The Questions Surrounding The Neanderthal Extinction

The movie, Quest for Fire, was an interesting representation of Neanderthals and their lifestyle. The film started out with a band of Neanderthals living together in a cave type setting surrounding a bonfire. It quickly became clear that whoever possessed ‘fire’ were the elite, of the tribes. Quest for Fire was ultimately about just that: the Neanderthal’s quest for fire, but looking at the film closer, I was able to observe the portrayal of their lifestyle.

The first Neanderthal remains, discovered in Germany in 1856, were presented to the world of science at a meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History Society held in Bonn in February 1857 and named a species, Homo neanderthalensis, by William King in 1864. Some Neanderthal fossils and other remains are in excellent condition, giving a good idea of Neanderthal culture. In 1887, two complete skeletons were found in a cave near Spy in Belgium, and more from sites in France in 1887, 1908 and 1911. These and other finds showed that the Neanderthals had populated Europe widely from about 130,000 to 28,000 years ago after which they became extinct. Most of these fossils were found in caves. Usually they are associated with cold

Previous climate change predictions have provided scientists, archaeologist and ecologists with information about the past and future of humans. These indications are backed up by scientific research based off of the physics of the Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land and ice. In addition, many researchers have recently turned their focus to past civilizations and their downfall. With information from Mark Kinver’s “Roman Rise and Fall ‘Recorded in Trees’” studies show that from the demise of the Argaric society to the fall of the Mayan, and Ancient Roman Empire, climate change has played a key role in regards to civilizations collapse and nuclear annihilation.

Although Neanderthals were a branch of the human family tree, they have been seen as a primarily forgotten species. They were known for a variable diet, hunting, and lacking language and art. It was also believed that they lacked the capacity of knowledge as modern species. However, due to new discoveries, we realize that Neanderthals are much closer to the modern human species and more intelligent than we believe.

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.

This section gave detailed explanation of how humans have changed from primates and how we are able to survive. DNA is what affects what our bodies can handle compared to what our primates could handle. Mankind is twice split off from apes and the mutation of the human apoE gene is what helps us be able to eat meat. A second mutation appeared 220000 years ago which helped humans be able to break down fats and cholesterol. DNA and the mutation of our genes is what helped us survive. This section also talks about extinction, and how Jean Leopold Nicolas Frederic Cuvier,one of the greatest naturalists believed in it, despite many people not believing in the impermanence of a species. William Buckland, a biblical geologist who

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.

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

There are many questions regarding what happened to the Neandertals. Many believe that the Neandertals eventually evolved to become modern people. Theorists believe that these “modern people” developed the Aurignacian culture and lifestyle. These Neandertals turned modern people are said to have, 30,000 years ago, resign in Europe and slowly decrease in number until they would become extinct. However, there is one major flaw with this theory. That is because Neandertals and modern people did not come from the same continent and lived separately in Southeast Asia for nearly 45,000 years (cite). Another hypothesis is that Neandertals may have become extinct after migrating with modern people. If this theory is true, populations in Europe should

For many years, scientists have studied Neanderthals. Some scientists have led to believe that Neanderthals play a special role in the genetic makeup of modern day humans. In the article, Ancient gene flow from early modern humans into Eastern Neanderthals, it says that recently it has been shown that Neanderthals contributed genetically to modern humans outside Africa 47,0000-65,000 years ago. In this article Neanderthals and Denisovan, (an extinct species of human in the genus homo Alta) are analyzed from the Altai Mountains in Siberia together with the sequence of chromosome 21 of two Neanderthals from Spain and Croatia. In their research they discovered that a population that diverged early from other modern humans in Africa have contributed

Once those groups grew large and food deficient, especially with the arrival of new waves of immigrants from Africa, such as the Homo sapiens who reached Europe some 43,000 years ago;

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).

The expansion on the Homo Erectus moving into Europe during 800,000 BP allowed them to expand and evolve with the environment to continue the evolution to eventually becoming the anatomically modern humans, also known as Homo sapiens sapiens and AMH. Shortly after the Archaic Homo Sapiens the weather started to cool and some European Archaic Homo Sapiens, or EAHS, were isolated from the rest. Due to the isolation and the drastic environmental change the western European Archaic Homo Sapiens evolved to Homo sapiens Neanderthals. After the climate started to become normal the once western EAHS came out with physical builds that are cold weather adaptions while also having a stockier build than the Archaic Homo Sapiens and anatomically modern humans. Thus having a distinct physical traits and genes as well. Many argue that the Neanderthals have become extinct and are no longer here while others believe the opposite. However even if they did become extinct or if they didn’t they did encounter the anatomically modern human in various occasions and we are able to now because of genetics and archaeological evidence.

11,700 years ago the geological epoch the Holocene was thought to of began following the Pleistocene epoch, together these time periods make up the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been described as being relatively warm and with a fairly stable climate. Not only this, but it is thought to coincide with the start of agriculture as human populations rose throughout the Holocene technology became more sophisticated aiding the rise of agriculture (Holden, 2012). The early anthropogenic hypothesis was published in 2003 by Professor W.F. Ruddiman, this was a three part hypothesis in which Ruddiman proposed humans reversed natural decreases in CO2 values within the atmosphere by deforestation. That they reversed natural methane decreases after 5,000 years by irrigating rice, they also caused a warming sufficient to prevent a new glaciation within the last several thousand years and during the Holocene (Ruddiman 2005). This hypothesis has attracted a lot of attention with many people both supporting it and criticising it. Throughout this essay I will be exploring the many arguments for and against the early anthropogenic hypothesis and stating whether or not human kind could have prevented the start of an ice age during the Holocene.

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