, currently (again, with the lone exception of the SAN in S. Africa.

The Bible actually has much to say about human nature and higher aspirations, for those who care read it allegorically: nothing whatever to say about human paleontology.

recent work shows that some human languages have different origins, but the basics of grammar seems to be innate. Human languages have lots of different grammar rules at the margin, but breaking language into phonemes, words and sentences seems to be innate. If you are familiar with computer language grammars almost every human (and computer programming) language can be parsed by a recursive descent (LL1) grammar. (Yes there are reasons for compiler developers to use LALR1 or LR1 grammars, but that mostly helps with better error correction. Algol68 famously used a two-level grammar, but the only (subset) that ever became popular could use a much simpler parser.

What does this have to do with Neanderthal? Perhaps nothing. But I have to think that the ability of children to learn languages more easily would count for a lot. (Modern children can most easily learn languages before age five.)

I take offense to the suggestion that my ancestors had an inferior culture. Nay, the reason for Neanderthal extinction is that humans out-bread and displaced them. Yes, human culture/technology enabled this. It seems to highly subjective and somewhat racist to say that human cultures were superior. Why did the Neanderthals not adapt human culture/technology? Well, perhaps they didn't need to in order to sustain their populations. Wait a minute, you say, obviously they needed to do something to sustain their populations because they died off. Let's say for a minute that they did adopt human customs. Those are the Neanderthal that interbred with humans. We know they did that. How do you interbreed with a species without adopting it's culture? You don't. The simple truth is that Humans multiplied at a greater rate than Neanderthals.

When you're population isn't constantly exploding, why would you need to adopt different methods of survival? You wouldn't.

until you woke up one day and realized that you were completely surrounded by humans - and they start encroaching on your domains and impacting your own sources of livelihood. I'm sure some Neanderthals were angered by "the rabbits in their garden" and tried to shew them off. Uh oh. The rabbits return with reinforcements and advanced weapons - in great numbers. Neanderthal tribe conquered. Attractive females are taken as booty. Others are enslaved. Others flee and tell their tales to other Neanderthals tribes that try in vain to vanquish the human trespassers. Others realize "if you can't beat'em, join'em".

And so it came to pass, that Neanderthals were assimilated into extinction by a more prolific species.

@SLOOHCox

Why so aggressive and immoderately? Should not you be more calm and secure if you are deeply convinced of the rightness of your faith and have solid arguments in its favor?
But you have no scientific arguments. This is the reason for your fear of truth. It seems that none of the proponents of the myth of evolution not dare to commit to answer to these questions through the ideas of evolutionary theory.

hymen is folk biology

I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about (are you?) but the hymen is something else.

"Other than penile-vaginal intercourse, the hymen can tear from inserting tampons, masturbating, or participating in strenuous physical activities like gymnastics or horseback riding. Therefore, the presence of (or lack thereof) an intact hymen is an extremely unreliable indicator of virginity"

-And while not perfect, it is a fairly reliable indicator of who may be pregnant and who may not. Especially in cultures where the lack of it could mean death.

Virgins in those cultures would be doing anything to preserve it including remaining sedentary (with the assistance of foot-binding) and refraining from inserting anything which could harm it.

Here are some nice illustrations.
http://youngwomen.../hymens/

Interestingly, restoration services are not only available in folk is cultures
http://manhattancenterforvaginalsurgery.com/services/hymenoplasty/?gclid=CjwKEAiAluG1BRDrvsqCtYWk81gSJACZ2BCe4e7IAIfsnAV8EoGPZLe_I8_qWzbCzjawJRBr4C7CZBoCM27w_wcB

-but wherever orthodoxy considers it indispensible.

And it occurs elsewhere in the animal kingdom
http://www.thenak...=16775.0

-suggesting that it plays a role in providing confidence that an animal is not wasting time and energy on a female who is already transporting the genes of another male into the next generation.

Human cultures artificially select for all sorts of unnatural traits such as religiosity. It is easy to imagine that the hymen is one of them, and the hymen assisted them in reliably selecting for other traits as well.

But you have no scientific arguments. This is the reason for your fear of truth

Does the possibility frighten you that the ability to reject evidence in favor of blind faith was a form of insanity selected for over 100 of generations?

What wild animal would sit and pray rather than run like hell while being chased by a predator?

What wild animal would martyr itself just because a voice in its head told it to?

"He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end..." ecc3:11

-meaning quite literally that only humans know life has not only a beginning but an end which cannot be avoided.

This terrifies them.

Religions exploit this terror by offering them something which they would never have to provide any evidence for whatsoever; a way to avoid it. Eternal torture for their enemies and eternal bliss for them

Obviously it would take a pretty thoroughly domesticated animal to fall for this.

Hmm... human cultural superiority. Well, we do have a superior culture of violence.

Hmm... human cultural superiority. Well, we do have a superior culture of violence.

Our tropical repro rate along with the tech which enabled us to eliminate our attrition elements one by one, left us no choice but to fight for resources.

Extended tribes were the best structure for doing this.

Tribes which could develop the best internal cohesion coupled with animosity toward outsiders, were better at fighting.

Those tribes which were better at fighting were the ones that survived.

Religion and nationalism enabled the extension of the tribal dynamic over regions and continents, uniting tribes who were ordinarily enemies.
https://youtu.be/ah_l8y0OXSQ

It's a pretty simple equation to understand.

There is some evidence for Neanderthal-on-Neanderthal violence in the fossil record. I remember an article from a year or so ago which related how the partial skeleton of a juvenile was found at a Neanderthal site with the femur cracked open and possible cut or scrape marks on it. Now in Homo sapiens, the femur is the strongest, heaviest, thickest-walled bone in the entire body, with very dense walls which contain high concentrations of calcium. The reason it's so strong is that it is the main load-bearing bone in the body and it needs to withstand the stress of walking upright, running and jumping. It's an incredibly difficult bone to break by hand, virtually impossible without use of tools and considerable force. Significantly, it's also one of the largest bones in the body which contains marrow. I'd assume it's very much the same in Neanderthals. The conclusion to me seems inescapable: they butchered and ate the child and cracked open its femur in order to get at the marrow inside.

Assimilation yes, extinction, no.

Sexual 'booty' of attractive females referred to above flies in the face of evidence that 17 of 18 genetically sequenced first generation hybrids had Neanderthal fathers. Male parentage bespeaks cultural dominance, which some may consider a kind of superiority.

The massive second wave of anatomically modern humans (AMH) arrived too fast to assimilate into Neander genetic dominance. That doesn't provide evidence one way or the other about cultural superiority, or about what percentages of culture (AMH/Neander) post-Pleistocene humans employed.

We're all hybrids now, except the SAN.

From their posture I'm thinking these Neanderthals didn't know how to dance, so they had to go.

From their posture I'm thinking these Neanderthals didn't know how to dance, so they had to go.

no, evidence says they taught us how to dance.
https://youtu.be/LEl-yJQvXaE

-and it suggests that it survives to this day
https://youtu.be/RMBb-VvJShY