What happened to neanderthal man?

[Aman777]

I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment about not all "truths" being interconnected.

I was pointing out that there was but one way to Heaven and He is the literal Truth. Jhn 14:6 He's the one way, the only Truth, and life its self...tomorrow.

 

[Dave RP]

There is a lot of information about neanderthal man. I would like to look at the artifacts: "an object made by a human being". Around 40,000 years ago we find sowing needles, fishing hooks and fishing nets. This is when man first came up out of Africa because they were now able to adapt to a colder ecosystem. One of the great mysteries of early human evolution is what happened to extinct hominin groups like the Neanderthals and Denisovans. These were human groups who lived in Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years before Homo sapiens started streaming out of Africa and taking over the world.

This is a clear example of a species leaving one eco system and adapting to become a part of another biodiverse eco system.

Genesis 1:28 "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

At the risk of dragging this topic back to the original question, I have just finished reading a very interesting book on Neanderthals, the conclusion was, as is often the case, we do not know definitively what happened to Neanderthals.

Remember fossil finds of Neanderthals and other pre Homo-sapien humans are incredibly rare, numbering in the dozens. From this small number of fossils and other evidence we have to try to piece together a story of events lasting hundreds of thousands of years. It is inevitable that there will be conflicting interpretations but the authors believed that the Neanderthal population was declining before modern humans evolved and arrived in Europe. They say that rapid climate change destroyed much of the habitat which enabled Neanderthal hunting techniques to be successful. The Neanderthals were stronger than modern humans, and had a brain of similar size, possible even larger, but modern humans evolved to be chase hunters - they could run for hours after prey exhausting the prey and this was best suited to the open savannas where Humans evolved. Neanderthals were stronger and heavier and this was best suited to ambush hunting, requiring forest cover. As the climate changed, forests gave way to open grassland meaning that Neanderthals were becoming more isolated in their own enclaves.

There is also some evidence that Neanderthals lived in smaller kinship groups, rather than the larger tribes of the humans, this resulted in Neanderthals isolated groups being less able to cope with rapid change, they had less critical mass to fall back on. There is some evidence of family interbreeding in later Neanderthals not apparent in earlier groups, implying they were becoming isolated.

It seems that when the two species finally met in Europe Neanderthals were in serious decline anyway and humanity was growing, populations were so sparse that it is hard to see why humans would have needed to murder them, maybe there were local conflicts, there appears to have been some interbreeding, but fundamentally it seems the Neanderthals just got unlucky with environmental changes at the wrong time and humans got lucky. If events had been different it might be Neanderthals contemplating why the smaller and nimbler Sapiens died out and they didn't!

On a personal level I really wish that some isolated groups of Neanderthals had survived, imagine the earth now with two distinct species of human living side by side. We were sop close to each other in appearance and must have had a reasonably recent evolutionary ancestor, this is a fascinating subject and I intend to read more about it.

 

[joshua 1 9]

At the risk of dragging this topic back to the original question, I have just finished reading a very interesting book on Neanderthals, the conclusion was, as is often the case, we do not know definitively what happened to Neanderthals.

Remember fossil finds of Neanderthals and other pre Homo-sapien humans are incredibly rare, numbering in the dozens. From this small number of fossils and other evidence we have to try to piece together a story of events lasting hundreds of thousands of years. It is inevitable that there will be conflicting interpretations but the authors believed that the Neanderthal population was declining before modern humans evolved and arrived in Europe. They say that rapid climate change destroyed much of the habitat which enabled Neanderthal hunting techniques to be successful. The Neanderthals were stronger than modern humans, and had a brain of similar size, possible even larger, but modern humans evolved to be chase hunters - they could run for hours after prey exhausting the prey and this was best suited to the open savannas where Humans evolved. Neanderthals were stronger and heavier and this was best suited to ambush hunting, requiring forest cover. As the climate changed, forests gave way to open grassland meaning that Neanderthals were becoming more isolated in their own enclaves.

There is also some evidence that Neanderthals lived in smaller kinship groups, rather than the larger tribes of the humans, this resulted in Neanderthals isolated groups being less able to cope with rapid change, they had less critical mass to fall back on. There is some evidence of family interbreeding in later Neanderthals not apparent in earlier groups, implying they were becoming isolated.

It seems that when the two species finally met in Europe Neanderthals were in serious decline anyway and humanity was growing, populations were so sparse that it is hard to see why humans would have needed to murder them, maybe there were local conflicts, there appears to have been some interbreeding, but fundamentally it seems the Neanderthals just got unlucky with environmental changes at the wrong time and humans got lucky. If events had been different it might be Neanderthals contemplating why the smaller and nimbler Sapiens died out and they didn't!

On a personal level I really wish that some isolated groups of Neanderthals had survived, imagine the earth now with two distinct species of human living side by side. We were sop close to each other in appearance and must have had a reasonably recent evolutionary ancestor, this is a fascinating subject and I intend to read more about it.

When the Nation of Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land they were told to conquer the land gradually to keep the wild animals under control. They did allow some of the people to live and those people are still a thorn in their side today.

 

[Dave RP]

When the Nation of Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land they were told to conquer the land gradually to keep the wild animals under control. They did allow some of the people to live and those people are still a thorn in their side today.

Did you post to the wrong thread?

 

[bhsmte]

Did you post to the wrong thread?

Judging by experience, i doubt it.

 

[Dave RP]

Judging by experience, i doubt it.

I was struggling to see any relevance to the subject or to my post, what am I missing?

 

[bhsmte]

I was struggling to see any relevance to the subject or to my post, what am I missing?

Experience with the poster in question maybe? It is common to see responses, that have zero to do with the topic.

 

[ruthiesea]

The question is why did Neanderthals go extinct.

Neanderthal could not compete with H. sapiens and could not adapt to changing climates. However, Neanderthal genes have been found in modern humans.