Bunnies implicated in the demise of Neanderthals

new scientist ^ | 18:10 01 March 2013 by | Sara Reardon

[BenLurkin]

Now, John Fa of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Trinity, Jersey, says Neanderthals eventually bit the dust because they were unable to adapt their hunting to small animals like rabbits.

Fa and his colleagues counted up the skeletons of animals found in three excavation sites in Spain and southern France. Up until 30,000 years ago, the remains of large animals such as deer were abundant in caves. But around that time, coinciding with the disappearance of Neanderthals, rabbit remains became more prevalent. The authors postulate that humans were more successful at switching to catching and eating rabbits.

It's not clear why Neanderthals would have had more trouble changing prey, says Fa. They may have been less able to cooperate. Rather than using spears, early humans probably surrounded a warren and flushed out rabbits with fire, smoke or dogs. But Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, says Fa takes the interpretation too far. Humans may have eaten more rabbits than Neanderthals, but neither would have exclusively eaten meat, he says.

The question might be settled by what Fa says is his next project: studying the isotopes in the bones of hominins from this region, which may differ according to what they ate.

[Adams]

[Darksheare]

No comment from me ping.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

[skinkinthegrass]

does anyone have the "Killer bunny skit" from Monty Python's Holy Grail

[KarlInOhio]

Neanderthal rabbits were considerably more hearty than their modern day cousins.

[skinkinthegrass]

Monty Python-Killer Rabbit - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw

[skinkinthegrass]

thanks, for the post.
science ping!

[a fool in paradise]

[a fool in paradise]

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Humans may have eaten more rabbits than Neanderthals”

Wonder what a Neanderthal tastes like.

[Gaffer]

Them bunnies be some vicisous bastards they are.

[Puppage]

[dfwgator]

I *warned* you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little *bunny*, isn’t it?

[RPTMS]

Run away! Run away!

[bgill]

Ancestors of Jimmah Carter?

[eCSMaster]

Bunnies

[gundog]

Thus endeth the great “Duck season!/ Wabbit season!” debate.

[OKRA2012]

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall

[dmz]

Too busy looking at the centerfolds to hunt and gather?

[Dead Corpse]

[ALPAPilot]

They could have used the holy hand grenade of Antioch.

[Sawdring]

Missed it by less than a minute.

[TexasCajun]

And Who Ya Gonna Call!

[a fool in paradise]

“Humans may have eaten more rabbits than Neanderthals”

>>Wonder what a Neanderthal tastes like.

If there had been Neanderthals in Indonesia when Barack was growing up, he'd know.

[Darksheare]

[count-your-change]

And thus the story of the Eater Bunny was born.

[Chode]

so much for vegan-ism...

[BenLurkin]

[Puppage]

Well played sir. Well played indeed!

[Darksheare]

I seem to recall some nut who is writing a story about killer rabbits...

[BenLurkin]

[BenLurkin]

[Doogle]

[Young Werther]

My research shows that Neanderthrals failed to consult with Hefner!

Catching Bunnies is simple!

[Fast Moving Angel]

Eater Bunny? OK ...

[Jonah Vark]

HERE COMES PETER COTTONTAIL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYR2cJO2dzM

[Chode]

LOL...

[Chode]

looks like she just shot a hole through her ear...

[BenLurkin]

Yessir!

[Dead Corpse]

I’d eat that...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Vegan is an Algonquin word for lousy hunter.

[gilor]

This is exactly the problem with these "researchers"...

"They may have been less able to cooperate. Rather than using spears, early humans probably surrounded a warren and flushed out rabbits with fire, smoke or dogs."

No common sense what so every.

[GodAndCountryFirst]

We can all have a lot of fun with this nonsense. But, of course, Neanderthals never actually existed. If there ever were any “other kinds of humans,” they would have been explained in Genesis. Also: 30,000 years ago? The Earth has not been here nearly that long!

[Chode]

100%

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Missed it by less than a minute.

Yeah...go figure. I'm actually supposed to be working. Or rather, paying attention to the training class I'm in.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

Neanderthals were too stupid to hunt rabbits (and other small game) or food? They deserve to be extinct if that is true. Perhaps they were just too lazy to have to bag twenty four pound rabbits to replace one eighty pound deer. Again, if so they deserve to be extinct.

I seem to remember P.J. O’Rourke writing about the “famine” in the Horn of Africa. He mentioned driving by corn fields and pastures with cattle, sheep, and goats in them and remarking that stuff looked like food to him. (The “famines” were caused by the war lords, i.e., politicians throughout the region.)

I also remember my fifth grade teacher telling the class about the German’s reaction to the heavy infusion of American grain to Europe after World War II. “Corn ist fur schwein!” A lot of Germans refused to eat corn because Germans fed corn to pigs! They apparently would rather be hungry than to eat grits or cornbread. They were too stupid to survive and likely only did so because the U.S. State Deparment switched to shipping wheat instead of corn.

[Mike Darancette]

Rabbits were meaner in the olden days.

[Oztrich Boy]

[SaraJohnson]

When I was little visiting my grandparents in Ohio, they served rabbit that my grandfather had hunted. I thought I would die.

Between hunting, gardening, canning, and making wine from their grapes, they did not spend much on food. They had a pond nearby for fish. They traded with a neighbors for chicken, beef, eggs, cheese and milk.

They loved their lifestyle and neighbors in the country. My grandfather was a meter reader and one of the few in their town to keep a job through the depression. My grandparents supplied the church with wine for services and fed a lot of people in the congregation. Grandma said it was like fish and loaves. She has no idea how they produced and provided so much food.