Neanderthals survive to present day

[Keenir]

2) The brain obviously served a purpose. Neanderthals were tool-users well adapted to the environment they inhabited. That is not the same as to say that it fullfilled its purpose better than the Sapiens Sapiens one.

evolution doesn't work to "purpose"s.

Evidence points to the contrary. Less tools, less inventions, some copying of our tools where the two interacted, but only up to a point. No fishing or sea travel, no spreading out to environments they were not adapted for, and they went extinct.

you could say the same about the Tasmanians and Australians...once they got to their island residence, they stayed put for 40,000 years.

All of which points to a developed and adaptive brain, but not as good at that as ours.

'good' has nothing to do with it.

But once they started, they kept accelerating, supporing my point of the learning environment. Also, there were still more inventions over the period than the Neanderthals had.

given that they had a wider range, that's to be expected.

also, humans tended to live in areas that preserve tools better than neandertal homes were....how many archeologists are looking in the shallow waters of northern Europe?

Let us try to make this even clearer: Without language, aqquired skills and information can only be transferred directly from individual to individual.

This means that with language, you have the option of doing either from individual to individual, or by language.

You have the option of having someone show you how to do it, or be told/read about it. Without language, you can only be shown. Ok?

nothing wrong with demonstration.

I live north of Scotland, and mainland Canada. I don't see it.

This is not an Ice Age. It is an interglacial, which means "between ices". You have Ice Age and Ice Epoch confused.

no, its you who is confusing "Ice Age" and "ice age" (ala the chill of the 1400s).

The point still stands. Sapiens Sapiens did not need to adapt bodies to environments to that degree, because there was technological adaptivity which was faster and more effective, removing most of the environmental pressures.

you wanna tell the Masai and Pygmies that their bodies serve no purpose?

I cannot believe I need to explain to someone that Neanderthals were not brighter than Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

In how many pleases have people looked?

given that most of neandertals' range was at the time covered by ice and snow -- or land that is now underwater -- we're lucky to have found as much as we have.

And that brain size does not indicate more intelligence.

Neandertals were the same size as humans, whic negates any "brain-body ratios".

 

[Martinus Paduei]

I cannot believe I need to explain to someone that Neanderthals were not brighter than Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

Too much Neanderthal blood, I suppose.


Couldn't resist! ROFL

 

[Keenir]

Too much Neanderthal blood, I suppose.


Couldn't resist! ROFL

hey, can I help it if some people refuse to believe that anything could be smarter than themselves?


~~
back to an earlier point:
heck, Einstein and Hawking, for all their brilliance, never built anything that future archeologists will be able to find.
and Mozart or Bach? pft, nobody would be able to prove their intelligence based upon physical effects.

 

[Aldroud]

I dont imagine that mixed societies would be the norm. Rather than having all the menial jobs in a H.S. society, I think we'd see a world divided along racial lines instead of political. Swaths of Europe under the sway of Neanderthals, Africa and Asia populated by Homo Sapian nations, and the Pacific coast by hobbit folks perhaps.

 

[Mark]

Ice Age is a malleable term. I have seen it used to describe cooler periods of time (the Pleistocene, Carboniferous, and various points in the precambrian), the Pleistocene, and just the last glacial period. So we can be in an interglacial period and still in an ice age.

 

[jolo]

There are people nowadays with very long legs and elongate bodies...so clearly these are the evidence that sapiens bred with erectus.

and, opposite of the Masai end of the physical spectrum, there are nowadays people with very short and compact bodies....so clearly these are evidence of sapiens breeding with florensis(sp).
(though, how'd they get back to the Ituri forest? its a long way from Komodo)

Was it irony day?

I admit my observations aren't scientific work - but I consider my conclusions a realistic possibility.

Though some points are very good - I'm pretty divided over whether there was any mixing - or at what time it ended.

I do believe that the large brain served a purpose - and that it may even have made Neandertal superior to us in a few areas, like hunting skills.

 

[The Professor]

Okay Lecture time :

Geologists now use the following terms for periods within "Ice Ages" -

InterGlacial Period - extended warmish period between Glacial
Glacial Period - very cold period

Based on current evidence it is likely that Neanderthals were a different species to Homo Sapiens.
That said the line between species and subspecies is very blurry. IIRC the new definition of a species is population that is genetically isolate (ie does not tend to breed successfully with other similar populations). Obviously the group of species of Darwin's Finches contradict this - I think they are now referred to as "superspecies".

Compare also Hinnies and Mules. Both are the (human bred) offspring of Horses and Donkeys but only Hinnies are fertile. The reason there aren't lots of Hinnies running around is that they are small and unuseful to farmers etc.

 

[Umbral]

evolution doesn't work to "purpose"s.

Organs do.

you could say the same about the Tasmanians and Australians...once they got to their island residence, they stayed put for 40,000 years.

Not a lot of futher islands in sight. They went a lot futher than the Neanderthals.

'good' has nothing to do with it.

Then read "fit for purpose"

given that they had a wider range, that's to be expected.

And why did they have a wider range? More adaptable.

also, humans tended to live in areas that preserve tools better than neandertal homes were....how many archeologists are looking in the shallow waters of northern Europe?

Actually, they seem to have shared ranges, and as humans took over previously Neanderthal ranges, the incidence of preserved tools increase.

nothing wrong with demonstration.

Well, if you don't have anyone to demonstrate, it gets a bit gimped. Oral (and written) knowledge has more than one geneartion lifespan.

no, its you who is confusing "Ice Age" and "ice age" (ala the chill of the 1400s).

Actually, as posted above, these are geology terms.

you wanna tell the Masai and Pygmies that their bodies serve no purpose?

Not sure where you get that conclusion from?

In how many pleases have people looked?

given that most of neandertals' range was at the time covered by ice and snow -- or land that is now underwater -- we're lucky to have found as much as we have.

Really, summers still happened, We are not talking about living on a glacier. The area were probably not too unlike the Siberian taiga and tundra.
Tools should preserve better than they would in the area today.

back to an earlier point:
heck, Einstein and Hawking, for all their brilliance, never built anything that future archeologists will be able to find.
and Mozart or Bach? pft, nobody would be able to prove their intelligence based upon physical effects.

But the species has produced plenty of physical evidence, some based on Eisteins work.

Neandertals were the same size as humans, whic negates any "brain-body ratios".

Aren't you the one who advanced "bigger brains" as an argument for why they should be smarter? Are there any other points to that effect that I overlooked?

Let us subject it to the reality test: If bigger brains means more intelligence...

Jocks should be smarter than nerds.

Men should be smarter than women.

Scandianvians should be smarter than asians.

The guys who does the diffcult classes in high school, and goes on to the hard university courses should be the big ones. The small guys should take shop, and become used-car salesmen.

The brightest guys in uni should be the football team.

A boy who develops sooner and has early growth spurts should be intellectually ahead of his classmates.

Does this pass the reality test?

 

[Hapsburg]

evolution doesn't work to "purpose"s.

Yeah, actually, it kinda does. When a body evolves to suit its environment, parts of it evolve to suit a certain purpose, i.e teeth for chewing or tearing, lungs for breathing above water, eyes for seeing things, legs for faster movemen on land (walking/running), opposable fingers for grasping, etc. All parts of the body serve a purpose, or at least did at one time.

 

[Keenir]

Not a lot of futher islands in sight. They went a lot futher than the Neanderthals.

*raised eyebrow* They were only Tasmanians and Australians in Tasmania and Australia.

Then read "fit for purpose"

the "purpose" of humans is this: "bony prey species of primate, poorly-equipped for its savanna habitat."

Well, if you don't have anyone to demonstrate, it gets a bit gimped. Oral (and written) knowledge has more than one geneartion lifespan.

But written knowledge is restricted in exactly the same way -- if you dispute that, please tell me what hte Phaistos Disk says.

 

[Flocculencio]

But written knowledge is restricted in exactly the same way -- if you dispute that, please tell me what hte Phaistos Disk says.

Written and oral knowledge are a bit more robust though (oral knowledge surprisingly so).