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| There is considerable debate surrounding the question as to whether Cro-Magnon people accelerated the demise of the Neanderthals, but the timing suggests that the developing behavior patterns of Cro-Magnon may have had considerable impact on the process. ] has compared the likely interaction between Cro-Magnon people and Neanderthals to the ]s suffered by ] in recent human history. However, other authors have pointed out that even a small ] advantage on the part of Cro-Magnons in competition for food could account for Neanderthals' replacement on a timescale short compared with the resolution of the ] record, even in the absence of violent physical conflict or an assymmetry of susceptibility to ]s. | There is considerable debate surrounding the question as to whether Cro-Magnon people accelerated the demise of the Neanderthals, but the timing suggests that the developing behavior patterns of Cro-Magnon may have had considerable impact on the process. ] has compared the likely interaction between Cro-Magnon people and Neanderthals to the ]s suffered by ] in recent human history. However, other authors have pointed out that even a small ] advantage on the part of Cro-Magnons in competition for food could account for Neanderthals' replacement on a timescale short compared with the resolution of the ] record, even in the absence of violent physical conflict or an assymmetry of susceptibility to ]s. | ||
| Although Diamond, and others, have specifically mentioned Cro-Magnon diseases as a threat to Neanderthals, this aspect of the analogy with the contacts between ] and Indigenous Peoples in recent history can be misleading. The distinction arises because Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals are '''both''' believed to have lived in a way we would now call ], whereas in those genocides of the colonial era in which differential disease susceptibility was most significant, this resulted from the contact between colonisers with a long history of agriculture and nomadic Indigenous Peoples. Diamond argues that assymetry in susceptibility to pathogens is a consequence of the difference in lifestyle, which makes it irrelevant in the context of the analogy in which he invokes it. | |||
| Popular literature has tended to greatly exaggerate the ]-like gait and related characteristics of the Neanderthals. It has been found that some of the earliest specimens found in fact suffered from severe ]. The Neanderthals were fully ] and had a slightly larger average brain capacity than that of a typical modern-human (though brain structure was organised somewhat differently). | Popular literature has tended to greatly exaggerate the ]-like gait and related characteristics of the Neanderthals. It has been found that some of the earliest specimens found in fact suffered from severe ]. The Neanderthals were fully ] and had a slightly larger average brain capacity than that of a typical modern-human (though brain structure was organised somewhat differently). | ||
Revision as of 18:31, 26 February 2003
Neanderthal was a species (or subspecies, see below) of genus Homo who inhabited Europe and parts of what is now western Asia during the last ice age. They seem to have been well adapted to extreme cold, but appear to have had difficulty adapting to climatic changes near the end of the ice age. They were named after the Neander valley in Germany, where their fossil remains were first found. Their characteristic style of stone tools is called the Mousterian Culture, after another prominent archaeological site. Due to spelling changes in German, the name is currently also spelt as Neandertal.
Neanderthals apparently co-existed with anatomically modern humans beginning some 100,000 years ago. However, about 45,000 years ago, at about the time that stoneworking techiques similar to those of Cro-Magnon people appeared in Europe, Neanderthals began to be displaced. Despite this, populations of Neanderthals held on for thousands of years in regional pockets such as modern-day Croatia and the Iberian and Crimean peninsulas. Cro-Magnon are considered by most authorities to have been behaviorally modern Homo Sapiens.
There is considerable debate surrounding the question as to whether Cro-Magnon people accelerated the demise of the Neanderthals, but the timing suggests that the developing behavior patterns of Cro-Magnon may have had considerable impact on the process. Jared Diamond has compared the likely interaction between Cro-Magnon people and Neanderthals to the genocides suffered by Indigenous Peoples in recent human history. However, other authors have pointed out that even a small selective advantage on the part of Cro-Magnons in competition for food could account for Neanderthals' replacement on a timescale short compared with the resolution of the archaeological record, even in the absence of violent physical conflict or an assymmetry of susceptibility to pathogens.
Although Diamond, and others, have specifically mentioned Cro-Magnon diseases as a threat to Neanderthals, this aspect of the analogy with the contacts between colonisers and Indigenous Peoples in recent history can be misleading. The distinction arises because Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals are both believed to have lived in a way we would now call nomadic, whereas in those genocides of the colonial era in which differential disease susceptibility was most significant, this resulted from the contact between colonisers with a long history of agriculture and nomadic Indigenous Peoples. Diamond argues that assymetry in susceptibility to pathogens is a consequence of the difference in lifestyle, which makes it irrelevant in the context of the analogy in which he invokes it.
Popular literature has tended to greatly exaggerate the ape-like gait and related characteristics of the Neanderthals. It has been found that some of the earliest specimens found in fact suffered from severe arthritis. The Neanderthals were fully bipedal and had a slightly larger average brain capacity than that of a typical modern-human (though brain structure was organised somewhat differently).
Both the Neanderthal's place in the human family tree and their relation to modern Europeans has been hotly debated ever since their discovery. They have been classified as a separate species (Homo neanderthalensis) and as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) as the fashion in paleo-anthropological circles came and went. The consensus has been, based on ongoing DNA research, that they were a separate branch of the genus Homo, and that modern humans are not descended from them (fitting with the single origin theory). But recent genetic research has pointed toward the probability that the gene responsible for red-hair and freckles in modern Europeans in fact had Neanderthal origins (at least partially indicating support for a multiregion origin).
In popular idiom the word Neanderthal is sometimes used as an insult to suggest that a person combines a deficiency of intelligence and an attachment to brute force. Counterbalancing this, are sympathetic literary portrayals of Neanderthals as in the novel The Inheritors by William Golding, and in science fiction stories in which a Neandethal is brought into the present as an application of time travel.