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Sweetsunray
storyteller
Username: Sweetsunray
Post Number: 624
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 5:58 pm: |     |
I've found several articles on the bbc about Neaderthals about a wide range of topics... Therefore a general new thread, instead of focusing on only 1 question
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3663865.stm
"Neanderthals were 'adults by 15'
Neanderthals matured much more rapidly than modern humans. The Neanderthals reached adulthood at the tender age of 15 according to a report in the journal Nature."
Based on teeth research
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4251299.stm
about cold adaption, intelligence, voice, hunting technique (ambush), ... and an agility difference that might be the reason of extinction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3346455.stm
the article that has already been linked to 'more like us' but previously resulted in a not-found page. Not long before the Neanderthals were extinct they started to shed their sturdy physique for one closer to ours.
Everyone has a motive for giving arguments. But only the arguments given matter. |
Sweetsunray
storyteller
Username: Sweetsunray
Post Number: 625
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 6:08 pm: | |
Also on Neanderthal Art
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3256228.stm
"A flint object with a striking likeness to a human face may be one of the best examples of art by Neanderthal man ever found, the journal Antiquity reports. The "mask", which is dated to be about 35,000 years old, was recovered on the banks of the Loire in France.
It is about 10 cm tall and wide and has a bone splinter rammed through a hole, making the rock look as if it has eyes.
Commentators say the object shows the Neanderthals were more sophisticated than their caveman image suggests.
"It should finally nail the lie that Neanderthals had no art," Paul Bahn, the British rock art expert, told BBC News Online. "It is an enormously important object."
--- Nose and cheeks ---
It is described in Antiquity by Jean-Claude Marquet, curator of the Museum of Prehistory of Grand-Pressigny, and Michel Lorblanchet, a director of research in the French National Centre of Scientific Research, Roc des Monges, at Saint-Sozy.
The mask was found during an excavation of old river sediments in front of a Palaeolithic cave encampment at La Roche-Cotard.
Tool and bone discoveries suggest Neanderthals used the location to light a fire and prepare food.
Triangular in shape, the object shows clear evidence, the researchers say, of having been worked - flakes have been chipped off the block to make it more face-like.
The 7.5-cm-long bone has also been wedged in position purposely by flint fragments.
Marquet and Lorblanchet write in Antiquity: "We think that this is indeed a 'proto-figurine'; that is, a small flint block whose natural shape evokes a crudely triangular human face - or a mask if one notes that it is primarily the upper part of the face that is concerned, like a carnival mask, or, rather less clearly, an animal face, perhaps a feline?
"It was not only picked up and brought into the habitation, but was also modified in various ways to perfect its resemblance to a face: the forehead, the eyes underlined by the bone splinter, the nose stopped at its extremity by an intentional flake-removal, and the rectified cheeks."
They are convinced this object is no accident of geology. Jean-Claude Marquet told BBC News Online: "The sliver of bone was pushed in forcibly and wedged with two pebbles.
"Chance could not have inserted the stones in between the bone and the block in such a balanced way, with the two ends coming out equally either side."
Everyone has a motive for giving arguments. But only the arguments given matter. |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 293
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 7:07 pm: | |
sweetsunray:
A lot of this stuff has been discussed on my e-list Paleoanthropology, Science, and Society, and in various other venues, some time ago. The stories are interesting, but sometimes conflicting, and there is still, as you might imagine, a lot of argument about what Neandertals did and what they were capable of. Despite the find at La Roche Cotard, I don't think too many people attribute that kind of art to Neandertals. However, there's no particular reason they couldn't have done such things, if they were so inclined; the figurine from Berekhat Ram suggests that such abilities were at least latent among them, and on the "musical" side, there is the Divje Babe object, which is still highly contested, but it sure looks like a flute!
Anne G |
Don
hunter
Username: Don
Post Number: 404
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 6:16 am: | |
You can find the Berekhat Ram figure at
http://donsmaps.com/ukrainevenus.html
and the Neandertal flute, made from a baby cave bear bone, (!) at:
http://donsmaps.com/musicalinstruments.html
Don
take what you want and pay for it |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 294
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 7:54 pm: | |
Don and all:
There is also another link to the Neanderthal Flute, written by the musicologist Bob Fink. Some of you might find it interesting. Here's the link:
http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm
Anne G. |
Don
hunter
Username: Don
Post Number: 405
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 11:17 pm: | |
---------There is also another link to the Neanderthal Flute, written by the musicologist Bob Fink. Some of you might find it interesting.---------
Wow! What a great analysis!
Thank you very much. Fink has gone into the subject in great and interesting detail.
Don
take what you want and pay for it |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 921
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 4:36 am: | |
Yeah there is a lot of controversy over the "flute". Looks like it was pierced by the canines of a carnivore. Then again, it could have been human made. I go for the latter, at least my heart does.
Thanks for the links SSR. I will add them to our link list, perhaps we should start a Neanderthal links section.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 295
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 11:33 pm: | |
Don and Scott:
I've heard credible-sounding analyses of the Divje Babe object on both sides. I'm inclined to think it was some sort of musical instrument, based on its similarity to certain early instruments made by obviously "modern" humans. I don't think this is any coincidence, any more than I think it is somehow coincidental that five of the six flower pollens found at the Shanidar "flower burial" just "happened" to believed to have medicinal properties(at least by modern herbal medicine practitioners). It would seem logical that just like other "original" modern humans, they used whatever resources were available to them, for the health of their clan, tribe, group, etc.
Anne G |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 936
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 1:59 am: | |
Absolutely Anne. I agree with you 100%.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 296
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 7:09 pm: | |
Scott:
But because Neandertals are a "despised group"(although a prehistoric one, a lot of people still won't give them their due.
Anne G |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 943
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 5:37 am: | |
Simply put, these people are a bunch of close-minded idiots with their heads so far up their asses, that they could blow bubbles and burp endlessly.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 300
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 8:20 pm: | |
Scott:
The problem with these people is, they're scientists, and they think they are being scientific about Neandertals being fundamentally "different". Sure, there are the anatomical differences, but the problem here is, they're making a fundamental anthropological mistake by conflating anatomy with behavior.
Anne G |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1261
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 - 3:58 am: | |
It looks like Neanderthals and modern Humans might have interacted over a shorter timescale (6000 years as opposed to the previously thought 10,000). Paul Mellars has just published what seems like a great paper in Nature. Here is the Nature news article:
Better bone dates reveal bad news for Neanderthals
quote:Advances in the science of radiocarbon dating - a common, but oft-maligned palaeontological tool - have narrowed down the overlap between Europe's earliest modern humans and the Neanderthals that preceded them.
Refinements to the technique, which estimates an artefact's age by sampling the amount of radioactive carbon left over from when it was formed, suggest that Homo sapiens wrested Europe from its prehistoric counterpart even quicker than had been thought.
Previous estimates suggested that at least 7,000 years elapsed between H. sapiens arriving in eastern Europe more than 40,000 years ago, and the disappearance of the last known Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) from western France. But newly calculated dates shrink the overlap to 5,000 years.
Haven't read the full article, but looking forward to it. Mellars is preeminent on this sort of stuff.
See: Mellars P., et al. Nature, 439 . 931 - 935 (2006).
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 344
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 - 4:21 am: | |
Scott:
Yeah. Mellars is a rather strict "replacementist", and the scenario he presents follows his favored thesis. OTOH, it's good to know that the dates of --- whatever --- are now more precise. BTW, I have the full Nature article in PDF on my private files. If anybody wants it, please feel free to e-mail me at:
shanidar9@yahoo.com
I will be glad to forward it to you.
Anne G |
Angakuk
hunter
Username: Angakuk
Post Number: 491
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 - 4:38 am: | |
I'm not quite sure how this constitutes bad news for the Neanderthals. What difference does it make to them now, when they went extinct?
One thing about the article puzzles me. They've pushed the arrival date for modern Homo back by about 3,000 yrs. and the the date for complete expansion across Europe by about 5,000 yrs. The article doesn't give any indication that they have revised dates for the final disappearance of Neanderthal, so how does that result in shorter period of co-occupancy?
"It takes all kinds to make a world and I'm just one of them." My Grandmother
I don't blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don't believe in that god either. George MacDonald (paraphrase)
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Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 345
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 - 9:36 pm: | |
Angakuk:
You've raised some pretty pertinent questions, IMO. For further info(and another view of this), please try the John Hawks Blog @
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/hawks/hawks.html
If you scroll down the left-hand "topics" side, you will come to the entry that discusses these later dates. Then you can see what you think.
Anne G |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2451
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 - 11:30 pm: | |
I think there is a significant difference between saying that modern humans spread throughout Europe in 5,000 years and suggesting that Neanderthals died out at the end of that expansion.
"Spread throughout" Europe isn't the same as "filled up" or "exclusively occupied". If, in a chess game, White has spread across the board, it doesn't follow that Black has been eliminated (or is even losing).
The Nature news article seems to be saying that Neanderthals died out in 41k BP. Isn't there good evidence of their survival to at least 30k BP? Or is this some confusion (on my part) due to the difference between "radiocarbon dates" and "real dates"?
I've read suggestions that humans and Neanderthals occupied different terrains and so could both be in the same large general area (say, "Central France") but not interacting or competing. I've read others suggesting that they nomadically occupied the same spaces but separated by decades.
Regarding the iceberg-calving climate-cooling suggested by Mellars (and discussed by Hawks), I can understand Mellars' point. If the Neanderthals had migrated to SE Europe and the Levant during the colder European periods, the Neanderthals might have encountered sufficient numbers of humans occupying those areas at that time, and had to face more difficult conditions than usual. So, Hawks' "Oh my, icebergs, right ahead! That sounds like a Neanderthal-killer" comment sounds a bit unsupportedly flippant and dismissive.
Machiavelli was pretty devious. For a guy... |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 346
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 10:32 pm: | |
Cavebear:
Regarding the iceberg-calving climate-cooling suggested by Mellars (and discussed by Hawks), I can understand Mellars' point. If the Neanderthals had migrated to SE Europe and the Levant during the colder European periods, the Neanderthals might have encountered sufficient numbers of humans occupying those areas at that time, and had to face more difficult conditions than usual. So, Hawks' "Oh my, icebergs, right ahead! That sounds like a Neanderthal-killer" comment sounds a bit unsupportedly flippant and dismissive.
It's not so flippant as you might think. Although I agree with you generally on your point about language and meaning in the first paragraph.
That said, Neandertals did in fact reach "the Levant" during some of the colder glacial periods. Otherwise, their remains would not have been found in places like Kebara. Did they "interact" with "moderns" who may have started to migrate out of Africa at that time? I don't know; such evidence as there is has been interpreted in different ways. It's possible that both populations kind of "time shared" that area --- the "moderns" durinig the wamrer periods and the N's during the colder periods. At least this is Ofer Bar-Yosef's contention. OTOH, it's also possible, though not "proven", that, even if there was some kind of "prehistoric time share arrangement", there were always a few members of either population who kind of "stuck around" and got absorbed into the "other" population. This amy, BTW, explain why some Neandertals ended up lookiing more "gracile" some 30,000 years ago at Vindija, and some "moderns", such as the ones at Mladec, seem to retain some "Neandertal-like" features. Or maybe the contact was a lot, uh, closer at hand. My own guess is that, compared to the populations of "moderns", Neandertal populations tended to be rather small and scattered, but when the two groups came into contact, assuming they did at times, they were perfectly capable of recognizing the "others" as somewhat strange, but perfectly human, thank you very much. However, this does not address Mellars' contentions, except to suggest that "moderns' propbably werent' running around killing off Neandertals. Each group propbably had too much else on its plate most of the time, to worry too much about the others.
Anne G |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2462
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 4:32 pm: | |
Sidescraper Gal - I may have phrased part of my post unclearly. There is no doubt that Neanderthals did occupy the Levant at times. What I was suggesting was the last time (Mellars' climate-cooling event) they tried to migrate toward the Levant, they found modern humans in sufficient established numbers to deter them, restricting them to harsher conditions.
Machiavelli was pretty devious. For a guy... |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 348
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 3:49 am: | |
Cavebear:
Wellllll. . . .I don't think archaeology bears this out(although I'll have to read the Mellars paper to check on the dates he gives). After all, the Kebara specimen is dated around 60 kyr ago, which was, I think, during this "cooling event". At least the more northerly parts of Eurasia were pretty cold then.
Anne G |
Trholme
bear cub
Username: Trholme
Post Number: 4
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Monday, March 13, 2006 - 6:53 am: | |
Did Neandertal make music on a flute made of bone? The holes are spaced at a perfect distance and the shape is not the shape of a canine bite, but of deliberate rounding with a tool. But was his purpose music? We (even scientists) are looking at it through modern eyes. As if he played in a primitive rock and roll band. That won't do. We need the eyes and mind of a hunter to see that flute. We need to see the cave paintings of the shaman dancing wearing the antler head of a great deer. They could not run as fast as a lion to bring down a bounding deer. But they could make the skin of the animal into a covering and with stealth creep near enough to the herd in the night to spring upon them with spears. They could immitate the sounds of the animals they hunted. They would practice in their caves and the old would teach the young. And round the fire they would jump the move like the animals moved, and learn the hunters tricks that were as sophisticated in their way as the lithic technologies were in another. The first flutes were tools for immitating bird calls. But around the fire in their caves these bird call tools eventually became music.
I wrote about the Neanderthals here:
http://www.geocities.com/gardenofdanu/The_Mammoth_ Hunters.htm
And down on the bottom is a link to a story about a half Cro-Magnon, half Neanderthal child carbon dated to 24,000 B.P. which indicates that Neandertal may not have been wiped out by Cro-Magnon, but "assimilated".
Thomas R. Holme |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 349
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 - 12:21 am: | |
Trholme:
I kind of think it was some kind of human-made "noisemaker", though what kind of noises it made might be debatable. In fact, such an object could have been used both to "call" prey and to make sweet Neandertal tunes. I don't see why not, anyway.
Anne G |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1281
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 7:04 am: | |
There is considerable doubt about the so-called Neanderthal flute. The holes do fit certain carnivores, but not canine's that is correct.
Your Neanderthal info on that link is rather out-dated.
The jury is still out on the flute. Let's see if another is discovered with better provenance. I hope you are right Anne!
It remains to be seen if the Lapedo child is a mixture. Anne, have they tried any mtDNA extraction on the remains yet? I tend to support Trinkaus' analysis, but there is a lot of opposition there!
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Trholme
bear cub
Username: Trholme
Post Number: 24
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 7:58 am: | |
There is something I always wonder about whenever I read about Neanderthals having larger brains than modern humans. It's that I have always heard that it is the size of the brain that matters. Like the way we have heard dinosours described as having a brain the size of a pea. Things like that. Or a chimpanzee having a brain one third the size of a humans. We humans are supposed to be therefore as intelligent as we are because we have developed such large brains. But what then of the Neanderthal? Yes, I have also read studies which say that Neanderthal's brains may actually have been more like the same size as humans. (And I hope no one asks me if I was ever actually among the scientists measuring the size of the skull craniums to actually KNOW what I am talking about because the answer is "NO" I have not.) But if Neanderthal brains were larger than human brains, isn't there any possibility that they did have some very advanced mental acuity? Well, it is just a passing thought. I can actually probably answer the question myself just as well, because I also know from what I have read that their frontal lobes were smaller than humans, and that is where our communication forms. But still, heck. They might have used that brainpower for art or something. There are some who are investigating the possibility that Neanderthals created some of the cave art. I myself don't see it as likely. But will be watching to see if any new information comes along.
Ha... Years ago I used to wear a Stetson hat. The people at the Stetson store measured my head for it and I will never forget the sales girl's surprise. She said my hatsize was the largest hatsize Stetson makes, 7 3/4. I think she actually said I would take a 7 7/8 but the closest Stetson makes is 7 3/4. I wonder if that means I may be part Neanderthal? Haha.
TR |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1284
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 8:03 am: | |
Neocortical ratio is a better indicator of intelligence. Ours is higher than Neanderthal. The sample size is so small that the 1600cc figure oft quoted is almost meaningless. Internal architecture seems to be the same as us - from endocasts.
Do you have supra-orbital torii? 
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2503
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 9:40 pm: | |
TR - Absolute brain size doesn't seem to be the major indicator of intelligence (even from just a human perspective). Brain structures and organization matter, too. Average doesn't seem to be the most important thing either.
The H. floresienses was only about 1 meter in height and fully bipedal, with a very small brain size of 417cc. Yet they seem to have functioned intelligently (made tools, hunted, etc).
I suspect that, after some certain brain size and complexity is developed, cultural socialization takes us much further and can maintain us even with smaller brains. So, Neanderthals who had large brains, but perhaps not the same ability to pass along learned knowledge as well as H floresienses, might not have done as well overall as a group. If Neanderthals could speak (a big question) perhaps they could not speak as well or with symbolic concepts. Perhaps our ancestors routinely drew animal images in the dirt so they didn't have to keep describing animals or places over and over again, and Neanderthals never could do that. Perhaps Neanderthal brains memorized images of places better than we do, but we learned to describe them to each other as a group better
Machiavelli was pretty devious. For a guy... |
Sidescraper_gal
hunter
Username: Sidescraper_gal
Post Number: 350
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 4:42 am: | |
Cavebear:
Scott is right re the endocasts. A good piece on this(if you can get it), is "The Poor Brain of Neanderthal --- See What You Please", by Ralph Holloway,in a collection called, I think, Viewing the Ancestors I don't think that's quite the right title, but it was edited, some years back, by Eric Delson, in case you want to look it up. Anyway, yeah, there's been "controversy" about whether or not Neandertals could "really" talk; or "really" use symbols. But it seems to me that they would have had to be able to communicate, and symbolically at that, since at the very least, the elders would have had to explain to the younger folk, how sidescrapers were produced, describing a deer when out on a hunting expedition, if the youngster had never been out on one before, etc., etc. Besides which, there are a scattering of archaeological artifacts that seem to indicate that Neandertals and other "archaic" humans could think abstractly and and symbolically. The much argued over Divje Babe object is one such example. Another is the mammoth plaque from Tata, Hungary, which has no practical use whatever, but is stained with red ochre and apparently scraped with more or less parallel lines. And then, also from Tata, there is a nummulite with a vertical natural crack. Some Neandertal incised a horizontal line across the vertical one, which effectively "quartered" the nummulite. Now if that isn't symbolic thinking of some sort, I don't know what is. Of course, absent an anthropologist in a time machine, we have no way of knowing just what the symbolism was, but we don't really know what the symbolism of all that later "modern" human cave art was, either.
Anne G |
Angakuk
hunter
Username: Angakuk
Post Number: 502
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 9:21 am: | |
Cavebear:The H. floresienses was only about 1 meter in height and fully bipedal, with a very small brain size of 417cc. Yet they seem to have functioned intelligently (made tools, hunted, etc).
I would just like to point out that the jury is still pretty much out on whether the H. floresienses cranium is a normal or pathological sample and whether the tools and animal remains found in the Liang Bua site are attributable to the H. floresienses remains. The use of H. floresienses, in support of any argument, is probably somewhat premature at this point.
"It takes all kinds to make a world and I'm just one of them." My Grandmother
I don't blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don't believe in that god either. George MacDonald (paraphrase)
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