Neanderthal locomotion

[norseman]

https://www.sapiens.org/column/field-trips/neanderthal-locomotion/
 

I found this article interesting. They were not bumbling cave men. They were sprinters, better at climbing steep inclines and rested by squatting instead of sitting. Sounds a lot like Bigfoot.

 

Ostman talks about them squatting and climbing I believe. And Krantz and Meldrum talks about their heels and toes presumably being longer.

[Huntster]

2 hours ago, norseman said:

........They were not bumbling cave men. They were sprinters, better at climbing steep inclines and rested by squatting instead of sitting. Sounds a lot like Bigfoot........

 

.......or shirt-legged Viet Cong. They had a unique duck walk they would use to advance while keeping their heads low. I'm rather short-legged, and I couldn't duck walk.

[ManThing]

I don't know norseman, not knocking your theory but the article also says Neanderthals were short and stocky. What would account for such enormous increase in body mass to evolve into a Sasquatch?  I'm with science on this one. Neanderthals supposedly faded out and what was left merged with homo sapiens. I don't know enough about genetics or fossil evidence to prove all of this but we will have to wait for the professionals to sort it out.

[norseman]

1 hour ago, ManThing said:

I don't know norseman, not knocking your theory but the article also says Neanderthals were short and stocky. What would account for such enormous increase in body mass to evolve into a Sasquatch?  I'm with science on this one. Neanderthals supposedly faded out and what was left merged with homo sapiens. I don't know enough about genetics or fossil evidence to prove all of this but we will have to wait for the professionals to sort it out.

Your with science about what? Neanderthals went extinct or Bigfoot doesn’t exist?

 

What would account for an increase in body size? Bergman’s rule.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_rule

 

In Europe Neanderthals are found in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. They were also found in the Middle East. Roughly 30-50 degrees north. In order to defeat the land bridge in North America they would have had to have been at least 60 degrees north. The migration could have lasted 10’s of thousands of years. So an NE Asian variant could have needed to have become larger than those in Europe and the near East. OR? A related species like Homo Heidelbergensis or Denisovans or even Homo Erectus experienced similar evolutionary pressures. Bergman’s rule works with all mammalian species....

 

Also, I don’t think the science is settled on where archaic Homo species landed on the planet. In my opinion it’s increasing clear SOMETHING made it here. And may still be scratching by in America’s hinterlands.

 

http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2019/12/more-on-erectus-calvaria-from-chapala.html

 

 

 

 

[MIB]

16 hours ago, norseman said:

A related species like Homo Heidelbergensis or Denisovans or even Homo Erectus experienced similar evolutionary pressures. Bergman’s rule works with all mammalian species....

 

Absolutely.

 

It goes a step further though, via two factors.   First,  the smaller a population is, the faster it can drift genetically because it does not have the buffering effect of members of the larger population's genetic contributions.   Second, the more extreme the environment, the more it will be pushed to adapt .. or die out .. via natural selection.   Taken together, a very small population of some known ancestor or cousin of ours could have arrived in North America under very climatically challenging conditions and have had to have drifted a great deal isolated from its parent population or die out.   Science shows that unlike what we presumed, evolution is not a smooth, steady process, but rather is periods of sameness broken by large, abrupt changes.   What we are looking for today here might not look all that much like its biological ancestor did.    

 

We need DNA to study (whether that comes from a freshly dead body or not) if we are to find out just how close we are to them genetically.    A body on a slab has two pluses ... first, it may be easier to obtain than DNA from the field, and second, there can be no doubt about the source of the DNA if you are taking it from a body rather than collecting hair from the environment.

 

MIB

[ManThing]

19 hours ago, norseman said:

Your with science about what? Neanderthals went extinct or Bigfoot doesn’t exist?

 

What would account for an increase in body size? Bergman’s rule.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_rule

 

In Europe Neanderthals are found in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. They were also found in the Middle East. Roughly 30-50 degrees north. In order to defeat the land bridge in North America they would have had to have been at least 60 degrees north. The migration could have lasted 10’s of thousands of years. So an NE Asian variant could have needed to have become larger than those in Europe and the near East. OR? A related species like Homo Heidelbergensis or Denisovans or even Homo Erectus experienced similar evolutionary pressures. Bergman’s rule works with all mammalian species....

 

Also, I don’t think the science is settled on where archaic Homo species landed on the planet. In my opinion it’s increasing clear SOMETHING made it here. And may still be scratching by in America’s hinterlands.

 

http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2019/12/more-on-erectus-calvaria-from-chapala.html

 

 

 

I was thinking "science" would be someone saying that Homo sapiens are not the only surviving member of the genus Homo. The fossil record for neanderthals is not great and there's no way to know for sure how their body mass would have changed over time if they survived as a small fringe species. The theories you and MIB discuss of increased mass do seem reasonable.  I'm just not seeing where such theories fit into what "science" currently says about neanderthals. Theories are good since you never know when "science"might find something that fits.

 

btw, I'm far from a scientist. I'm not even a theorist when it comes to this kind of stuff.  The closest I get is reading ancient origins.

[norseman]

24 minutes ago, ManThing said:

 

 

I was thinking "science" would be someone saying that Homo sapiens are not the only surviving member of the genus Homo. The fossil record for neanderthals is not great and there's no way to know for sure how their body mass would have changed over time if they survived as a small fringe species. The theories you and MIB discuss of increased mass do seem reasonable.  I'm just not seeing where such theories fit into what "science" currently says about neanderthals. Theories are good since you never know when "science"might find something that fits.

 

btw, I'm far from a scientist. I'm not even a theorist when it comes to this kind of stuff.  The closest I get is reading ancient origins.

No doubt. Without a body of a Bigfoot? It’s all conjecture.

 

But I do find it interesting that the more we learn about Neanderthal locomotion? The more it sounds like what Meldrum and Krantz are saying about Sasquatch locomotion. And not by studying trackways fossilized in a cave in Europe somewhere. But a supposed living foot walking in North American forests....

[Arvedis]

What makes me wary of a neanderthal-BF link here is neaderthals were not only butchering meat, they were making tools to butcher properly like 90k years ago. So they figured that out and while I am too lazy to look it up, I'll bet if they were that skilled with butchering, they were thinking of the best way to eat their meat. I will speculate they were probably using fire for that. As far as we know, they had a human constitution and eating raw meat will get you sick in a digestive sense, even if your body has built up a parasite resistance to eating it. So I will bet they figured that out too, at least conceptually by following their morning constitution patterns. They were also doing other early Homo stuff like making bead adornments long before Homo sapiens.  None of this has a trace in BF culture.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Arvedis

[norseman]

On 7/10/2021 at 6:13 PM, Arvedis said:

What makes me wary of a neanderthal-BF link here is neaderthals were not only butchering meat, they were making tools to butcher properly like 90k years ago. So they figured that out and while I am too lazy to look it up, I'll bet if they were that skilled with butchering, they were thinking of the best way to eat their meat. I will speculate they were probably using fire for that. As far as we know, they had a human constitution and eating raw meat will get you sick in a digestive sense, even if your body has built up a parasite resistance to eating it. So I will bet they figured that out too, at least conceptually by following their morning constitution patterns. They were also doing other early Homo stuff like making bead adornments long before Homo sapiens.  None of this has a trace in BF culture.

I hear you, it’s a struggle to understand. And it’s much much older than thals...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheulean

 

Almost 2 million years ago Homo Erectus was making hand axes.

[guyzonthropus]

As for the boost in size, figure they were also encountering progressively larger megafauna as they moved north, not only prey species but predators as well. 

And who's to say they weren't hybridizing with other hominids along the way, perhaps gaining in stature without losing the stocky basic framework. Like MIB states, evolution often occurs in jumps (or bottlenecks) and few contexts could better press for more size than and ever colder environment filled with ever bigger predators!

[Bearfoot]

Fascinating thread norseman!  Have always thought the best clues are in the older reports. As far as what they actually are is a puzzle that is very hard to figure out. No clothes, no fire, no tools, and yet walk upright. To me neanderthals were way above them and we have lots of info on them such as whole skeletons and how they lived. Bigfoot almost has to be somewhere between the great apes and homo erectus and that is a very long ways from us! Still hard to explain the absence of hard proof as time goes on. And not to ruffle feathers on the forum but have also always believed California, Oregon, Washington, and north into Canada are the only places they can be found!

[Twist]

Why do you believe they exist in only those states ?

[Arvedis]

5 hours ago, guyzonthropus said:

As for the boost in size, figure they were also encountering progressively larger megafauna as they moved north, not only prey species but predators as well. 

And who's to say they weren't hybridizing with other hominids along the way, perhaps gaining in stature without losing the stocky basic framework. Like MIB states, evolution often occurs in jumps (or bottlenecks) and few contexts could better press for more size than and ever colder environment filled with ever bigger predators!

 

 

Good ideas but neanderthals did not disappear for good until around 30k years ago? Other archaic humans had faded out by then so it would be an unknown who they might have hybridized with. Even if it was 40k or 50k years ago, that is not nearly enough time to biologically evolve.  I know there are some scientific models that say it can be done in like 15k years but that is animals in total isolation, like an island and under extreme conditions like food stress or climate. What conditions would lead to a neanderthal selectively acquiring animal-like physiology through evolution in a very short time span?  Can't see it from fighting predators. Humans learned to kill megafauna of any size pretty efficiently hundreds of thousands of years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by Arvedis

[Bearfoot]

Hey Twist, that is just my opinion. Have always thought they were only from Northern California up through British Columbia. It just makes sense they stay as they say "deep in the woods" and where there are fewer people. I realize this goes against many here on the forum but just can't make myself believe they are any place else. Wouldn't mind a bit if I was proven wrong though! lol! Maybe some day, always hoping!

[norseman]

On 7/12/2021 at 5:36 PM, Arvedis said:

 

 

Good ideas but neanderthals did not disappear for good until around 30k years ago? Other archaic humans had faded out by then so it would be an unknown who they might have hybridized with. Even if it was 40k or 50k years ago, that is not nearly enough time to biologically evolve.  I know there are some scientific models that say it can be done in like 15k years but that is animals in total isolation, like an island and under extreme conditions like food stress or climate. What conditions would lead to a neanderthal selectively acquiring animal-like physiology through evolution in a very short time span?  Can't see it from fighting predators. Humans learned to kill megafauna of any size pretty efficiently hundreds of thousands of years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total isolation? Like North America?

 

And I would check your dates. 50k is not a hard and fast rule and it appears many species of the Genus Homo other than Sapiens made it to much more recent times. Not counting Sasquatch of course who supposedly is still extant.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan