Is Bigfoot Related To Neanderthal?

[Guest]

That was pretty cool Hunster.

Here's a video of this guy's theory. I found it very interesting:

ETA:

Infoman,

We know that early humans were much smaller than "modern" day humans and this video appears to show that neanderthals were significantly larger (judging by the skull sizes he presents at about 04:05 on the video). If there were a survivng population of neanderthals, it may be possible that their size increased over the years also. So potentially they would still be larger than humans. Just a thought.

MB, as I recall, Neandertal were not really taller than contemporary humans, they were more robustly built (think bulkier like a football player).

Could 30-40,000 years of continued evolution driven them to increase in size at a rate greater than we have? Maybe, but it would be pure speculation. What should have also evolved over that time though would be their tool use, use of fire, construction of structures and traps, etc., and that does not appear to be consistent with what we refer to as BF, IMO.

[masterbarber]

What should have also evolved over that time though would be their tool use, use of fire, construction of structures and traps, etc., and that does not appear to be consistent with what we refer to as BF, IMO.

I agree with both you and Drew.

[norseman]

That was pretty cool Hunster.

Here's a video of this guy's theory. I found it very interesting:

ETA:

Infoman,

We know that early humans were much smaller than "modern" day humans and this video appears to show that neanderthals were significantly larger (judging by the skull sizes he presents at about 04:05 on the video). If there were a survivng population of neanderthals, it may be possible that their size increased over the years also. So potentially they would still be larger than humans. Just a thought.

Again, I think Mr. Vendramini is way way off base.

It's interesting that he admits humans and Neanderthals interbreed, and yet his recreations look like some sort of bipedal gorilla or chimpanzee. It's obvious genetically that Neanderthals are much more closely related to us than to any other existing or fossil ape (bipedal or no). Right now I'm thinking that he is playing on people's interest in the fantastical to sell books. And he isn't grounded in science at all.

What's interesting is that his theory, is much more akin to what science thought Neanderthals looked like 100 years ago, before a vast amount of research has been done on them over the last century. Which has moved them much closer to us than ape like.

Jodie wrote:

Whether it's a different hybridization of neanderthal genes with an earlier version of a proto human, or just an off shoot with a similar brain structure, bigfoots reported behaviors sound like someone with traits similar to those on the autism spectrum to me.

This is fascinating! Thanks for sharing!

[masterbarber]

Right now I'm thinking that he is playing on people's interest in the fantastical to sell books. And he isn't grounded in science at all.

Yeah, that's a novel concept huh....

[Guest vilnoori]

Let's not overestimate Neanderthal ability with tools, or early modern humans for that matter. Before 35,000 years ago they all were using the Mousterian tool kit: basically nothing but hand axes, scrapers, and possibly (debatable) points. Hafting may not have been invented yet. So called spears may only have been sharpened and possibly fire-hardened sticks. Likely nets were used, similar to the Mbambuti method of hunting in Congo's forests, today.

Mousterian tool kit (note that the African one has only hand axes) is very simple and spare:

http://www.worldmuseumofman.org/mouseuro.php

Bows and arrows are dated only to about 8,000 years ago in Europe, earlier, but only possibly as recently as 60,000 years ago, in Africa. Most date back only max of 16,000 years ago. It is thought that Neanderthals died out 30,000 years ago, long before this.

How about spear throwers? The earliest European Atlatl dates back only 17,500 years.

The bones of Neanderthals attest that all of them--men, women and kids, were getting up close and personal with their large prey of choice, such as the huge aurochs and mammoths, and they had a short and violent life span we know based on the average age of the remains, no matter how long they could potentially live in best conditions. Cannibalism is thought to have been practiced. No wastage of meat of any kind. They lived in tough, cold times, with not much technological help. They did apparently have fire.

One point on the good side of things is they perhaps cared for elderlies. Maybe. Or maybe their elderlies were just tough as nails and lived just fine without teeth. Who knows.

Edited December 16, 2010 by vilnoori

[Guest]

I am always interested in the what we know and what we think we know and reserve the future for continued information that sways the baseline thinking. I am disappointed in the what I consider small samples of illustrations that are available in

projecting Neandertal phenotypes, particularly with muscleage... and really do not know enough about them. I understand their skeletons are more robust (although I have seen accounts of more slender bones somewhere in their history..) and can be compared to that of a modern day rodeo rider regarding injury recovery.. My beef is the descriptions of them and many of the illustrations not seeming to follow that.. Rather focus on the big guys though.. regarding correlation ? No idea since I do not know enough about either subject.. I presume that BF fossil record sucks like ours though. I expect a specimen before remains..and it might be a road hit. On the other hand, we are still waiting ..Ha! I was waiting for you Vil

Edited December 16, 2010 by treeknocker

[Guest vilnoori]

Two glaring errors in that picture are the cat eyes, and the hafted spear.

Remember that chimps use sharpened sticks to hunt bush babies in tree trunks. So we're talking a level of technology use not much better, if you think about it.

Fire is the thing that was key. But you know, bonobos can be taught to light and build a fire. Its a matter of catching the cultural knowledge and cementing it into the family tree by teaching it over the generations.

If sasquatches are Asian Homo erectus, then we already know that some dig sites of the large H. erectus had no tools. A strange dearth of stone tools! Anthropologists reason that they had bamboo toolkits that didn't survive time, but maybe they just lost the cultural knowledge of how to use and make stone tools. There have been human tribes discovered that didn't use them either. Its all a matter of cultural heritage.

[Guest]

Vilnoori would you agree that no current Great Ape uses the Mousterian toolset?

That is all I was focusing with-respect-to Neadnertal, and then comparing that to a relative lack of any tool use reported for BF.

[Guest vilnoori]

Nope, they don't...but as I said, not all modern humans did, either!

To take down a big 4 legged animal, all you have to do is ambush it, or trip it up, or drop it down a hole or cliff:

[Guest vilnoori]

By the way, even monkeys are able to use a stone hammer!

[Guest vilnoori]

[Guest vilnoori]

When I was a kid in Africa, we kids enjoyed the termite season, when the termite mounds and holes would "smoke" with flying, edible termites. My friends taught me to chew on the end of a soft grass stem, put it into a termite hole, and "fish" for termites. The termites would bite the end of the grass, and you'd pull out a termite "lollipop" which you'd make quick work of (tasty morsels, I can tell you).

Imagine my surprise years later watching this same sequence on tv, but done by chimps! So who taught who that technique?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEDeRJKN0s

Edited December 16, 2010 by vilnoori

[BobZenor]

They have found spear points associated with Neanderthals. I remember reading that they were more suitable as thrusting spears but generally cruder than the ones associated with modern humans. They also apparently used hafting according to wiki. They would have to attach the spear points somehow.

Neanderthals would be a perfect example of an animal that would learn to deflect a blow by acrobatics. They hunted rhinos and other large animals. The cars necessarily killing bigfoot argument made me think of them. They would probably have been experts at dodging and taking blows from charging animals. Their injuries support that idea and a rhino would be a lot like a speeding car if the driver was gunning for you.

Neanderthals were probably way too closely related to modern humans to be a likely ancestor of bigfoot. We know that they were only a few hundred thousand years removed from modern humans. The guy in the video made some good points but he ignored some facts and his conclusions are probably greatly exaggerated.

I agree that some people make too much out of the stone tool argument. It is easy for a population to lose that sort thing by switching to something like clubs. All they would have to do is adopt a new strategy for survival or just lose it like in the case of Tasmanians.

Jared Diamond article Link

When it was first visited by Europeans in 1642' date=' Tasmania was occupied by 4,000 hunter/gatherers related to mainland Australians, but with the simplest technology of any recent people on Earth. Unlike mainland Aboriginal Australians, Tasmanians couldn't start a fire; they had no boomerangs, spear throwers, or shields; they had no bone tools, no specialized stone tools, and no compound tools like an axe head mounted on a handle; they couldn't cut down a tree or hollow out a canoe; they lacked sewing to make sewn clothing, despite Tasmania's cold winter climate with snow; and, incredibly, though they lived mostly on the sea coast, the Tasmanians didn't catch or eat fish.[/quote']

The teeth of the Neanderthals are also worn apparently from stretching and working animal skins in their mouths so they apparently wore cloths. That probably makes any long hair cold adaptations less likely. That argument certainly doesn't apply to all erectus which are 4 times as distantly related. Assuming that Asian erectus not in our lineage will continue to advance their tool set ignores the fact that other erectus don't have stone tools associated with them. It also ignores the fact that there apparently were multiple species of "erectus". That is so firmly established that it really doesn't need the qualifier but determining species by bones is a bit subjective and some still hold onto the idea of a single human species or the multi-regional hypothesis. It has been almost universally replaced by the out of Africa hypothesis which means there were multiple species. On top of that, there is evidence of multiple species just in Asia that were called erectus with dubious origins of some back to at least early Homo. There isn't any solid evidence for the ancestor of floresiensis in Asia if it is more primitive than "erectus" as it seems. That is also an argument against the lack of fossils argument.

I made a slight enlargement and minor modifications of MK's head turn Gif. The comparison of the prognathism or jutting jaw seems less than some habilis reconstructions. That doesn't mean that much by itself but the overall features of the skull and face does seem to match early Homo pretty well. Bigfoot could have evolved from a latter erectus which don't have quite the amount of prognathism.

click to animate

[MagniAesir]

Where in the hell did you get that pic, Huntster? That thing practically screams "shoot me with your 338 first, then pet my carcass and take photos at the end of the blood trail later"...

It is in the link Hunster posted with the picture

[Guest]

I agree that some people make too much out of the stone tool argument. It is easy for a population to lose that sort thing by switching to something like clubs. All they would have to do is adopt a new strategy for survival or just lose it like in the case of Tasmanians.

Jared Diamond article Link

Actually, the Aborigines, and I would assume the Tasmanians too, have been shone to have a similar same brain structure as that of the Neanderthal. This could be because of their isolation without contamination from other gene pools and/ or the neanderthal style brain is an alternative co-evolutionary trait that is determined by the environment??? It is not something that is well publicised or that anyone really wants to talk about, but it is what it is.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Jodie