New evidence debunks 'stupid' Neanderthal myth

New evidence debunks 'stupid' Neanderthal myth









Citation: Are Upper Paleolithic blade cores more productive than Middle Paleolithic discoidal cores? A replication experiment is published by Elsevier, in the Journal of Human Evolution. Authors: Metin I. Eren, Aaron Greenspan, C. Garth Sampson.

Source: University of Exeter

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Citation: New evidence debunks 'stupid' Neanderthal myth (2008, August 26) retrieved 18 August 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2008-08-evidence-debunks-stupid-neanderthal-myth.html

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Aug 26, 2008
Just because their tools weren't inferior that doesn't mean they were as intelligent as homo sapiens.

Aug 26, 2008
Lacking the "killer instinct," Neanderthals were easy pickings. We had the blades. We smelled blood. We took 'em, like Sherman took Atlanta. However, I don't think it's accurate to say they are extinct. Part of their genome survived in us. (Met a girl from France once who was a dead ringer for one of those "artist's conception" images of a Neanderthal.)

Aug 26, 2008
This is like saying because two people can pour water into a cup, both people are equally intelligent. While it is an interesting find, the ability to make a simple tool does not define how it was used or who developed it first or other traits that aren't readily obvious on first glance. Frankly, I can't see any evidence that says which species is more intelligent, but I'm willing to bet one or the other had an edge.

Aug 26, 2008
Actually their hunting techniques and technology were VERY different from us. We used long slender spears and killed from a distance. They used shorter broader spears and killed using a direct thrust.

When the climate changed in Europe (yes climate can actually change without a coal plant to blame it on...really) the forests the Neanderthals hunted in went away. Without the heavy timber to camouflage their approach and which complimented their adopted style of hunting we slowly won out.

Basically it was a lack of trees that killed them...at least that's what the Discovery Channel program I saw said :P

Aug 26, 2008
Score 1 Geico Caveman

Aug 26, 2008
Doesn't anybody watch Sliders?! The Cromags are out there, and sadly they have telepathy.

I personally believe that the cromags developed super fast and are now our invisable overlords.

Aug 26, 2008
There is a difference between "This debunks the myth of..." and "The researchers CLAIM that this debunks the myth of...". I'm not partial one way or the other on this question, I'm just saying that saying it doesn't necessarily make it so.

Aug 26, 2008
I'm also highly suspect of this article.

First of all I don't think you can directly correlate intelligence based on efficiency of tool use...especially for neolithic times when the same technology was being used and refined by Neanderthals for hundreds of thousands of years, and by our own ancestors for tens of thousands.

Furthermore, while the Neanderthal brain was in most cases larger than ours, it wasn't larger in the important place with respect to intelligence, in fact it was smaller. We are the kings of the cerebrum, they were the kings of the cerebellum. In my estimation this fact alone suggests that we are/were indeed more intelligent and adaptable than they were because it's well known to medical science that the cerebrum is where virtually all higher brain functions reside.

Just my two cents.

Aug 27, 2008
Disregarding elusive but possible DNA links, which would show intermingling of CroMagnon and Neanderthal lines, physiological factors like gestation periods, fertility ages, low immunity to viruses or even the suggestion that Neanderthals might have suffered from vertigo are among influences that could have caused their line to "vanish," if indeed that is what happened. I must also dispute the contention that there was merely 10,000 years of contact, but even over periods of that length (nearly twice the stretch of our own recorded human history), simple things mount up and ultimately result in tremendous survival differences.

Aug 27, 2008
Neanderthals were probably less different from Homo Sapiens than say Tigers are from Lions.

Now I can't say whether Lions would cross breed with Tigers if they both inhabited the same continent but they certainly can cross breed.

Since both Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals are considered more intelligent than either Lions or Tigers and since I know that there are many Homo Sapiens that are not particular fussy about same species coitus then we would have to assume there was a very high likely hood that some cross-over existed.

And since Africa probably produced more Homo Sapiens after the first wave, we can guess that sheer numbers may have relegated Neanderthals and Neanderthal cross-breeds to a relative small sample of the population.

Are the Neanderthals still with us most probably at least in gene mix. Were the full-bloods less intelligent than Homo Sapiens - well maybe but they were at least different.

Aug 27, 2008
Finally, the Neaderthals get some respect.

EVERYONE knows the CroMags were the Stephen Hawking/Michael C. Fina/Uri Gellers of their day.

That's right. I am going on the record to say that not only did they postulate the theorectical physical existance of spoons, but they also produced them... and then bent 'em.

Damn smart folks, them CroMags.

Wow...I really have been awake too long...

Aug 27, 2008
Since the American indians and every other primitive ethnic group on earth all use blades and not flakes, the hypotheses stated above are probably wrong. Blades weight less and its easier to put some type of handle or holder on them to prevent hand injuries.

Aug 27, 2008
Oh, the Neanderthals are still with us; most are registered with the GOP :-)

Aug 30, 2008
Anyone who has ever seen the images from the Tantric temples in India will have no doubt that at least some humans would have had sex with Neanderthals.

If hybrids are rare, it probably means that there was a barrier to reproduction. This could be a simple as a chromosomal rearrangement that would make interbreeding impossible.
It could have been something subtler, such as Neanderthals being RH negative, which would would allow interbreeding but would suppress Neanderthal mitochondria because Neanderthal females carrying mixed children would have RH compatibility problems. And one of the main arguments that there was no interbreeding comes from a lack of Neanderthal mitochondria in the present population.
Perhaps this is even why the Basque country,
which is where the Neanderthals are thought to survived longest, has the highest percentage of RH negative people.
