[Houghton M.]

“Neanderthals didn’t use thrown spears as far as we know”

Argument ab silentio. Given the limited surviving Neanderthal evidence, what are you going to do when the first evidence of Neanderthal spear thrower use turns up?

I’ll stipulate that the evidence for humans having and using spear throwers. But the other half rests on absence of evidence, “so far” and that “so far” is always the kicker.

And the danger is that, since we “know” that only humans, not Neanderthals, used thrown spears, henceforth all evidence of thrown spears automatically gets ascribed to humans, as in the case at hand.

But what if, just by chance, some Neanderthals did use thrown spears but we just haven’t, so far, stumbled on any evidence? After all, of all the Neanderthals that ever lived and all the early homines sapientes that ever lived, what percentage of their bones have we now seen and examined? A relatively tiny sample, I think.

If we were doing contemporary sociology, we’d say, “not a very good sample size to predicate huge generalizations on.”

But since it’s purportedly 50,000 years ago and we are not likely ever to have a decent sample size, we still go ahead and make sweeping generalizations.

I’d have no problem with this if people just identified it as what it is, wild speculation based on slivers of evidence.

But then the research grant money might not flow as freely.

[allmendream]

The speculation that humans drove neanderthals extinct is an attractive one, despite the scant amounts of evidence.

It is quite natural that when two related species that compete for the same resources but cannot or will not reproduce together are put into proximity, one will be driven to extinction.

And yes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; so the fact that we have no evidence of Neanderthals using thrown spears is not evidence that Neanderthals didn't use thrown spears.

But if a body from 1811 was dug up and had arrows in it you might suggest it was likely that he was shot by Native Americans.

And “evidence suggests” is not a sweeping generalization but carefully couched language that fits the data.

[Little Bill]

But since it’s purportedly 50,000 years ago

This comes from the crawl out of Africa and then crawl back in school. It seems to me that anatomically modern people weren't supposedly wandering around until 30K years ago.

[john in springfield]

Let’s come out with a more honest headline:

“Evidence Suggests Neanderthal Man Died.”