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Stan Gooch & The Neanderthal Legacy


The Puzzler

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I was looking for information about neanderthal speech an ritual practices and came across these articles and thought that I would add them.

Neanderthal behavior - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilford: New findings suggest Neanderthals had gift of speech

Neanderthal's Gift Of Speech | Science and Technology | BBC World Service

web.haskins.yale.edu/sr/SR021/SR021_09.pdf

These last two links are relative to religious aspects,the first link is in regards to a bear cult and the second link discusses shamanism

Paleolithic religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shaman Cape

jmccr8

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I was looking for information about neanderthal speech an ritual practices and came across these articles and thought that I would add them.

Neanderthal behavior - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilford: New findings suggest Neanderthals had gift of speech

Neanderthal's Gift Of Speech | Science and Technology | BBC World Service

web.haskins.yale.edu/sr/SR021/SR021_09.pdf

These last two links are relative to religious aspects,the first link is in regards to a bear cult and the second link discusses shamanism

Paleolithic religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shaman Cape

jmccr8

Thanks! :)

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I just wanted to add these statements from this article: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/58936/title/Neandertal_genome_yields_evidence_of_interbreeding_with_humans

I think it sums up well just what Stan Gooch was thinking all along:

Neandertals lived in Europe, the Middle East and western Asia until they disappeared about 30,000 years ago. The new data indicate that humans may not have replaced Neandertals, but assimilated them into the human gene pool.

Neandertals are not totally extinct; they live on in some of us,” says Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and leader of the Neandertal genome project.

--

And this indicates they don't know whether interbreeding was over a long period or short period, which is interesting imo.

It is not clear how extensive interbreeding was; the data are consistent with either a short period with a great deal of interbreeding or with a long period of little interbreeding, says Richard E. (Ed) Green, a genome biologist now at the University of California Santa Cruz and a coauthor of the new study.

Edited by The Puzzler
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Hello Puzzler,

I would tend to agree that the Neanderthals were assimilated by Homo-Sapiens, and after some of what I have been reading am inclined to think that we have also assimilated some of their beliefs and history.While looking for areas of Neanderthal habitation I came across an article about the earliest known human remains discovered in Wales that date to 230,000bp.The remains were found in a cave in River Elwy Valley.Excavations of the site between 1978-1995 revealed a further 17 teeth that belonged to 5 individuals,there were also hand axes found at this site.

Prehistoric Wales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old Ulster

Although they have not found any supporting evidence of habitation in Scotland and England, it is suspected that Neanderthals made habitation in these areas as well.It has also been proposed that Neanderthals may have been in Ireland during the last iceage as part of Ireland was not covered by ice.i also found another article about Neanderthal remains found that date to 16000bp,so it would seem that there may have been pockets of Neanderthals that were still around after their supposed extinction.After reading these articles I started wondering if there may have been larger populations that lived and hunted in Doggerland.

Werkstuk Engels Wales (2 vmbo) | Scholieren.com

The following article shows that Neanderthals understood medicinal plants and used them as remedies.

First evidence that Neanderthals used medicinal plants - National Paeleontology | Examiner.com

I thought that I would add this next link as it shows a hand axe made with a rare stone

RARE NEANDERTHAL ARTIFACTS

It would seem that Neanderthals were adept and innovative as they built shelters from mammoth bones,these shelters would be mobile and were used during the iceage so as to follow their food source.

Stone Pages Archaeo News: Neanderthals built homes with mammoth bones

The more that I learn about these people the more possibility I see for cultural exchange.

jmccr8

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Hello Puzzler,

I would tend to agree that the Neanderthals were assimilated by Homo-Sapiens, and after some of what I have been reading am inclined to think that we have also assimilated some of their beliefs and history.While looking for areas of Neanderthal habitation I came across an article about the earliest known human remains discovered in Wales that date to 230,000bp.The remains were found in a cave in River Elwy Valley.Excavations of the site between 1978-1995 revealed a further 17 teeth that belonged to 5 individuals,there were also hand axes found at this site.

Prehistoric Wales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old Ulster

Although they have not found any supporting evidence of habitation in Scotland and England, it is suspected that Neanderthals made habitation in these areas as well.It has also been proposed that Neanderthals may have been in Ireland during the last iceage as part of Ireland was not covered by ice.i also found another article about Neanderthal remains found that date to 16000bp,so it would seem that there may have been pockets of Neanderthals that were still around after their supposed extinction.After reading these articles I started wondering if there may have been larger populations that lived and hunted in Doggerland.

Werkstuk Engels Wales (2 vmbo) | Scholieren.com

The following article shows that Neanderthals understood medicinal plants and used them as remedies.

First evidence that Neanderthals used medicinal plants - National Paeleontology | Examiner.com

I thought that I would add this next link as it shows a hand axe made with a rare stone

RARE NEANDERTHAL ARTIFACTS

It would seem that Neanderthals were adept and innovative as they built shelters from mammoth bones,these shelters would be mobile and were used during the iceage so as to follow their food source.

Stone Pages Archaeo News: Neanderthals built homes with mammoth bones

The more that I learn about these people the more possibility I see for cultural exchange.

jmccr8

:tu:

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I just wanted to add these statements from this article: http://www.sciencene...ing_with_humans

I think it sums up well just what Stan Gooch was thinking all along:

Neandertals lived in Europe, the Middle East and western Asia until they disappeared about 30,000 years ago. The new data indicate that humans may not have replaced Neandertals, but assimilated them into the human gene pool.

“Neandertals are not totally extinct; they live on in some of us,” says Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and leader of the Neandertal genome project.

--

And this indicates they don't know whether interbreeding was over a long period or short period, which is interesting imo.

It is not clear how extensive interbreeding was; the data are consistent with either a short period with a great deal of interbreeding or with a long period of little interbreeding, says Richard E. (Ed) Green, a genome biologist now at the University of California Santa Cruz and a coauthor of the new study.

Not much of an assimilation really, since while we may share some nuclear DNA we don't share Y Chromosome or mitochondrial DNA.

cormac

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Not much of an assimilation really, since while we may share some nuclear DNA we don't share Y Chromosome or mitochondrial DNA.

cormac

Hi cormac , friendly neighborhood genetics guru, Would we also share nuclear DNA with other critters, besides people?

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Interesting that they have done some testing on the ice man found at Tyrol. Check out john hawks blog:

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/neandertals/neandertal_dna/neandertal-ancestry-iced-2012.html

Otzi had nearly twice the neanderthal ancestry of modern Europeans - and was found in a mountainous area of Europe.

'Meanwhile, I can share the abstract of the conference paper I'll be presenting in September at the meeting of the European Society of Human Evolution in Bordeaux:

Evaluating recent evolution, migration and Neandertal ancestry in the Tyrolean Iceman

Paleogenetic evidence from Neandertals, the Neolithic and other eras has the potential to transform our knowledge of human population dynamics. Previous work has established the level of contribution of Neandertals to living human populations. Here, I consider data from the Tyrolean Iceman. The genome of this Neolithic-era individual shows a substantially higher degree of Ne- andertal ancestry than living Europeans. This comparison suggests that early Upper Paleolithic Europeans may have mixed with Neandertals to a greater degree than other modern human populations. I also use this genome to evaluate the pattern of selection in post-Neolithic Europeans. In large part, the evidence of selection from living people’s genetic data is confirmed by this specimen, but in some cases selection may be disproved by the Iceman’s genotypes. Neolithic-living human comparisons provide information about migration and diffusion of genes into Europe. I compare these data to the situation within Neandertals, and the transition of Neandertals to Upper Paleolithic populations – three demographic transitions in Europe that generated strong genetic disequi- libria in successive populations.'

Edited by Dragonwind
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Hi cormac , friendly neighborhood genetics guru, Would we also share nuclear DNA with other critters, besides people?

At best, we appear to share some nuclear DNA with other hominids. In fact, it appears we may have done that at least 4 times. Once with Neanderthals, once with Denisovans and twice with separate lines in Africa prior to the Out-of-Africa migration. But none of this is enough to say that we 'assimilated' them or that 'they are us and we are them', both of which have been used in the press to describe the situation while neither accurately reflecting it.

cormac

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ah, ok, Thanks a lot cormac. My friend Mr. Google wasn't immediately forthcoming on the question of us sharing any sort of DNA with say, frogs or sponges or whatever. I just wondered if we somehow did... or, what sort of genetic material we shared.. if any?

As for Stan Gooch's idea, I would think we must have had some cultural Exchange with our Neanderthal cousins. How much is probably hard to figure out.

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ah, ok, Thanks a lot cormac. My friend Mr. Google wasn't immediately forthcoming on the question of us sharing any sort of DNA with say, frogs or sponges or whatever. I just wondered if we somehow did... or, what sort of genetic material we shared.. if any?

As for Stan Gooch's idea, I would think we must have had some cultural Exchange with our Neanderthal cousins. How much is probably hard to figure out.

That really gets into a whole different area, lightly, since in the broadest sense ALL lifeforms on Earth share a genetic relationship. But it doesn't really factor into the human question until we see close genetic relationships such as with HSS and other hominids and it can be determined HOW close those relationships are/were.

Another question that comes to mind is how much of any cultural exchange was "active" instead of "passive". In other words, how much was actually shared/taught by one group to the other as opposed to just copied/mimiced from something one group or the other may have seen but not necessarily understood.

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt
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Thanks for the explanation.

... and that seems like a good point cormac. Observation without interaction. .. (You should see the way they make fire!*)

It's interesting to think about the possibilities.

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Hi Cormac,

Glad to see that you are back in the thread,and yes it is possible that somethings may be copied from one culture by another through observation.I have learned things in my trade or other associated trades in the same manner,however I was not hiding behind a rock or tree when it happened,I was in an environment where I was interacting with others and able to observe them while they worked.They knew I was there, they either didn't care or were not aware that I was observing them.

The settlement of North America by Europeans gives us some examples of interactions where one culture aids in the survival of another.Thanksgiving Day is based on how one culture saw that another new culture was not able to survive without their help, and took compassion on them.Could something similar have happened with Neanderthals and Homo-Sapiens? Neanderthals had existed in colder climates and would have been well adapted to surviving, some of the articles in the pages of this thread have shown that Neanderthals had compassion and cared for others that had been injured or unable to survive without assistance,is it possible that they mentored Homo-Sapiens in some ways?

jmccr8

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Hi Cormac,

Glad to see that you are back in the thread,and yes it is possible that somethings may be copied from one culture by another through observation.I have learned things in my trade or other associated trades in the same manner,however I was not hiding behind a rock or tree when it happened, I was in an environment where I was interacting with others and able to observe them while they worked.They knew I was there, they either didn't care or were not aware that I was observing them.

The settlement of North America by Europeans gives us some examples of interactions where one culture aids in the survival of another.Thanksgiving Day is based on how one culture saw that another new culture was not able to survive without their help, and took compassion on them.Could something similar have happened with Neanderthals and Homo-Sapiens? Neanderthals had existed in colder climates and would have been well adapted to surviving, some of the articles in the pages of this thread have shown that Neanderthals had compassion and cared for others that had been injured or unable to survive without assistance,is it possible that they mentored Homo-Sapiens in some ways?

jmccr8

The difference though is that you were interacting in an environment of your own species. Obvioiusly this could not be true of HSS and the Neanderthal.

Which is not the case when we are in the environment of our nearest primate relatives, since they tend to take exception to our invading their territory.

It's just as possible that both groups received much of their learning from before they split off from H. heidelbergensis. One should also keep in mind that at the time Neanderthals had gone extinct in Europe (circa 39,000 BP) that the earliest HSS in Europe had only been there for about 2000 years. And yet their level of cultural structure was already comparable in many ways to the Neanderthals. That kind of puts into question just how much would have been shared between cultures IMO.

cormac

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Hi Cormac,

As of yet I have seen no documentation supporting any hostility between these two species,although in an earlier post was told that we were the same species or rather that one of us is a sub-species, so it is possible that Neanderthals and Homo-Sapiens may not have considered each other as being so different if they saw similarities in each others communities.

I gave a personal example of observation that was in a non-hostile environment within a same species, I suppose that I could have used some examples that were not as favorable, but chose not to as I do not wish to cite some of the hostile situations as examples.It is enough that we are all aware of the nature of man and the hostility that is displayed by our species.

To sneak around hunter/gatherers is more difficult,especially to get close enough to observe the details of what someone else is doing.Again I will use a more recent example to try to illustrate, when the settlers first arrived here, both the settlers and the Aboriginals could smell each other before they could be seen,so any close uninvited observation would have to have been made from down-wind so as not to give away their presence.

I don't know if you read the link in post #231, it shows that they had found the remains of a Neanderthal dated at 16,000bp.,that would mean that if he was a sole survivor that he was at least 23,000yrs old or that there were Neanderthal populations that we have not found evidence of yet which is why I suggested that Neanderthals may have had some presence in Doggerland.What's your take on that link?

jmccr8

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Hi jmccr8, .. while your waiting to hear back from cormac, i read that link you shared. Very interesting, and i hope the 6000bp date holds up.

As far as interaction between us and Neanderthal , our shared genetic material proves contact. It's a mystery whether it was voluntary or otherwise. ..anyway, Happy Sunday :)

Edited by lightly
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As of yet I have seen no documentation supporting any hostility between these two species...

The flip side of this is that there is no documentation of cultural exchange between the two. At times when a location has shown evidence of both Neanderthal and HSS habitation, BOTH show different points in time in which they were there.

although in an earlier post was told that we were the same species or rather that one of us is a sub-species

This would be incorrect as that would mean one group was ancestral to the other and neither were. Both descended from Homo heidelbergensis with Neanderthals being designated Homo neandertalensis while modern humans went from Homo sapiens (archaic) through Homo sapiens idaltu to Homo sapiens sapiens (Us).

I don't know if you read the link in post #231, it shows that they had found the remains of a Neanderthal dated at 16,000bp.

If you read the article a bit closer, the writer obviously made a mistake and didn't catch it. To whit:

In a cave on Gower Island they found a skeleton of a Neanderthal man from 16,000 B.C. which according to researchers had been buried before the ice age started.

The only way this skeleton could have been buried before the ice age started is if it was buried prior to c.120,000 BP. I would suggest that the 16,000 BC claim probably should have been 160,000 BC.

cormac

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Hi Cormac,

As of yet I have seen no documentation supporting any hostility between these two species,although in an earlier post was told that we were the same species or rather that one of us is a sub-species, so it is possible that Neanderthals and Homo-Sapiens may not have considered each other as being so different if they saw similarities in each others communities.

I gave a personal example of observation that was in a non-hostile environment within a same species, I suppose that I could have used some examples that were not as favorable, but chose not to as I do not wish to cite some of the hostile situations as examples.It is enough that we are all aware of the nature of man and the hostility that is displayed by our species.

To sneak around hunter/gatherers is more difficult,especially to get close enough to observe the details of what someone else is doing.Again I will use a more recent example to try to illustrate, when the settlers first arrived here, both the settlers and the Aboriginals could smell each other before they could be seen,so any close uninvited observation would have to have been made from down-wind so as not to give away their presence.

I don't know if you read the link in post #231, it shows that they had found the remains of a Neanderthal dated at 16,000bp.,that would mean that if he was a sole survivor that he was at least 23,000yrs old or that there were Neanderthal populations that we have not found evidence of yet which is why I suggested that Neanderthals may have had some presence in Doggerland.What's your take on that link?

jmccr8

Hi jmccr8 - While none of the following could be considered to be conclusive in regards to interspecies violence, there is evidence for weapons-related injury in some Neandertal recoveries. The Shanidar 3 case is the most suggestive of interspecies as opposed to intraspecies aggression.

The wound that ultimately killed a Mesopotamian (modern day Iraq) 'Neanderthal' (Neanderthal became the colloquial name over time) between 50,000 and 75,000 years was most likely caused by a thrown spear, the kind modern humans used but Neanderthals did not, according to Duke University-led research.

http://www.science20...cide_shanidar_3

Also:

http://www.guardian....ciences-journal

http://news.bbc.co.u...ure/1943960.stm

.

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Hi Cormac,

I may have mis-understood the article,so I went back and re-read it to see why.The way the article is written I took it as saying that that particular area of Wales may not have been covered in ice until 16000bp,as there were still parts of Wales that was ice free during the last ice age.I will refrain from using it as a marker point unless clarified,Thanks

jmccr8

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Hi Swede,

Thanks for the links.The low frequency of finding remains that show signs of violence would seem to show that these species did not actively practice acts aggression against each other.I live in a city of over a million people and annually have more deaths by violence then we have as of yet found between these two species.

As far as cannibalism,it has been speculated that both species may have practiced this act, although some have stated that it is possible that the remains had been stripped of flesh as part of a burial practice.

jmccr8

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Hi Lightly,

As Cormac said the article may have not been accurate in presenting the information.I will have to wait and see if any other information is published that will validate or refute it.

Have a good day.

jmccr8

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Hi Swede,

Thanks for the links.The low frequency of finding remains that show signs of violence would seem to show that these species did not actively practice acts aggression against each other.I live in a city of over a million people and annually have more deaths by violence then we have as of yet found between these two species.

As far as cannibalism,it has been speculated that both species may have practiced this act, although some have stated that it is possible that the remains had been stripped of flesh as part of a burial practice.

jmccr8

I wouldn't say that, I would say they didn't continuously practice acts of aggression against each other.

As to the latter, keep in mind that there were never 1 million Neanderthals living at any one time throughout their history nor even 1 million HSS. And definitely not all in one place. Also, considering the low size of early human groups, the death of a handful of individuals could potentially be a death dealing blow to any group.

cormac

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Hi Swede,

Thanks for the links.The low frequency of finding remains that show signs of violence would seem to show that these species did not actively practice acts aggression against each other.I live in a city of over a million people and annually have more deaths by violence then we have as of yet found between these two species.

As far as cannibalism,it has been speculated that both species may have practiced this act, although some have stated that it is possible that the remains had been stripped of flesh as part of a burial practice.

jmccr8

jmccr8 - Just to add a bit to Cormac's reply:

First, one must look at the sampling bias. To date, somewhat over 400 Neandertal individuals have been recovered. If we utilize (for sake of convenience) the 400 figure and the single Shanidar 3 recovery, this would yield an interspecies conflict death rate of .25%. Extrapolation of this rate to a population of one million would yield a death rate of 2,500 individuals, likely well in excess of the actual figures. This aspect does not take into account the low population density and the dispersement of such. These factors would influence the potential for direct conflict.

Cormac's thoughts on the significance of population-group effect are also well considered. Current understandings would suggest that Neandertal social units were not unlike those of early H.s.s., i.e., family units and/or extended family units.

A more modern comparison may be the family-unit size of Amerindian groups. These families often consisted of six to seven individuals, with one or possibly two viable males.

Thus, the loss of even a single viable male (or female) would have the potential to seriously affect the survival probabilities of the entire family unit/extended family unit. Consider the impacts on resource procurement, defense, etc.

.

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