The Highbrow Neanderthal

https://www.growbyginkgo.com/2021/07/29/old-masters/

by item • 5 years ago

47 27 5 years ago

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pkdpic_y9k• 5 years ago

I taught this stuff for years and never came across this. Excellent post.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave

7thaccount• 5 years ago

Absolutely fascinating. I love hearing about Neanderthals and Denisovans and look forward to scientists learning even more in the future. It's mind boggling to think of other sentient species like our own that we could actually interbreed with.

wombatmobile4• 5 years ago

What does it tell us that none of the other hominid lineages survived?

jasonwatkinspdx5• 5 years ago

That homo sapiens sapiens most likely displaced them, but that doesn't really mean as much as your comment might intend to insinuate.

Neanderthals lasted half a million years, and the more we learn the more we appraise them as sophisticated. That said, they seem to have faced a caloric challenge in a world with sparse mega fauna.

Based on everything I've read, modern humans pre-language excelled at one specific thing: walking very long distances without exhaustion on less calories. Ends up that's pretty dang useful in spreading across the globe.

lkrubner• 5 years ago

Homo Sapiens left Africa in several waves after 250,000 BC and every single wave went extinct till about 60,000 years ago. The question isn't "Why did Neanderthals go extinct?" but "Why did every species of human repeatedly go extinct outside of Africa?" And that needs to be balanced against the nuance that Neanderthals survived at least 600,000 years, straight through the period when Sapiens were recuringly going extinct. So this is a very complex story that we're looking at.

singularity2001• 5 years ago

As much as it is the new vogue to claim that Neanderthals where artistic, I am not convinced yet that these artifacts are not signs of newcomers (homo sapiens).

sgt101• 5 years ago

What evidence would you find convincing?

fuzzfactor• 5 years ago

It's been a while and it's hard to remember but back when I was a Neanderthal we had some neighbors who were quite advanced for those prehistoric times.

They not only had paintings on the wall but they were already using the beak of a live domesticated fowl to reproduce their tribal rhythms from vinyl records spinning on stone turntables.

IIRC their names were Fred & Barney.

So n=2.

vc43fsdf3• 5 years ago

Just will add this: we don't know, maybe the Neanderthals already could speak thousands of years before the Home Sapiens learned to do so.

Then the original Neanderthal civilization had a sharp edge over the Sapiens, through thousand of years.

Ok, everyone says here "but technological development SHOULD have happened". And I would say "not necessarily", and it actually could happened a couple of times, but it didn't had the written word advantage to keep building upon learned stuff (you keep discovering-then-forgetting the same things over and over), or maybe there was other factor limiting the Neanderthal technological development (neurological, strong "bad-to-tech" cultural practices, etc.).

You say "not probably", but Homo Sapiens just recently (re)learned to wash hands as a safe method to better health outcomes, maybe for the 40th time in several thousands of years across a dozen of civilizations / tribes who already know about washed-hands = good health:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esenios

mod50ack• 5 years ago

It's not just the Essenes. Jews generally have a long history of handwashing. I've heard some things conjectured with regards to this and the black plague.

convnet• 5 years ago

Yeah you're commanded to wash your hands before eating and after you wake up.

tabtab• 5 years ago

If homo sapiens weren't around, then Neanderthals perhaps would have been first to civilization. They would have spread south and started trading and socializing more, as trade was one of the biggest boost to sapiens because one didn't have to find all the "good stuff" on the same land anymore. Those with extra top-notch stones but short food could trade. "Comparative advantage" long before Adam Smith's time. The instinct to war with competitors would be diminished as those good at trade could prosper without risking war dead.

The Highbrow Neanderthal

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