Posted on 02/25/2006 5:11:22 AM PST by ThreePuttinDude
LONDON — Neanderthals in Europe were killed off by the advance of modern humans thousands of years earlier than previously believed, losing a competition for food and shelter, according to a scientific study published Wednesday.
The research uses advances in radiocarbon dating to revise understanding of early humans, suggesting they colonized Europe more rapidly and coexisted for a much shorter period with genetic ancestors.
Paul Mellars, professor of prehistory and human evolution at the University of Cambridge and author of the study, said Neanderthals — the species of the Homo genus that lived in Europe and western Asia from around 230,000 years ago to around 29,000 years ago — succumbed much more readily to competition.
"The two sides were competing for the same territories, the same animals and fuel supplies and occupying the same cave spaces. With that kind of competition, the Neanderthals were always going to come out as the losers," said Mellars, whose paper was published in the journal Nature.
Modern humans — those anatomically the same as people today — were also better equipped to deal with a 6 degree Celsius (11 Fahrenheit) fall in temperatures around 40,000 years ago.
"Because they had better clothing, better technology(??) and a better mastery of fire, the humans were equipped to deal with it," Mellars said.
Mellars used the results of two recent studies of radiocarbon dating — a process of assessing age by counting radioactive decay of carbon in materials — to refine dates determined from fossils, bone fragments and other physical evidence that relates to the spread of humans.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"Corollary question: When was beer invented? :-)"
Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer & would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
Liberals and Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the "Conservative movement."
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQs and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of "the Liberal movement". Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as 'girliemen.' Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.
Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't "fair" to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, Marines, athletes and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to "govern" the producers and decide what to do with their production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.
Here ends today's lesson in world history.
All of that makes sense - but what basis is there for it?
Since we do not find mixed communities, this would have to be the scenario:
Their guys had sex with our women who returned to our communities, bore the product of that sex, and raised it to adulthood.
Any other scenario I can think of requires a mixed community of modern humans and Neanderthals.
I'm afraid I can't agree with your statement.
The mere fact that humans showed up negates your assertion that their's was a "constantly predictable world." Also, the ice receded, there were floods, massive volcanic eruptions, etc and so on.
My anthropology professor insisted we use the no "H" version. He might be watching.
I dare not make another post.
Lest I risk the dreadful possibility of you going off on your rants about "Liberal Democrats".
But it is kind of fun .... I mean, having a "watch bird" watching me.
I wasn't going to mention it.
Not for tools. The MesoAmerican Indians worked with silver, gold and occasionally natural copper because it was maleable -- but only for adornment and ornamentation. Tools and weapons were made of wood, stone or obsidian, or occasional odd materials such as sharks' teeth or sawfish snouts.
The range being smaller than I remembered makes total extinction easier to fathom, although still, we're not talking about an island.
I hope you smiled.
It made my non-pointy jaw drop.
better technology(??)
Is this going to be a Windows vs. Linux thread?
korean code?
Arthur Clarke had the monolith visiting Australopithecus (3.5 - 2.5 million years ago).
On that subject my only comment will be "No Comment."
Don't *sigh* at me, I don't carry smelling salts to forums like this.
The ugly Neandertal woman would not have had a hard time getting mated up with a Cro-Magnon male, that's what I said. However, her child would probably not have good prospects when he/she reached maturity.
This would show up very clearly in the mtDNA. The studies to date don't show it.
If you assume they did freely interbreed and they had sterile offspring would the more numerous group just outlast the other group in a few thousand years?
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