Neanderthals vs humans and Plesiadapis moms

Dr Silly Bollox MD

Humans Vs. Neanderthals: How Did We Win?

Prehistoric Moms Had Their Hands Full: Photos

feargale

Dr Silly Bollox MD wrote: »

Humans Vs. Neanderthals: How Did We Win?

Prehistoric Moms Had Their Hands Full: Photos

Maybe Mrs. Plesiadapis had home help or a babysitter.

Adam Khor

I changed the title because a lonely "2" is easy to miss (I almost didn´t see the thread at all) :pac:

Wibbs

On link one I don't buy the cannibalism reason. Yes some Neandertal bones show evidence of butchery for that purpose, but our own species have a few bones that show that too. What I find interesting is in the latter case it's often excused as a "ritual defleshing" rather than cannibalism, but when its other humans, "yep they were cannibals Ted".

Fitter than them? Don't buy that either as they had thrived in their environments for longer than we've been around as a distinct species.

Brainier than them? Possibly, but when our populations are at similar densities there's barely a hair between us in technology and culture.

For me overpopulation is our killer app that pushed other humans aside, or brought them into the fold. That and we were skinnier. We needed less to eat so were less affected by downturns in food availability, which gave rise to more people, more people means you have to learn to be more sociable/have to learn to outcompete. This spreads clever ideas that might have otherwise been lost in low density populations, which in turn means more people and so on.

Adam Khor

Easier to talk badly of your cousins than of your brothers...

I don´t remember if this has been asked before but, is there any evidence of Neanderthals eating humans or the other way around?

Wibbs

I don't think so and I suppose it might be hard to prove anyway. Not unless they found butchered bones of one lot in the other lots campsites. The cannibalism thing is a hard one. Was it cannibalism purely for food? Was it cannibalism as a ritual of respect? Was it cannibalism as part of a ritual of desecrating enemies? All of the above have been found in our own species, even down to today. Even the cut marks on bones might have different explanations depending. EG in Tibetan Buddhist sky burials they cut tendons and deflesh parts of the corpse to allow for faster defleshing by scavengers and there's no food value involved. OK if you find bones purposely crushed to extract the marrow, you're talking about a food source, but then we're still back to the three above questions.

Adam Khor

Need to find pieces of one in the gut of the other like with dinosaurs XD