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The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> Neanderthals
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Neanderthals |
bat400
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|  Posted 26-09-2008 at 05:09
Earliest Known Human Had Neanderthal Qualities
Submitted by coldrum:
The world's first known modern human was a tall, thin individual -- probably male -- who lived around 200,000 years ago and resembled present-day Ethiopians, save for one important difference: He retained a few primitive characteristics associated with Neanderthals, according to a series of forthcoming studies conducted by multiple international research teams.
The extraordinary findings, which will soon be outlined in a special issue of the Journal of Human Evolution devoted to the first known Homo sapiens, also reveal information about the material culture of the first known people, their surroundings, possible lifestyle and, perhaps most startling, their probable neighbors -- Homo erectus.
"Omo I," as the researchers refer to the find, would probably have been considered healthy-looking and handsome by today's standards, despite the touch of Neanderthal.
"From the size of the preserved bones, we estimated that Omo I was tall and slender, most likely around 5'10" tall and about 155 pounds," University of New Mexico anthropologist Osbjorn Pearson, who co-authored at least two of the new papers, told Discovery News.
Pearson said another, later fossil was also recently found. It too belonged to a "moderately tall -- around 5'9" -- and slender individual."
"Taken together, the remains show that these early modern humans were...much like the people in southern Ethiopia and the southern Sudan today," Pearson said.
Building On Leakey's Work
Parts of the Omo I skeleton were first excavated in 1967 by a team from the Kenya National Museums under the direction of Richard Leakey, who wrote a forward that will appear in the upcoming journal.
Leakey and his colleagues unearthed two other skeletons, one of which has received little attention. Two of the three skeletons found at the site have been a literal bone of contention among scientists over the past four decades. Reliable dating techniques for such early periods did not exist in the late 60's, and the researchers could not agree upon the identity of the two skeletons.
From 1999 to the present, at least two other major expeditions to the southern Ethiopian site -- called the Kibish Formation -- have taken place, with the goal of solving the mysteries and learning more about what the area was like 200,000 years ago.
As evidenced by photographs showing the researchers followed by armed guards, work at this location proved challenging.
"It took us five plus days to get there from Addis," paleobiologist Josh Trapani of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Michigan told Discovery News. "Once there, we had intense heat, hyenas outside camp, crocodiles in the river, many insects and two remarkable and very different groups of people, the Mursi and the Nyangatom on opposite sides of the river who were our partners in some of this work."
Primitive, Yet Still Like Us
The ordeals proved successful, as the scientists have recovered new bones for Omo I, some of which perfectly fit into place with the remains Leakey unearthed over 40 years ago.
Several scientists analyzed the bones, including a very detailed, comparative look at the shoulder bone by French paleontologist Jean-Luc Voisin. They concluded that, without a doubt, Omo I represents an anatomically modern human, with bones in the arms, hands and ankles somewhat resembling those of other, earlier human-like species.
"Most of the anatomical features of Omo are like modern humans. Only a few features are similar to more primitive hominids, including Neanderthals and Homo erectus," explained John Fleagle, distinguished professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York.
"Omo II is more primitive in its cranial anatomy," he added, "and shares more features with Homo erectus and fewer with modern humans."
Unlikely Neighbors
New dating of the finds determined that Omo II lived at around the same time and location as Omo I, indicating that Homo sapiens may have coexisted with Homo erectus, a.k.a. "Upright Man," who is believed to have been the first hominid to leave Africa.
Fleagle explained the detailed nature of the latest dating techniques that place both skeletons at around the 200,000-year-old period.
He said both skeletons were recovered from rocky geological layers, with "Adam" unearthed just above a layer of volcanic rock. Precise dates can then be calculated because "when volcanic rocks form, they start a radiometric clock that ticks at a regular rate."
Fleagle added, "By looking at the ratio of parent minerals and daughter minerals you can calculate when the rocks were initially formed."
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/22/earliest-human-ethiopia.html
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bat400
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| Posted 26-09-2008 at 05:13
"Complexity" of Neanderthal Tools
Submitted by coldrum -
Early stone tools developed by our species Homo sapiens were no more sophisticated than those used by our extinct relatives the Neanderthals.
That is the conclusion of researchers who recreated and compared tools used by these ancient human groups. The findings cast doubt on suggestions that more advanced stone technologies gave modern humans a competitive edge over the Neanderthals.
The work by a US-British team appears in the Journal of Human Evolution.
The researchers recreated wide stone tools called "flakes", which were used by both Neanderthals and early modern humans.
"We know that the Neanderthals were very capable technicians "
Prof Chris Stringer, NHM
They also reconstructed "blades" - a narrower stone tool later adopted by Homo sapiens.
Some archaeologists often use the development of stone blades and their assumed efficiency as evidence for the superior intellect of our species.
The team analysed the data to compare the number of tools produced, how much cutting edge was created, the efficiency in consuming raw material and how long tools lasted.
They found no statistical difference in the efficiency of the two stone technologies.
In some respects, the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were even more efficient than the blades adopted by modern humans.
Pros and cons
The result casts doubt on the idea that blades were a significant technological advance, helping our ancestors out-compete, and eventually eradicate, their evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals.
The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) appear in the fossil record about 400,000 years ago.
At their peak, these squat, physically powerful hunters dominated a wide area spanning Britain and Iberia in the west, Israel in the south and Siberia in the east.
Neanderthals (l) were different from our species (r), but not inferior
Meanwhile, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, and displaced the Neanderthals after spreading into Europe about 40,000 years ago.
The last known evidence of Neanderthals comes from Gibraltar and is dated to between 28,000 and 24,000 years ago.
Lead author Metin Eren, from the University of Exeter, UK, said: "Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other.
"When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' and more in terms of 'different'."
He added: "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens was more advanced than Neanderthals.
"It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived."
Greater variety
Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "There are now very few palaeoanthropologists who consider the Neanderthals to have been 'stupid', or who consider that they died out because they made flake rather than blade tools." <
Professor Stringer, who was not connected with the study, added: "We know that the Neanderthals were very capable technicians, and that their tools would have been excellent for activities such as butchery, working skins or wood.
"However, the blade tools manufactured by early modern humans in Europe were often modified for specialisation as piercers, chisels or engravers, and as parts of composite tools, such as harpoons.
"With modern humans we not only find a greater variety of tools, but also much greater working of difficult materials like bone, antler and ivory."
The authors of the paper in Journal of Human Evolution suggest that, since they conferred no technological advantage, modern humans may have used blades because they had cultural meaning.
"For early Homo sapiens colonizing Ice Age Europe, a new shared and flashy-looking technology might serve as one form of social glue by which larger social networks were bonded," said Mr Eren.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7582912.stm
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bat400
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| Posted 26-09-2008 at 05:16
Neanderthals Conquered Mammoths, Why Not Us?
Submitted by coldrum --
They may have been stronger, but Neanderthals looked, ate and may have even thought much like modern humans do, suggest several new studies that could help explain new evidence that the early residents of prehistoric Europe and Asia engaged in head-to-head combat with woolly mammoths.
Together, the findings call into question how such a sophisticated group apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth around 30,000 years ago.
The new evidence displays the strengths and weaknesses of Neanderthals, suggesting they were skilled hunters but not as brainy and efficient as modern humans, who eventually took over Neanderthal territories.
Neanderthal Vs. Woolly Mammoth
Most notably among the new studies is what researchers say is the first ever direct evidence that a woolly mammoth was brought down by Neanderthal weapons.
Margherita Mussi and Paola Villa made the connection after studying a 60,000 to 40,000-year-old mammoth skeleton unearthed near Neanderthal stone tool artifacts at a site called Asolo in northeastern Italy. The discoveries are described in this month's Journal of Archaeological Science.
Villa, a curator of paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News that other evidence suggests Neanderthals hunted the giant mammals, but not as directly. At the English Channel Islands, for example, 18 woolly mammoths and five woolly rhinoceroses dating to 150,000 years ago "were driven off a cliff and died by falling into a ravine about 30 meters (over 98 feet) deep. They were then butchered."
Villa, however, pointed out that "there were no stone points or other possible weapons" found at the British site.
"At Asolo, instead there was a stone point that was very probably mounted on a wooden spear and used to kill the animal," she added.
Several arrowheads were excavated at the Italian site, but the one of greatest interest is fractured at the tip, indicating that it "impacted bone or the thick skin of the mammoth."
Other studies on stone points suggest that if such a weapon were rammed into a large beast, it would be likely to fracture the same way.
What's For Dinner?
There is no question that Neanderthals craved meat and ate a lot of it.
A study in this month's issue of the journal Antiquity by German anthropologists Michael Richard and Ralf Schmitz found that Neanderthals went for red meat, not of the woolly mammoth variety, but from red deer, roe deer, and reindeer.
The scientists came to that conclusion after grinding up bone samples taken from the remains of Neanderthals found in Germany and then analyzing the isotopes within. These forms of chemical elements -- in this case, carbon and nitrogen -- reveal if the individual being tested lived on meat, fish or plants, since each food group has its own carbon and nitrogen signature.
Richard and Schmitz conclude that the Neanderthals subsisted primarily on meat from deer, which they probably stalked in organized groups.
The researchers say their findings "reinforce the idea that Neanderthals were sophisticated hunters with an advanced ability to organize and communicate."
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/09/neanderthal-mammoth.html
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sem
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| Posted 27-09-2008 at 15:35
Not many people know how close we are to Neanderthals and a good clue lies in our full names.
We are Homo sapiens sapiens, they are Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
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chimera
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| Posted 27-09-2008 at 21:35
It was said that the bones founds at Gibraltar had features of both, so the 2 were cross-breeding . But that does not prove whether the off-spring was fertile or mule.
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AlbertResonox
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| Posted 28-09-2008 at 08:26
We haven't changed all that much over the intervening years..I don't even think the inferior race died out at all.
In fact I know several people who look almost....
.... homo sapien
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chimera
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| Posted 28-09-2008 at 08:34
There is the "lantern jaw" and some have 1 solid eyebrow.
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sem
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| Posted 29-09-2008 at 17:01
Anyone read "Cities of Dreams - The rich legacy of Neanderthal Man which shaped our civilisation" by Stan Gooch.
At nearly 20yrs old, it's a bit dated and very personal to the author.
Well worth a read though.
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chimera
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| Posted 03-10-2008 at 06:39
Sem,
The reviews mention numbers 7 and 13 as influences from Neanderthals. Do you know why Gooch can claim that?
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bat400
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| Posted 20-10-2008 at 00:25
Neanderthal Brains Grew Like Ours.
Originally submitted by coldrum:
Score one more for Neanderthals.
A new study has found that Neanderthal brains grew at much the same rate as modern human brains do, knocking down the idea that they grew faster in a style considered more primitive.
The recent discoveries of two very young Neanderthal skeletons, as well analysis of a little-studied infant Neanderthal skeleton, allowed the researchers to trace how quickly the species' skulls grew.
The results showed a greater similarity than expected between modern humans and Neanderthals, a hominid species that lived in Europe and Asia between 130,000 and 30,000 years ago.
Live fast, die young
Studies of brain growth rates tell anthropologists a lot about the lifetime development of a species.
Originally some scientists thought Neanderthals grew up faster than modern humans, reaching their adult size sooner, as, for example, chimpanzees do. Chimps, our closest living relatives, mature much faster than we do, but also die younger.
"It's the old saying, 'live fast, die young,'" said researcher Christoph Zollikofer of the University of Zurich in Switzerland. "It was thought that this was the primitive way, and that modern humans were further evolved into a slow life history, living a longer lifespan. Our major conclusion is there was no real difference between Neanderthal and modern human life history — they were equally slow."
The discovery that modern humans and Neanderthals share this trait means that we probably both got it from our last common ancestor, he said.
"Now we can say these so-called modern features of slow growth and development are actually old," Zollikofer told LiveScience.
Lucky finds
The research was made possible by some lucky archaeological discoveries. A team of Japanese scientists uncovered skeletons of two Neanderthal children — a 2-year-old and another about 18 months old — in a cave in Syria. Another fossil of an infant Neanderthal had previously been found in Russia, but not studied in detail or described in an anthropological journal. The skeletons all date from between 45,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Zollikofer and a team of researchers led by Marcia Ponce de León analyzed all three specimens and made 3-D computer reconstructions of the whole skeletons based on the available fragments — about 70 to 80 percent of the complete skeletons. They also studied the skeletons' teeth to estimate their ages by their dental development.
The team found that baby Neanderthal heads were slightly larger than today's baby human heads, just as adult Neanderthal skulls typically are slightly larger than today's adult humans'. Paleontologists have yet to unearth any baby skeletons of our direct Homo sapiens ancestors from the corresponding point in geologic time, but adult Homo sapiens skulls were about the same size as adult Neanderthals', so the researchers think the Homo sapiens infants then might have also had similar-sized skulls.
The discovery adds to the growing evidence that Neanderthals and the Homo sapiens ancestors of today's humans had a lot more in common than previously believed.
"In many respects they are much more similar to modern humans than we thought," Zollikofer said. "First it was tools, then eating meat, altruism, all kinds of features that seem to be deeply rooted to evolution. And if you look at the most recent genetic studies, they also show deep similarities. The picture gets much more detailed, and we have more and more knowledge about possible differences and possible commonalities."
For more, see:
http://www.livescience.com/history/080908-neanderthal-skulls.html
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bat400
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| Posted 20-10-2008 at 00:30
DNA-based Recreation of Neanderthal Woman
Originally submitted by coldrum:
Meet Wilma—named for the redheaded Flintstones character—the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence.
Artists and scientists created Wilma (shown in a photo released yesterday) using analysis of DNA from 43,000-year-old bones that had been cannibalized. Announced in October 2007, the findings had suggested that at least some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and possibly freckles.
Created for an October 2008 National Geographic magazine article, Wilma has a skeleton made from replicas of pelvis and skull bones from Neanderthal females. Copies of male Neanderthal bones—resized to female dimensions—filled in the gaps.
"For the first time, anthropologists can go beyond fossils and peer into the actual genes of an extinct species of human," said National Geographic's senior science editor, Jamie Shreeve, who oversaw the project.
"We saw an opportunity to literally embody this new science in a full-size Neanderthal female, reconstructed using the latest information from genetics, fossil evidence, and archaeology."
For the photo, see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080917-neanderthal-photo.html
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bat400
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| Posted 20-10-2008 at 00:36
Neandethals Enjoyed a Broad Menu
Originally submitted by coldrum:
It seems Neanderthals enjoyed a wide range of foods - a much broader menu than had previously been supposed.
Excavations in caves in Gibraltar once occupied by the ancient humans show they ate seal and dolphin when they could get hold of the animals.
There are even indications that mussels were warmed to open their shells.
The findings, reported in the journal PNAS, give the lie to the popular view that Neanderthals ate a diet utterly dominated by meat from land animals.
This is yet another difference that had been proposed between Neanderthals and moderns which now disappears
It is one more example of the greater sophistication now being ascribed to Homo neanderthalensis; and further complicates the story of how modern humans (Homo sapiens) out-competed and out-lived their evolutionary cousins.
"Moderns still had a more efficient way of extracting the maximum out of the environment compared with the Neanderthals," said lead author Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum.
"So there still is an element of superiority, but it is a much more finely balanced one now. This is yet another difference that had been proposed between Neanderthals and moderns which now disappears," he told BBC News.
Bone product
Professor Stringer and colleagues have been investigating the fossil material from a number of seaside excavation sites in Vanguard and Gorham's Caves in eastern Gibraltar.
The cave deposits are throwing up a rich array of Neanderthal artefacts, demonstrating that Homo sapiens were not the only ones to live off the sea.
It has been known from earlier work that Neanderthals would eat some shellfish when available, but the Gibraltar study is the first to show the exploitation of marine mammals.
"We've got a shoulder blade of a seal with cut marks on it and we've got parts of the bones from a flipper with cut marks," explained Professor Stringer.
"These Neanderthals were skinning and dismembering seals. What's interesting is that they didn't always cook them; they often ate them raw, it seems.
"They were also heating bones, not to cook the meat but to get at the marrow inside. By putting bones in fires, they were making them more brittle so they could get them open more easily."
On the menu also was dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), probably dead animals that had washed up on the beach. Monk seals (Monachus monachus), on the other hand, were most likely juveniles clubbed to death at breeding grounds and then taken back to the caves to be butchered.
By analysing the different types, or isotopes, of atoms incorporated into Neanderthal bones as a result of the foods they ate, it is possible to glimpse something of their lifestyle.
In northern Europe, particularly, it is clear that big game meat - mammoth, deer, horse - dominated the Neanderthal menu.
The isotopes from early modern humans, by comparison, show a much broader range of foods - they were eating small grain, they were fowling and fishing.
This has been used to help explain Neanderthal extinction: H. neanderthalensis may have struggled at times to get the most out of their environment and could be out-competed by moderns.
The latest research, by demonstrating the exploitation of seal and dolphin, shows the extinction story is a little more complicated - at least as far as Gibraltar is concerned, believes Professor Stringer.
"We can't generalise to all Neanderthal populations, because the further north you go, away from the coast, you won't have those resources," he told BBC News.
The Gibraltar caves also contain hearths and flint stone tools, as well as butchered land mammals such as ibex (Capra ibex), red deer (Cervus elaphus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), bear (Ursus arctos) and rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).
The remains of mussels (Mytilus galloprovin*****) are also evident. These are found in ash and are scorched - clear evidence that they were cooked near a fire to open them.
The caves in Gibraltar may be among the very last places Neanderthals lived before they became extinct.
Analysis of charcoal remains from the hearths indicates the species was present 28,000 years ago, and perhaps as recently as 24,000 years ago.
For more, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7630042.stm
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sem
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| Posted 23-10-2008 at 22:00
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On 2008-10-03 06:39, chimera wrote:
Sem,
The reviews mention numbers 7 and 13 as influences from Neanderthals. Do you know why Gooch can claim that?
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I can't remember anything exactly about this, but two possibilities spring to mind.
1) Both are prime numbers and so cannot be divided by whole numbers. IF Neanderthals had a numeric system then this is very important. eg The giving and receiving of gifts has been shown as significant in many tribal societies. If you were given a gift of 7 or 13 items how would you distribute them to your off-spring? Please don't give me the obvious answer.
2) The numbers relate to the moon. A sun year consists of 12 to 13 moon cycles (which is also the menstrual cycle).
I think the two are probably linked.
Thanks for the wake-up call. I've got a couple of sleep-ins next week and will use them to re-read our friend Gooch.
Cheers
Sem
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chimera
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| Posted 24-10-2008 at 08:03
Good answers, but I'm just being ratty:
Very rarely would any number suit the off-spring, or War-Cabinet, unless it was exactly the same (or double). 5 or 11 are also prime, and 13 is a big amount of Neanderthal gadgets (flint-heads, bottle-openers, mammoths).
Did Neanderthals really observe sunrises from a fixed reference point, work out annual day-counts and ratios of new moons? That's moving more up-market than before - maybe Gooch is saying that.
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sem
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| Posted 24-10-2008 at 21:13
Point taken Chimera with one very big exception. This exception has been in my mind for many years and I have never heard or read anything about it. Yet when you think about it, it is one of the most natural things for any form of human being.
During the night time, even with light from fires etc, the amount of tasks that can be undertaken (knapping, weaving etc) is very limited, given the strain it puts on the eyes. This allows a lot of time for social interraction, the main form of which is story telling. Even today this is evident albeit in the form of books and films. I know sex played it's part but even I can't do it all night, at least not every night anyway.
Given that you accept this (sorry if it sounds like a lecture but I work with people with learning disabilities) try the following as a hypothetical example drawn from factual sources. I think it works better as a conversation than going into the minutiae.
Kids(as one)- Dad I'm tired. Tell me a story before I go to sleep.
Ugge- Well, you see the big round face in the sky..
Kids- Yes, she appeared before tea last night.
Ugge(sympathetically)- She appears a bit later every night and have you noticed she gets bigger and then smaller?
Kids- Yes dad, just like mom did before SHE (pointing at the smallest Ugglet) appeared.
Ugge(less sympathetically)- And have you noticed that when she's bigger mom's in a bad mood?
Kids- Yes dad.
Ugge(even less sympathetically)- Well she's like your mom. The big round shiny thing you see in the day joined with her and together they created the planet we live on. The only thing is she doesn't want to create more planets and so every day moves a bit further away from him until..
Kids(interrupting)- Is that why Mrs Ogg next door is moving away from you?
Ugge(no sympathy whatsoever)- NO! Now get to sleep before....
Mrs Ugge- Ugge, get your sorry parts in here, NOW! The moon's right, I've got an urge and we've got a small hunter-gatherer clan that needs new members.
PS There are many myths written around star constallations as well.
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chimera
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| Posted 24-10-2008 at 21:32
That was the Neanderthal Xg3ii solar model of 9 month years. (incidentally, the lunar expansion hypothesis was seen in their internal combustion mammoth-predator vehicle).
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sem
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| Posted 19-11-2008 at 22:21
Hi Chimera
Sorry for the late comeback on this but Mr Gooch's idea on 13 is this (my interpretation anyway) in short.
Neanderthals were a female led society, the moon is female and the number 13 is closely related to females. He uses legend and science to support this.
1)If you take the moon's sidereal month as 28days you get 13 sidereals in a year (13x28=364) plus the (year and a) day=365.
2)If you take a lunation (full moon to full moon or new moon to new moon) there are 13 of one of these in a year, but never both. A year of 13 new moons follows a year of 13 full moons.
3)In legend, males were often killed by a 13th member of their group who was given female/moon characteristics.
He suggests that Cro-Magnon man not only interbred with Neanderthals, but was jealous of her "Moon Magic" and has been taking it out on women since then.
Cheers
Sem
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chimera
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| Posted 20-11-2008 at 07:26
uh..yep. umm..jealous of the Neanderthal women or all women?. don't get it. what legends of the 13th man, and why would a "menstrual man" do the killing? PMT.
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Chyknel2
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| Posted 20-11-2008 at 08:57
"A sun year consists of 12 to 13 moon cycles (which is also the menstrual cycle).
I think the two are probably linked."
Hard to say. The Moon is more commonly cited but Chimps have a similar cycle, Orang Utangs take 35 days and chickens take 1...
There's some evidence arteficial light DOES change the cycle though so there might be something in it.
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sem
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| Posted 20-11-2008 at 19:35
Sorry Chimera, but that's my precis of a 250 page book.
For me, some bits work and others don't, but it's well worth a read.
Cheers
Sem
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