|
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/17/2009 : 07:25:49
|
There is now an hypothesis stating that the Neandertals went extinct some 30,000 years ago due to being, um, eaten out of house and home, as it were. One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.
The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.
Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. "Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them," Rozzi said.
|
Pass the ketchup.....
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
|
|
|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 05/17/2009 : 07:40:12 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by filthy
There is now an hypothesis stating that the Neandertals went extinct some 30,000 years ago due to being, um, eaten out of house and home, as it were. One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.
The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.
Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. "Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them," Rozzi said.
|
Pass the ketchup.....
|
Bah. They're extrapolating this idea based on a single sample?
The only interesting thing out of this is that-- if we postulate that modern humans didn't practice cannibalism-- Neanderthals must have looked and acted different enough to have been considered "other." That, or this Neanderthal walked in on a bunch of guys whose plane crashed in the Andes... |
 |
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2009 : 11:43:32 [Permalink]
|
Eh, it's just an hypothesis; I didn't read but one definitive statement in the article: "more study needed."
But is it all that outrageous? In Africa, primates, notably simians, are still hunted for food. In South America and Asia, monkeys are considered a delicacy by some peoples. Not to mention China. And our species has a rich if seldom-admitted history of incidental & ceremonial cannibalism.
Would you like an order of fries with that?
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
|
| Edited by - filthy on 05/17/2009 11:45:52 |
|
|
|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2009 : 18:23:14 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by filthy
Eh, it's just an hypothesis; I didn't read but one definitive statement in the article: "more study needed."
But is it all that outrageous? In Africa, primates, notably simians, are still hunted for food. In South America and Asia, monkeys are considered a delicacy by some peoples. Not to mention China. And our species has a rich if seldom-admitted history of incidental & ceremonial cannibalism.
Would you like an order of fries with that?
|
I'm not doubting that the particular Neanderthal was a feast for some modern h. s. sapiens. That evidence seems clear. The real question is whether, based on this singular example, we can postulate that h. s. sapiens hunted the Neanderthal to extinction!
Sure, modern humans have hunted lots of things to extinction. And sadly, I think that we'll see far too many examples (esp. in Africa) of this in the next few decades. But did they wipe out Neanderthals? I am skeptical. |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2009 : 20:17:50 [Permalink]
|
I think it is reasonable to conclude that if neandertals had been subject to large scale predation by h. sapiens, we'd have been well aware of that by examination of the many neandertal bones we have available.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2009 : 20:48:20 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dude
I think it is reasonable to conclude that if neandertals had been subject to large scale predation by h. sapiens, we'd have been well aware of that by examination of the many neandertal bones we have available. |
Agreed. I don't know how many Neandertal specimens we have, but my guess is that if this sort of thing were common, then others would show similar signs. This is the first I've heard of this (and, indeed, it seems, anyone has heard of this), though, so I question how wide-spread it is. I'll be curious to hear about future research into the matter... |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 03:31:44 [Permalink]
|
Most likely a variety of effects killed off Neandertal, severe predation over time by H. sapiens possibly being one of them.
I do not think that cut-marked bones will be easily forthcoming. After all, when you dress off a deer for the table, the final step before butchering is to disarticulate the carcass. Were I involved in the study, I'd look for a midden of the right age hoping to find, not so much scored bones, but those from discarded fingers & toes. Also fragments of bones and skulls smashed for the marrow & brains. And even this wouldn't be a cakewalk due to scavenging animals.
Anyhow, it will be interesting to see if the hypothesis gains support.
I think I'll have the all-you-can-devour buffet.....
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 04:12:49 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dude
I think it is reasonable to conclude that if neandertals had been subject to large scale predation by h. sapiens, we'd have been well aware of that by examination of the many neandertal bones we have available. |
If Neanderthal had been predated upon by our ancestors, we would expect to find evidence of Homo sap-gnawed Neanderthal bones dating from only a few years period at most (as long as it took to hunt and eat them to extinction) at any particular site.
All the Neanderthal remains we have are few enough, and they are representatives of a vast period of time of at least a hundred thousand years of Neanderthal existence. We should expect that butchered bones of that final generation of Neanderthals would be vanishingly rare finds, even compared to the scarce remains from all the other generations of our robust, and delicious, cousins.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/18/2009 04:18:36 |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 07:32:32 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
The only interesting thing out of this is that-- if we postulate that modern humans didn't practice cannibalism-- Neanderthals must have looked and acted different enough to have been considered "other." That, or this Neanderthal walked in on a bunch of guys whose plane crashed in the Andes...
|
I believe that we already have several examples of cannibalism within Homo sapiens populations.
That Homo Neanderthalis sometime figured on the menu isn't hard to believe at all.
That is constituted a significant factor in their drive to extinction is more dubious to me.
Edited for bracket fixing |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
| Edited by - Simon on 05/21/2009 19:00:50 |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2009 : 16:20:28 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Simon
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
The only interesting thing out of this is that-- if we postulate that modern humans didn't practice cannibalism-- Neanderthals must have looked and acted different enough to have been considered "other." That, or this Neanderthal walked in on a bunch of guys whose plane crashed in the Andes...
|
I believe that we already have several examples of cannibalism within Homo sapiens populations.
That [i]Homo Neanderthalis(/i] sometime figured on the menu isn't hard to believe at all.
That is constituted a significant factor in their drive to extinction is more dubious to me.
|
Exactly.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Neandertal du jour?
