Neanderthals

Neanderthals were hunter-gatherers who moved across Europe with the advance and retreat of the Ice Age glaciers. Their total population probably never exceeded 100,000. From 180,000 to 130,000years ago large glaciers covered much of Europe and Neanderthal remains are scarce. After 130,000years ago, tool technology developed rapidly to become the classic Neanderthal technology called the

In a skeleton found in Asia, the discovery of a hyoid bone in the the throat raised the question of whether or not Neanderthals had language capabilities. There has been much debate over this and many different theories, but the most widely accepted is that they were capable of producing human speech sounds, but whether or not they used this speech to communicate in any kind of language is still largely up for debate. In height, Neanderthals were roughly about the same size as modern humans, but did not live as long as modern humans. A Neanderthal who lived into his or her 40's was considered to be long lived, which is comparatively short to our much longer lives of roughly double that. Genetically, Neaderthals and humans differ in their DNA structure both in the mitochondrial DNA and in the nuclear DNA. The significance of the DNA evidence is that it is crucial in determining whether remains that are found are truly Neanderthal or an older hominin relative.

Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted for well over 100,000 years.  Then suddenly Homo neandertalensis began to die out and surrender the earth to Homo sapiens.  Paleontologists and anthropologists have entertained several possibilities to the causes of this event: interbreeding among Neanderthals and humans, competition for natural resources, and Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.”  What the real cause has been has plagued scientists for years. Now, due to an international research team from Germany, those possibilities have been even further deduced, making it easier to pinpoint the exact reason Homo neandertalensis became extinct.

comparable to the sun and the moon? What about King Solomon. Sol (soul)(sun) , Mon (moon) (man), so could this equate to the king of the soul of man? New information is emerging about our neanderthal predecessors all the time. For example, their are discussions now about

If Neanderthals did in fact comport themselves in ways once thought to distinguish anatomically modern humans and enable the latter’s rise to world domination, that similarity makes the Neanderthals’ decline and eventual extinction all the more mystifying. One theory is that H. sapiens had a broader variety of tools that may have enhanced their ability to forage. When they brought their superior technology with them out of Africa and into Eurasia, they were thus better able to exploit the environment more effectively than the resident Neanderthals could. Still, the arrival of H. sapiens did not equal an instant demise for Neanderthals. The latest attempt to track their decline, carried out by Thomas Higham of Oxford and his colleagues, applied

Contemporary Europeans have roughly three times more Neanderthal variable in their genes involved in lipid catabolism than Asian and African people. Even though Neanderthals are extinct, small pieces of their genomes tend to exist in modern humans. These similarities are unevenly distributed across the genome and some regions are particularly enriched with Neanderthal variants. While analyzing the influence of Neanderthal variants on lipid processing in modern humans, the researchers found revolutionary changes in lipid concentration and expression of metabolic enzymes in brains of humans of European

The Paper Neanderthal Extinction by Competitive Exclusion begins with an introduction to the current theories of Neanderthal extinction. There are two widely accepted theories. One being that Neanderthals Were wiped out due to changes in their climate, thus reducing their niche and eventually causing them to go extinct. Or 2 Competition with anatomically modern humans was the driving force behind their extinction. The paper sets out to prove that it was Competition with Anatomically modern human that caused the Neanderthal extinction. It begins with Neanderthals being driven to southern Iberia. Environmental forces created a geographic barrier between them and AMH called the Ebro Frontier. conditions during Heinrich event 4(Large Icebergs traverse the Atlantic causing temperatures to drop drastically) delayed their colonization of southern Iberia, and that subsequent competition with AMH drove

According to an article written by Dr. Charlotte Houldcroft from the University of Cambridge, researchers have created a new study suggesting that the Neanderthals from Europe may have been infected with diseases carried out of Africa by modern humans, called Homo sapiens. Since both of the species are hominin, it would have been easy for pathogens to jump from one population to another. The article is suggesting that this new finding could have been one factor that contributed to the end of the Neanderthal population.

While it is important to understand the significance of each hypothesis, the questions surrounding the Neanderthal extinction takes on assorted factors that are not mutually exclusive. Numerous studies have been conducted focusing exclusively on climate, competition or disease as a function of Neanderthal extinction. However, conflicting conclusion suggest that there are several factors involved that overlap and/ or arising from one another. This paper will attempt to better understand how climate, competition, and disease might operate together to account for Neanderthal extinction. First by summarizing each argument of the three arguments and identifying the potential implications for father research. Secondly, aim to develop a framework that will include the most relevant hypothesis.

Neanderthals, called Whites or “Trolls”, were the oldest settlers of the land. They were pale-skinned, tall with prominent eyebrows compared to the dark Cro-Magnons. The Neanderthals had a primitive language composed of mostly two similar sounds. The Whites were a matriarchal society where women chose their mates whereas the Blacks were patriarchal. The Blacks took pride in having sons because in the Black culture, a man without sons was not a man. A Black man’s role was to hunt, fight, beget sons and seek the mystery power of the unknown. A woman’s role was to bear children, gather the harvest and obey the man who chose her. The black children and adults have small faces and little brows, features that are characteristic of a young child. The whites regarded blacks as gods and felt tenderness towards them. Although the whites and blacks were different, they lived off the same land,

Throughout the documentary “Decoding Neanderthals” there was a push of research to push the human view of Neanderthals. Over the year’s research showed that we coexisted with Neanderthals and out beat their species. Many believed that Neanderthals where like the stereotypical unintelligent and wild caveman. With new technology, enhanced research, and the exposing documentary “Decoding Neanderthals” pushed the boundaries of these past ideologies. Through this we have learned how intelligent, symbolic, and closely related this species is to homo-sapiens species. This research proved that the Neanderthal may have not became extent due to in ability to create weapons but, due to inter breading with humans

Golding’s Neanderthals are the true copy of Wells’ beings in their physical appearances, expect that they are red, and not grey. Golding’s Neanderthal is also hairy, crouched and ape-like with no nose, forehead or chin. They are a group of eight people who are led by an Old Man. They, too, do not kill animals for food and eat meat only as secondary predators.

Several different hypotheses have been formulated to explain the extinction of Neanderthals, from climate changes to intoxication from cave-associated contaminants like smoke, from cannibalism to diseases (Herrera et al., 2009). It is only certain that Neanderthals disappeared from fossil record after the arrival of modern humans, around 40,000 years in Asia, and 10,000-15,000 years in Europe (Shreeve, 1995). Fossil evidence shows the presence of modern humans in Middle East from 130,000 to 75,000 years ago, in the same areas where Neanderthals retreated between 65,000 and 47,000 years ago (Mellars, 2004).

Evolution- “ A process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex or better state.” -Merriam Webster’s Dictionary.

There is evidence to suggest that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens had coexisted for approximately 35-40,000 years, (Fagan 2010) from around 60,000 years ago to 25,000 years ago when they finally went extinct (Gibbon 2001). Anthropologists are still uncertain what the cause of their extinction was. This paper will analyze three main theories of Neanderthal extinction. The first theory is the competition theory, which claims that the Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had to compete for resources, ultimately leading to their demise. The second theory I will discuss is the climate change theory, which claims that Homo sapiens lived while Neanderthals died because they were better adapted to the climate. The last theory I will discuss is