This Is A Neanderthal.

[Guest Stan Norton]

Neanderthals purposely used raptor and corvid feathers as adornment and there is now evidence that they purposely removed raptor claws as the same. They were every bit as sophisticated as Homo sapiens. There is an upcoming paper which will demonstrate rather elaborate Neanderthal artwork also.

[norseman]

They were different, in very small but important ways. We won and they got second place. But they live on with some of us.

But to suggest that they helped spawn Bigfoot to me is ridiculous.......

[Guest]

So what explains sub-Saharan afican HS art, jewellery and reasoning? People with zero Neanderthal genes are EXACTLY THE SAME as those with 1-4% Neanderthal genes. I can't understand how people can think that Neanderthals were so different to HS.

The genes that neandertals left in our genome are not necessarily genes that impact thought. Neanderthals were almost certainly intelligent but might not have been quite as intelligent as our Homo sapiens ancestors. Some of that difference might have been genetic and the rest may have been upbringing.

[norseman]

True, but look at competing homo sapiens cultures. Small differences but important ones can tilt the balance. And there are other factors too.

Thals could have simply lost the race because of a changing climate that favored the invaders.

Look at the European colonization of the Americas...... Steel, firearms, ships, horses, armor? That was a much larger hurdle was that than say a throwing spear versus a thrusting spear?

[Guest]

In two populations that have been separated for hundreds of thousands of years, it would not be necessarily true that both populations would develop the same level of intelligence genetically.

[norseman]

Correct, but it was the Thals that had bigger brains.

So while hypothetically you are correct, in reality that wasn't the case.

So there must have been other factors.

[Guest Stan Norton]

We also need to avoid thinking of sapiens and neandertalensis as being two civilizations clashing at some defined point in time. As with all biological populations, differences are generally clinal, with complex temporal and spatial zones of e.g. genetic or cultural or technological exchange. Modern sapiens didn't arrive in one big gang on one day: the interchange between these species will undoubtedly have been going on for hundreds of generations, us taking as much as we gave.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Stan Norton

[Guest]

quite true although I don't think they were clinal. I don't think the populations were that congruent/related. Neandertals were clearly intelligent but in my opinion not the same species. I think the interaction between the two species was more limited. I think that is why we only have 3 to 6 percent neandertal DNA in our modern genomes.

[Guest Stan Norton]

Well, really we don't have sufficient data to say categorically what happened. Given that we and they were essentially filling the same ecological niche (that of mid-sized, bipedal predator/scavenger) the chances of frequent interaction must've been very high where there was spatial/temporal overlap. Population numbers are unknown but we are likely talking thousands of individuals rather than tens of thousands, and so maybe interaction was severely limited by that factor.

We should also take into account the fact that genetic variation within most Europeans and Asians is limited: there is greater variability within and between many east African populations than between e.g. Anglo Saxon British and Aleuts. Most Homo sapiens populations really haven't been around all that long. Not sure what I'm trying to say, except that maybe neandertalensis was more genetically close to us as well as technologically and culturally.

[Guest]

The "Fact" of the limited variability between European and Aleutian populations is more evidential of the rarity of interbreeding between our species and neandertalensis. I have not seen anything indicating a great deal of hybridization between sapiens and neandertalensis. The greater the rate of hybridization, the greater the genetic diversity resulting from it. We do not see this today.

[Guest Divergent1]

So what explains sub-Saharan afican HS art, jewellery and reasoning? People with zero Neanderthal genes are EXACTLY THE SAME as those with 1-4% Neanderthal genes. I can't understand how people can think that Neanderthals were so different to HS.

If you are referring to the Nok, the earliest pieces of pottery with designs or smelting of iron date to around 500-200 BC, that's well after the dates for HS's earliest examples of what we call art. I don't think the first '"artists" considered what they left behind as art. I think their paintings were tied to a purpose, and that ability to create an abstract representation of an idea indicates some kind of change in consciousness.

 

I am suggesting that this change in consciousness for modern day HS, as evidenced by ancient cave art, could have been the result of the Neanderthal/HS hybridization event because it happened at about the same time. That's not to say that HS in Africa didn't have art before 30K, just that there is no evidence of it at present, at least not to my knowledge. That doesn't mean that the ability couldn't be learned. However they have found a Y chromosome of an African American man that goes back to 300K, well before modern HS was supposed to exist. There is no telling what we've lost through the ages to document our history. 

 

On the other hand if a different combination of hybridization events occurred between different hominid groups, and survived from eons ago,  it may never have evolved past the stage bigfoot supposedly currently exists in, by all accounts. Evolution happens because the environment drives it. Nothing about bigfoot's reported abilities would have required that bigfoot develop the same mental evolutionary changes like we've made to adapt to the planet's environment. I say planet because it seems like every area of the world has some kind of version of bigfoot. If that's true, then the Neanderthal would be hard pressed to be a bigfoot anscestor.

Edited September 13, 2014 by Divergent1

[Guest]

A 300K year old Y-chromosome could easily survive from our Homo erectus ancestors.

 

I suspect that if bigfoot/almas/yowie (now that we know yeti is a snow bear I needn't add that one in here) are all real, they would be an older genus than Homo. Especially considering the descriptions of these creatures. They don't sound like humans to me.

 

Considering how long and thoroughly inhabited Europe has been for the last few thousand years, I doubt that any nonhuman primate still lives there outside of captivity. Now Asia still has quite a few good spots left such as Russia, China and Mongolia. Neandertals could possibly hide there but that might be a tough squeeze for them, bigfoots, and H sapiens all at the same time.

[Cotter]

now that we know yeti is a snow bear.....

   since when?

[Guest]

We dont KNOW the yeti is a snow bear. we just know there is or was an ancient bear very recently in and around the himalayas.

[Cotter]

^

*touches nose*

 

:-)