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Clash of the Cavemen
http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=295752 ^

Posted on 05/16/2008 6:14:42 AM PDT by chessplayer

25,000 B.C. In Europe, arctic glaciers reach as far south as London. Massive predators are on the prowl. Across the continent, two species of primitive man struggle to survive. The Neanderthals are natural hunters, built for brute strength and well-adapted to the cold. However, they lack the understanding of technology and ability to speak in abstract terms that our species has. The Cro-Magnon, Homo sapiens are smarter but more fragile. With exciting new research in anthropology, archaeology and genetics, follow these early humans through a season of survival.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: globalcooling; godsgravesglyphs; iceage; muslims
Watched this last weekend, and it was fascinating.
1 posted on 05/16/2008 6:14:42 AM PDT by chessplayer
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To: chessplayer

which one is Helen Thomas?


2 posted on 05/16/2008 6:21:48 AM PDT by Eurale
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To: chessplayer

There is more evidence that Neanderthals were capable of abstract thought/concepts, were capable of language, and believed in an afterlife.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6966307_ITM

http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Afterlife-Mysteries/Oldest-Discovered-Burial-Site.html


3 posted on 05/16/2008 6:23:05 AM PDT by chessplayer
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To: chessplayer

I agree however, with Dr.Milford Wolpoff, that Europeans are a hybrid of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon.


4 posted on 05/16/2008 6:24:39 AM PDT by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
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To: chessplayer

This is what is happening in the Rat Party with Baaarack in charge.


5 posted on 05/16/2008 6:26:49 AM PDT by Piquaboy (22 year veteran of the Army, Air Force and Navy, Pray for all our military .)
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To: Vaquero

Uhhhh, no.


6 posted on 05/16/2008 6:29:33 AM PDT by SengirV
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To: chessplayer

I watched it also. Good stuff.


7 posted on 05/16/2008 6:31:19 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: SengirV
Uhhh...no right back at ya. read: RACE AND HUMAN EVOLUTION: A FATAL ATTRACTION by Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari

Good book....very informative...unless you take the Out of Africa tripe politically correct POV

8 posted on 05/16/2008 6:37:03 AM PDT by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
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To: Vaquero

Did that count as bestiality or ..


9 posted on 05/16/2008 6:39:00 AM PDT by omega4179 (b.hussein)
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To: Vaquero
"I agree however, with Dr.Milford Wolpoff, that Europeans are a hybrid of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon."

I vaguely recall there being DNA studies that prove this is not the case.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0514_030514_neandertalDNA.html

"A team of geneticists from Italy and Spain compared the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of two Cro-Magnons that were 23,000 and 25,000 years old respectively, four Neandertal specimens, 29,000 to 42,000 years old, and a large database of modern human mtDNA to shed some light on the issue."

"The authors found that the Cro-Magnon mtDNA fit well within the spectrum of genetic variation exhibited by modern Europeans, but differed sharply from that of the Neandertals. They conclude that it is unlikely that Neandertals contributed to the current European gene pool."

10 posted on 05/16/2008 6:40:11 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: chessplayer

Next ice age the cro mags will again dominate and be too busy to fund welfare and the neandertals will go back into extinction.


11 posted on 05/16/2008 6:41:07 AM PDT by omega4179 (b.hussein)
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To: chessplayer
However, they lack the understanding of technology and ability to speak in abstract terms that our species has.

There is no proof of the latter at all, while the former is based on flint weapons that were more rudimentary.

However, if you were naturally much stronger, which does seem certain from bone girth and tendon attachments, spending time making prettier flint points might not have seemed worthwhile. After all, tool technology is driven by requirements.

I'm surprised that historical anthropologists don't burst into laughter when they see each other.

12 posted on 05/16/2008 6:51:52 AM PDT by SampleMan (We are a free and industrious people, socialist nannies do not become us.)
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To: chessplayer

Neandertal’s had larger brains than Cro Mag so were perhaps at least as intelligent. They were larger, and more robust. Since they died out people assume they weren’t as smart. Perhaps they were just less bloodthirsty than Cro mags. There are cultural reasons why populations die, not just physical or intelligence issues.


13 posted on 05/16/2008 6:58:00 AM PDT by Hacklehead (Crush the liberals, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the hippies.)
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG ping


14 posted on 05/16/2008 6:58:42 AM PDT by Fractal Trader
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To: Vaquero
I agree however, with Dr.Milford Wolpoff, that Europeans are a hybrid of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon.

A very recent genetic study states otherwise.

15 posted on 05/16/2008 7:01:28 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: Vaquero

I don’ know where you/he gets this stuff from. But if Neanderthal and Homo Sapien interbreeding were strictly a European thing, then those of European decent would be remarkably different as a DNA level than non Europeans. That simply is not the case.

Either we ALL are, or none are. I’ll not argue against the fact that we all are. But I will argue that Europeans are NOT a species offshoot(mix of Neanderthal and Homo Sapien). And that the rest of the world are all Homo Sapiens.


16 posted on 05/16/2008 7:03:29 AM PDT by SengirV
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To: Wonder Warthog

“The molecular stuff has been very important,” says Milford Wolpoff, an anthropology professor at the University of Michigan and a leading critic of the Out of Africa theory of human origins. “But in the end it has the same problem fossils have—the sample size is very small.” Earlier this month, the journal Science published a Wolpoff study of early human skulls, which suggests that Africans may have mixed with earlier hominids rather than supplanting them. The small number of living humans sampled by geneticists, Wolpoff says, and the effects of natural selection over the millennia, make it foolhardy to say with assurance that Out of Africa is right. The geneticists, for their part, readily admit that they need more samples, more markers, and more precise calculations. But they also say that even with today’s imperfect science, the DNA is right. And in places like India and China, where the fossil record is scanty, the genetic history will be the only history. “Genetics is moving so fast,” says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London. “It’s well ahead of the fossil and historical record.”


17 posted on 05/16/2008 7:15:05 AM PDT by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
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To: Vaquero
"Earlier this month, the journal Science published a Wolpoff study of early human skulls, which suggests that Africans may have mixed with earlier hominids rather than supplanting them. The small number of living humans sampled by geneticists, Wolpoff says, and the effects of natural selection over the millennia, make it foolhardy to say with assurance that Out of Africa is right."

Maybe Wolford would be better served by submitting those skulls to DNA analysis rather than doing "anthropological phrenology". And the "number of living humans" sampled by geneticists is already large enough to be a statistically valid sample. Many examples of all races have been "fingerprinted", with NO data to support Wolford's position.

18 posted on 05/16/2008 7:44:28 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: chessplayer

A while back a theory was advanced that Neanderthal became extinct because of sinusitis.

That is, it was noticed that in the relatively few Neanderthal skulls that exist with sinus cavities intact, there were bony obstructions where Homo Sapiens had none. That extra bone would have slowed inhalation of air, helping it to warm and moisten before entering the lungs.

This would have been a big help to Neanderthal during the ice age. However, when the temperature warmed, the same warming that permitted the Homo Sapiens to travel North from Africa would have made life much more unpleasant for Neanderthal.

Sinus infections, nowadays just an annoying and debilitating nuisance, back then could have been lethal, slowly wiping out the Neanderthal. The rhinitis from hell.

Ironically, the Neanderthal might not have been able, or felt much need, to travel North, to colder climate, because while it would have been better for their health, their preferred game animals had no reason to go North, being more adaptable. They might have had plenty of food, but died out anyway.


19 posted on 05/16/2008 7:49:11 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: Wonder Warthog

Mungo Man, an anatomically modern skeleton, was discovered in 1974 in the dry bed of Lake Mungo in New South Wales, Australia. The skeleton made the news again recently when scientists dated his remains to 60,000 years ago. Mungo Man became the oldest human fossil that was physically similar to modern humans. But further analysis of Mungo’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) could not link him to any human population living today.


20 posted on 05/16/2008 7:51:20 AM PDT by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
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To: Vaquero
"But further analysis of Mungo’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) could not link him to any human population living today."

That is literally an impossible condition, as all humans share some percentage of DNA---so Mungo Man HAD to have some percentage of DNA overlapping modern humans. The question is "what percentage".

21 posted on 05/16/2008 9:36:20 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve
Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]

22 posted on 05/16/2008 11:07:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Vaquero

Uhhhh, yes! :’)


23 posted on 05/16/2008 11:08:24 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: chessplayer

Thanks!


24 posted on 05/16/2008 11:12:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Wonder Warthog

The Homo Heidelbergensis sample (this was to check for affinities between Neandertal and us folks) yielded fewer than 400 base pairs, out of a presumed 16,000+ originally in the mtDNA. The “study” was GIGO.


25 posted on 05/16/2008 11:13:47 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: SengirV
Either we ALL are, or none are. I’ll not argue against the fact that we all are. But I will argue that Europeans are NOT a species offshoot (mix of Neanderthal and Homo Sapien). And that the rest of the world are all Homo Sapiens.
That's not what Wolpoff claims anyway.
26 posted on 05/16/2008 11:15:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Vaquero
"Genetics is moving so fast," says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London. "It's well ahead of the fossil and historical record."
Heh... Stringer is a Replacement advocate, actually *the* Replacement advocate, and that's just another in a long line of European-based racial superiority models.

Doncha love that quote, though -- the actual morphology, on which *all his assumptions are based*, doesn't mean anything, because we've got some DNA of some few thousands of living people, out of a population of six billion and more, and have made no sampling bias errors, and maintain our original assumptions as the conclusions of every study because we're right and everyone else is wrong, nyah nyah.

The non-speaking Neandertal idea is a persistent baseless idea, and makes a great companion to the baseless idea -- which has come down from Virchow -- that Neandertal went extinct and the glorious, gracile, body-beautiful moderns survived. And sometimes it's even claimed that not a drop of blood was shed in the process. I regard this whole corpus as analogous to Judge Bork's "political seduction of the law" -- it's the political seduction of science.
27 posted on 05/16/2008 11:24:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Fractal Trader; blam; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...

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Thanks Fractal Trader.

This part was crap:
The Neanderthals are natural hunters, built for brute strength and well-adapted to the cold. However, they lack the understanding of technology and ability to speak in abstract terms that our species has.
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

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28 posted on 05/16/2008 11:27:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: SunkenCiv
non-speaking Neandertal idea is a persistent baseless idea

Of course they talked. The wimmin gossiped about the men when the men were out ambushing an aurochs and the men joked about a less-than-dextrous move that got one of them trampled by the aurochs. How would it be any different than now?

29 posted on 05/16/2008 11:32:27 AM PDT by RightWhale (You are reading this now)
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To: SunkenCiv

That’s what Vaquero implied. So go argue with him.


30 posted on 05/16/2008 11:58:58 AM PDT by SengirV
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To: omega4179
Did that count as bestiality or ..

Since they produced viable, fertile offspring, no. That passes the test for same species.

31 posted on 05/16/2008 2:05:26 PM PDT by null and void (Hillary is trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Barrak Obama and Bobby Kennedy...)
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To: Wonder Warthog
"The authors found that the Cro-Magnon mtDNA fit well within the spectrum of genetic variation exhibited by modern Europeans, but differed sharply from that of the Neandertals. They conclude that it is unlikely that Neandertals contributed to the current European gene pool."

Not what the data shows. mtDNA is a girl thing. The data shows that Neanderthal women did not contribute their DNA to modern Europeans. It is likely a Cro-Magnon man/Neanderthal woman match would result in a baby with a head too big for her birth canal.

OTOH a Cro-Magnon woman/Neanderthal man match could easily result in a kid that is stronger than mom's people and smarter than dad's people.

Why do you suppose our propaganda is saturated with the depictions of the enemy as ape-men coming to get our wimin?

It speaks to something very deep in the human psyche...

32 posted on 05/16/2008 2:14:25 PM PDT by null and void (Hillary is trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Barrak Obama and Bobby Kennedy...)
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To: RightWhale

“If the Neandertal had stayed in school when the Cro-Magnon schoolmarm had hit the neighborhood, he wouldn’t have been stuck with Auroch.” — John Kerry


33 posted on 05/16/2008 2:21:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Vaquero

Wow! Mungo Jerry went back much further than I remembered!


34 posted on 05/16/2008 2:22:53 PM PDT by null and void (Hillary is trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Barrak Obama and Bobby Kennedy...)
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To: null and void
"It is likely a Cro-Magnon man/Neanderthal woman match would result in a baby with a head too big for her birth canal."

Actually, the Neanderthals had larger total brain volume than the Cro-Magnons by about 100 mls (on average).

35 posted on 05/16/2008 2:23:55 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: Wonder Warthog
But a Cro-Magnon head is rounder, and therefore wider.

Anyway, the real question is how much does the head grow after infancy.

Does a Neanderthal have a smaller or narrower head at birth than a Cro-Magnon? I'm guessing yes. Given how poorly the remains of neonatal mammals survive I doubt we'll ever have any proof one way or the other.

36 posted on 05/16/2008 2:29:30 PM PDT by null and void (Hillary is trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Barrak Obama and Bobby Kennedy...)
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To: null and void
It is likely a Cro-Magnon man/Neanderthal woman match would result in a baby with a head too big for her birth canal. OTOH a Cro-Magnon woman/Neanderthal man match could easily result in a kid that is stronger than mom's people and smarter than dad's people.

Good point, actually.
Note that the "Liger" and the "Tigon" are hybrids, one is robust, the other weakly and generally does not survive into adulthood.
The possibility of one gender-based hybrid's success ( but untraceable DNA assimilation ) and the other hybrid's failure to leave a genetic legacy is a valid one.

37 posted on 05/19/2008 4:13:50 PM PDT by Drammach (Freedom - It's not just a job, It's an Adventure)
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To: Drammach

Hmmmmmm. Good point about the Liger and Tigon. Now I’m wondering if the sudden success of modern man is due to ‘hybrid vigor’ associated with some of the Neanderthal genes being thrown into the mix?


38 posted on 05/19/2008 4:42:33 PM PDT by null and void (The one word of Chinese our congress really understands is 'kowtow')
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To: NeoCaveman

you and your buds at it agin? ; )


39 posted on 05/19/2008 4:43:04 PM PDT by xsmommy
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To: Drammach
Note that the "Liger" and the "Tigon" are hybrids, one is robust, the other weakly and generally does not survive into adulthood.

Just a thought...

Would the Crothal and Neadernon possibly be Goliaths and leprechauns?...

40 posted on 05/24/2008 2:35:59 PM PDT by null and void (The one word of Chinese our congress really understands is 'kowtow')
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To: null and void
Would the Crothal and Neadernon possibly be Goliaths and leprechauns?...

Maybe Goliath... ( "There were giants in those times." )

If type follows type, then one would be above average size, and probably fertile.
The other, weakly, liable to die soon after birth, and not very likely to be fertile.

Not much hope for the Leprechauns, as I see it.

41 posted on 05/24/2008 11:18:43 PM PDT by Drammach (Freedom - It's not just a job, It's an Adventure)
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