Is Bigfoot Related To Neanderthal?

[Huntster]

If the "NP THEORY" was correct, we wouldn't have 4% of their genes in us.........they would have 4% of our genes in them. We were the dominant species, not them, as genetics shows us.

So? We're the "dominant species", yet the great cats hunt humans almost regularly. Bears do on occasion. So do some sharks.

So, Neanderthal's may have hunted other human subspecies and eventually lost out. Sorta'like Philistines routinely hunted Israelites and eventually lost out.

See any Philistines lately?

[Huntster]

Where in the hell did you get that pic, Huntster?

At this site:

http://blog.essayweb.net/2010/02/16/the-neanderthal-predation-theory/

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"...

Yeah, I nearly want to print it out, tape it to a paper target, and take it to the range. It's got ugly written all over it.

[Huntster]

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

While I think the art depicting cat-eyed mini-sasquatches with spears is fanciful, I'm quite certain that Neanderthals and other humans fought, and may have preyed upon each other for food.

After all, we do it today. Regularly. Routinely. Even cannibalism.

Why not 35,000 years ago?

And why not rape? Kidnapping? Like Sacagawea, the Shoshone kidnapped and held by the Hidatsa as late as the Lewis & Clark expedition?

It's interesting that he admits humans and Neanderthals interbreed, and yet his recreations look like some sort of bipedal gorilla or chimpanzee.

Agreed, the art is very fanciful.

It's obvious genetically that Neanderthals are much more closely related to us than to any other existing or fossil ape (bipedal or no).

Is it "obvious" because you've bought off on previous art, showing Neanderthals as Yogi Berra clones?

[Guest Lesmore]

So? We're the "dominant species", yet the great cats hunt humans almost regularly. Bears do on occasion. So do some sharks.

So, Neanderthal's may have hunted other human subspecies and eventually lost out. Sorta'like Philistines routinely hunted Israelites and eventually lost out.

See any Philistines lately?

See any Philistines lately.....yup....right here at this forum, all the time.

[norseman]

So? We're the "dominant species", yet the great cats hunt humans almost regularly. Bears do on occasion. So do some sharks.

If a competing Hominid was out competing us at every turn? Who would we be considered the "dominant" species?

We are not talking about a cat or a bear or a shark. We are talking about two very closely related species. To try to use your analogy, if male Tigers were taking over the habitat of male lions and breeding all of the female lions, it wouldn't be very long before lions ceased to be a separate cat species. Their genes would only live on in whole or part of the tiger lineage.

And that is exactly what we see in the genome of us and Neanderthals except in the REVERSE of his hypothesis. Europeans and Asians carry 1-4% of Neanderthal genes and Africans none. Where Homo Sapiens encountered Neanderthals, some of their genes hitched a ride with ours, but they went extinct as a separate species.

While I think the art depicting cat-eyed mini-sasquatches with spears is fanciful, I'm quite certain that Neanderthals and other humans fought, and may have preyed upon each other for food.

After all, we do it today. Regularly. Routinely. Even cannibalism.

Why not 35,000 years ago?

And why not rape? Kidnapping? Like Sacagawea, the Shoshone kidnapped and held by the Hidatsa as late as the Lewis & Clark expedition?

I'm not arguing that it didn't happen. I'm arguing that it didn't happen the way his hypothesis explains it happened.

Is it "obvious" because you've bought off on previous art, showing Neanderthals as Yogi Berra clones?

Exactly, I trust the recreations of the Smithsonian and others over a guy that is trying to make a species look and act the way his off base hypothesis says they should be. He is working science backwards, he has drawn a conclusion and is now tweaking the evidence to make it work. When he should be evaluating the evidence honestly and let it come up with it's own conclusion.

I would be curious to know if any main stream paleoanthropologists have signed of on his hypothesis?

[Guest]

Yeah you dont want to see that guy when you are out camping. Thanks for the neat stuff Les. Fun. I was always into Neandertals .. and Conan the Barbarian of course.

[Guest]

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that any discussion regarding the idea of a 'dominant species' is something of a relic of old perspectives on how competition and survival of the fittest contribute to an individual's and a species success, and it has been misinterpreted in the past and those perspectives are perpetuated by hollywood and popular notions. Modern scientific ecological perspectives see fitness as something far more nuanced than the simple comparison of what critter is bigger and badder and objectively sees complex inter-relationships where competition is just one expression of the qualities that lead to a population sustaining itself and/or an individual creature being successful in passing down its genes. Cooperation among populations, niche specialization, and just plain luck are at least as contributory to our current circumstances, if not moreso.

If we wish to understand BF, it would help to understand it for what it might be in a modern scientific context. That doesn't mean there isn't room for interpretation, but moving beyond the old view is likely a good way to expand what we know and improve how we operate. Cheers.

[Guest]

Nice way to put it Dogu4. I always figured we had a fraction of what there is to know about our past. The debate and question might be how big or small is that fraction of that knowledge. Same about the big ones. & they are right under our nose.

[Guest vilnoori]

Excellent Dogu4. We were smaller and less strong, but we out bred them and with our cooperative hunting and probably greater creative problem solving ability we were able to use many more food resources and environmental niches. The many of us overcame the strong, few of them. However it is possible that a remnant population remained in the Almas and possibly Yeti's of today's Asia. And whatever boogiemen appear now and then in the wild areas of Europe. Who knows for sure.

[WV FOOTER]

I think Bigfoot is closer to the primate side rather than the human side.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 05 January 2011 - 06:22 PM, said:

So? We're the "dominant species", yet the great cats hunt humans almost regularly. Bears do on occasion. So do some sharks.

If a competing Hominid was out competing us at every turn? Who would we be considered the "dominant" species?

That's precisely my point. You consider humans to be "the dominant species", yet the great cats, bears, sharks, crocs, etc eat us on a regular, recurring basis.

So why can't a lesser hominid do so, especially many thousands of years ago when humans were much less "dominant"?

We are not talking about a cat or a bear or a shark. We are talking about two very closely related species.

Which further illustrates the point that "dominance" is a false point. Less dominant species prey upon humans all the time. So why can't other hominids do so? Indeed, humans prey upon each other. It's a simple fact of life. That alone nearly proves the reality that Neanderthals and humans preyed upon each other. There is even forensic evidence that seals the deal:

Neanderthals were skilled hunters, working together to fell deer, goats, and perhaps even woolly rhinos with wooden spears. After the kill, they expertly butchered the carcasses, slicing meat and tendons from bone with stone tools and bashing open long bones to get at the fatty marrow inside. Now, on page 128, a French and American team reports that 100,000-year-old Neanderthals at the French cave of Moula-Guercy performed precisely the same kinds of butchery on some of their own kind.

Marks on the bones clearly reveal that these early humans filleted the chewing muscle from the heads of two young Neanderthals, sliced out the tongue of at least one, and smashed the leg bone of a large adult to get at the marrow. The bone fragments were apparently then dumped amid the remains of deer and other butchered mammals. "Human and mammal remains were treated very similarly," says first author Alban Defleur of the Université du Mediterrané at Marseilles. "We can safely infer that both species were exploited for a culinary goal."

Tantalizing hints of cannibalism have been spotted at other Neanderthal sites for decades, but this is far and away the best documented case, say other researchers, who praise the team's careful comparison of breakage and cut marks in deer and human bones. "Quite convincing," says anthropologist Fred H. Smith of Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, noting that there's little sign of gnawing or other indications that carnivores rather than people mauled the bones. "And the documented cut marks seal the deal."

Smith and a few others say that without an eyewitness, we may never know exactly why Neanderthals handled corpses so seemingly brutally. But most paleoanthropologists are unfazed by the idea of early humans eating each other. As Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, puts it, "Why should modern humans be the only violent ones?"

Neanderthals and humans preyed upon each other. It's pretty well established.

To try to use your analogy, if male Tigers were taking over the habitat of male lions and breeding all of the female lions, it wouldn't be very long before lions ceased to be a separate cat species. Their genes would only live on in whole or part of the tiger lineage.

And that is exactly what we see in the genome of us and Neanderthals except in the REVERSE of his hypothesis. Europeans and Asians carry 1-4% of Neanderthal genes and Africans none. Where Homo Sapiens encountered Neanderthals, some of their genes hitched a ride with ours, but they went extinct as a separate species.

Yup. There is clear evidence that Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens preyed upon each other and mated with each other, and there should be no surprise about that.

There should also be no surprise why the southern species overwhelmed the northern species as the Wisconsin ice age warmed. There were clearly more of the southern species, and they came from a more fertile, plentiful place.

[Huntster]

While I think the art depicting cat-eyed mini-sasquatches with spears is fanciful, I'm quite certain that Neanderthals and other humans fought, and may have preyed upon each other for food.

After all, we do it today. Regularly. Routinely. Even cannibalism.

Why not 35,000 years ago?

And why not rape? Kidnapping? Like Sacagawea, the Shoshone kidnapped and held by the Hidatsa as late as the Lewis & Clark expedition?

I'm not arguing that it didn't happen. I'm arguing that it didn't happen the way his hypothesis explains it happened.

I don't argue that he's correct, either, but I also don't argue that he's incorrect. Indeed:

NP theory argues that modern human physiology, sexuality, aggression, propensity for inter-group violence and human nature all emerged as a direct consequence of systematic long-term dietary and sexual predation by Eurasian Neanderthals........

...... He shows that Neanderthals evolved in ice-age Europe and were a cold-adapted species, very different from the humans who migrated out of Africa. They had thick body fur and flat primate faces to protect them against the lethal cold.

Neanderthals also abandoned their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and diet and became exclusive carnivore predators.

There are parallels even today. The majority of the human population decreases as one gets farther from the equator, yet the world is "dominated" by the more aggressive and fewer northern humans.

Is it "obvious" because you've bought off on previous art, showing Neanderthals as Yogi Berra clones?

Exactly, I trust the recreations of the Smithsonian and others over a guy that is trying to make a species look and act the way his off base hypothesis says they should be.

Yup. Faith. "Trust".

Thanks for the admission.

He is working science backwards, he has drawn a conclusion and is now tweaking the evidence to make it work.

That is incorrect. There is plenty of evidence that preceeded him which supports his theory, and he is "tweaking" nothing.

I would be curious to know if any main stream paleoanthropologists have signed of on his hypothesis?

"Main stream"?

Who is your magician? Perhaps Mr. Vendramini can then cast his staff onto the ground and turn them to snakes, too?

[Guest vilnoori]

Hands down the scariest predator out there is us. I still remember sitting on an old West African's lap as he told me about how when he was a boy they would hunt and kill neighboring tribe members they had vendettas with, and how it tasted like pork ("shweet, time no deh," he'd say, meaning, very tasty). How the best bits were the hands and the buttocks/thighs. But that you must not eat a human hand from the front, lest it's ghost animate the hand and it grabs you as you bit into it. Always eat it from the back. And he would smile his toothy grin, because to show they were cannibals, and proud of it, his tribal members sharpened all their front teeth into points during puberty rites. Thankfully these practices ended when missionaries came into the area after WWII and most became Christians. But don't let anyone tell you cannibalism is an exaggeration.

The second scariest predator, to me, a kid who ran on the African grasslands, was not the lion or leopard, but the driver (army) ants that could eat a sleeping animal down to the bone in a single night while it slept.

[norseman]

That's precisely my point. You consider humans to be "the dominant species", yet the great cats, bears, sharks, crocs, etc eat us on a regular, recurring basis.

Again your framing the debate wrong. We cannot cross our genes with cats, bears,, sharks or crocs. We are the dominant species concerning Neaderthals, because we as a competing hominid drove them to extinction and as a conciliation prize for second place, carry some of their genes with us today.

So why can't a lesser hominid do so, especially many thousands of years ago when humans were much less "dominant"?

We remain....they are gone, so despite your tangents about crocs or sharks, in the debate between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens? WE are the dominant species, and we carry forth only a trivial amount of Neanderthal genes. With our genes being the Dominant genes.

Neanderthals and humans preyed upon each other. It's pretty well established.

And for the second time? I never argued against that point.

There should also be no surprise why the southern species overwhelmed the northern species as the Wisconsin ice age warmed. There were clearly more of the southern species, and they came from a more fertile, plentiful place.

You forget that most of the H20 on the planet was locked in ice fields. Africa was certainly not a fertile garden of eden.........more like a barren wasteland. The most compelling theory on why we over took them was because of the changing environment. With much of Europe's forests becoming steppe, which made their ambush tactics with hand held spears much less effective for taking game.

[Huntster]

Thankfully these practices ended when missionaries came into the area after WWII and most became Christians.

WWII. An incredible display of how homo sapiens can kill other homo sapiens with incredible viciousness and efficiency.

I recently read this book (while sick in a tent on a frozen lake for 5 days). Daddy was there at Okinawa during that bloodbath. His stories were bad enough. Sledge's account brings the full agony and viciousness to the reader.

But don't let anyone tell you cannibalism is an exaggeration.

And, as your own story illustrates, the spirituality involved (eating one's opponent to gain his strength, especially the heart, or "don't eat the hands from the front", etc).

The second scariest predator, to me, a kid who ran on the African grasslands, was not the lion or leopard, but the driver (army) ants that could eat a sleeping animal down to the bone in a single night while it slept.

Yeah, there are plenty of critters out there to fear. For me, it's the snakes.