Neanderthals in a boat?

[oldrover]

41 minutes ago, Buzz_Light_Year said:

Who's to say that they didn't just simply walk there at sometime in the past. The area could've been quite geologically different at the time.

I know nothing about geology but, there's enough evidence from the fossil record of isolation for the islands by sea in the relevant period through the presence of well established and distinct island subspecies. 

[back to earth]

Greenland broke away from the ocean floor and floated north to its present locale...

 

I think you have become obsessed ...... or enamoured ....   by 'someone'  . 

Dont worry , there is a cure !  

 

Edited January 21, 2017 by back to earth

[Unusual Tournament]

9 hours ago, Peter B said:

Wouldn't it be at least plausible that these islands were settled by inadvertent sea travel - people washed out to sea during floods or after tsunamis, and washing up on some island or other a day or two later?

Plausible. But highly unlikely.  

[Unusual Tournament]

10 hours ago, Harte said:

It is erroneous to say Neanderthals were more primitive and ape-like than humans. Mainly because Neanderthals are correctly classified as humans.

That said, I've been very interested for over 40 years in the idea that H. Erectus (also human, by the way) was seafaring as well. I'm not suggesting a world-wide sea power like England of the past, or the Spanish Armada or anything. But I certainly don't think rafting would be beyond the abilities of either Neanderthal or Erectus.

Harte

They might have been human-kind but certainly from a different sub-sect. The fact that we find their DNA in ours is proof enough of this but they had differences in their key attributes and thinking that would have seemed more primitive at the time. Neanderthals were more physically minded and less refined in their crafts and art. Which say's that at the least they were further behind the evolutionary chain than us. If they had the same mental capacity together with their stronger body types then we'd all be neanderthals with a spattering of homo-sapian DNA and not the other way around.  

[cormac mac airt]

23 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

They might have been human-kind but certainly from a different sub-sect. The fact that we find their DNA in ours is proof enough of this but they had differences in their key attributes and thinking that would have seemed more primitive at the time. Neanderthals were more physically minded and less refined in their crafts and art. Which say's that at the least they were further behind the evolutionary chain than us. If they had the same mental capacity together with their stronger body types then we'd all be neanderthals with a spattering of homo-sapian DNA and not the other way around.  

Genetics doesn't work that way and there are at least two problems with that assumption:

1)  The Neanderthals were already genetically on their way towards extinction by the time evidence of introgression with Homo sapiens is evidenced.

2)  Much of the genetic introgression from Neanderthals has been subsequently deleted by our genome.

http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/asset?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006340.PDF

cormac

Edited January 21, 2017 by cormac mac airt

[oldrover]

28 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

They might have been human-kind but certainly from a different sub-sect. The fact that we find their DNA in ours is proof enough of this

It isn't really evidence of anything except that they aren't here as much as we are. 

 

30 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

but they had differences in their key attributes and thinking that would have seemed more primitive at the time

At what time? They were adapted for, and successful in, environments that sapiens, sapiens were absent from. Maybe if the environment had gone the other way so would humankind's story. 

 

33 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Neanderthals were more physically minded and less refined in their crafts and art.

Again, that could have been the result of environmental constraint. We can find many similar examples of different cultural development within our own species. 

 

36 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Which say's that at the least they were further behind the evolutionary chain than us.

It definitely isn't. It may suggest that they were over specialised, and therefore further along the 'chain' than us. Not that any such thing exists, evolution is a transitory suitability to conditions, not a linear process. Adaptability seems to be the key factor in survival and that's generally associated with a less diverged state. 

 

40 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

If they had the same mental capacity together with their stronger body types then we'd all be neanderthals with a spattering of homo-sapian DNA and not the other way around

Again, no. That seems like it's an 'apples and oranges' comparison. We just can't say. Neandertals survived parallel to us in far more hostile conditions. Conditions which apparently kept our sub species at bay.  So they must have been doing something right. Also, consider the relative population numbers that the two environments may have led to, that could have led to a far higher sapien, sapien population than indigenous, moving north into traditional Neandertal grounds. 

[Unusual Tournament]

20 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

Genetics doesn't work that way and there are at least two problems with that assumption:

1)  The Neanderthals were already genetically on their way towards extinction by the time evidence of introgression with Homo sapiens is evidenced.

2)  Much of the genetic introgression from Neanderthals has been subsequently deleted by our genome.

http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/asset?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006340.PDF

cormac

I don't doubt what you say. I clicked on your link, realised i haven't the patience to read the entire PDF but am still intrigued on why the neanderthals were going extinct. Was it inbreding or having to compete with a physically inferior competitor for food and shelter?

[back to earth]

53 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

They might have been human-kind but certainly from a different sub-sect. The fact that we find their DNA in ours is proof enough of this but they had differences in their key attributes and thinking that would have seemed more primitive at the time. Neanderthals were more physically minded and less refined in their crafts and art. Which say's that at the least they were further behind the evolutionary chain than us. If they had the same mental capacity together with their stronger body types then we'd all be neanderthals with a spattering of homo-sapian DNA and not the other way around.  

 

What ?          Thats why I first asked where you are getting this stuff from ???  

You do realise the 'karma'  that taking on the Capt Risky tag invokes ?   Starts off sort of  possible ... then ends in  

 

        

[Unusual Tournament]

3 minutes ago, oldrover said:

Again, that could have been the result of environmental constraint. We can find many similar examples of different cultural development within our own species. 

I wasn't aware that neanderthals were constrained to certain environments. Have you a link? I don't think that the neanderthals were a different ethnic group like you seem to suggest. They were a distinct species of human that just didn't have the attributes to cope with increased competition from other human sub-groups. If you look at it from apysical capacity to fight and compete for resources then the neanderthals would have had a natural advantage over their smaller and less hardier 3rd cousins. But they are not here any more and we are. Which means that mental capacity and intelligence played a dominate factor. That's not to say that the neanderthals couldn't copy other homo-sapians and their achievements just that they couldn't come up with any of their own to save themselves. Darwin's law.  

[back to earth]

Darwin's law ??? 

[Unusual Tournament]

3 minutes ago, back to earth said:

 

What ?          Thats why I first asked where you are getting this stuff from ???  

You do realise the 'karma'  that taking on the Capt Risky tag invokes ?   Starts off sort of  possible ... then ends in  

 

        

Yes that's very funny. I love not taking myself seriously. Well i try to anyway. I guess that's why i'm drawn to such a *****-up as the Captain Risky persona. 

[Unusual Tournament]

3 minutes ago, back to earth said:

Darwin's law ??? 

Evolution by natural selection. You have a problem with it? Are you religious?

[Peter B]

16 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

It's also curious the most beautiful and most ancient cave art in the world occurs only in the Neanderthal heartland.                                                             http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/06/120614-neanderthal-cave-paintings-spain-science-pike/

Do you mind me asking, then, about the art of Indigenous Australians? I'm pretty sure you'll find there's a continuous tradition going back to their first arrival in on the continent, which is at least 40,000 years ago, and likely thousands of years longer. Indigenous Australians have Neanderthal DNA, but it's fairly clear Neanderthals never made it to Australia. Therefore the artistic tradition of Indigenous Australians is entirely of their own making.

[Unusual Tournament]

Ah chuck, are you in trouble.

[cormac mac airt]

32 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

I don't doubt what you say. I clicked on your link, realised i haven't the patience to read the entire PDF but am still intrigued on why the neanderthals were going extinct. Was it inbreding or having to compete with a physically inferior competitor for food and shelter?

Lack of genetic diversity originally, compounded by climate change, the migration of Homo sapiens (and their pathogens) into many of the Neanderthal areas along with a competition for resources are all potential reasons for Neanderthal extinction. There is no "one set reason" for their extinction but their original lack of genetic diversity along with the other elements snowballed into becoming an untenable position for them as an extant species.

http://www.livescience.com/47460-neanderthal-extinction-revealed.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160511133201.htm

cormac

 

[back to earth]

1 hour ago, Peter B said:

Do you mind me asking, then, about the art of Indigenous Australians? I'm pretty sure you'll find there's a continuous tradition going back to their first arrival in on the continent, which is at least 40,000 years ago, and likely thousands of years longer. Indigenous Australians have Neanderthal DNA, but it's fairly clear Neanderthals never made it to Australia. Therefore the artistic tradition of Indigenous Australians is entirely of their own making.

yeah ... was going to mention this , but in many cases ... Australia doesnt count ... or it seems that way . 

 

A quick wiki on one of  my fav sites ,      Nawarla Gabarnmung

                   

 

reveals ;

"   Radiocarbon dating of charcoal excavated from the lowest stratigraphic layer returned a mean age of 35,400 ±410 years BP while the six upper layers had been deposited over the last 20,000 years. However, radiocarbon dating of charcoal excavated from the base of the lowest stratigraphic layer of the floor returned a mean age of 45,189 ±1089 years Cal BP suggesting the oldest date for the earliest human habitation. Faceted and use-striated hematite crayons have been recovered from nearby locations (Malakunanja II and Nauwalabila 1) in strata dated from 45,000 to 60,000 years old which suggests that the Gabarnmung shelter may have been decorated from its inception  " 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung

Edited January 22, 2017 by back to earth

[oldrover]

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

I wasn't aware that neanderthals were constrained to certain environments. Have you a link?

Neandertals were occupying the areas to the north and west of sapiens, sapiens from about 400,000 kya until their extinction about 35kya. Of course there were incursions of sapiens, sapiens into their southern range in that period.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(199710)104:2<245::AID-AJPA10>3.0.CO;2-%23/full

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.10070/full

And for balance

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248410002198

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

I don't think that the neanderthals were a different ethnic group like you seem to suggest

I wasn't suggesting that, I must have put it badly, what I meant was that you can't make meaningful inferences based on distinctions regarding relative technological or apparent cultural sophistication between our species and our closest relatives when you can find the same, or starker illustrations,  of such differences within our own species. In our case it's not a determiner of relative intelligence, as we know. 

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

They were a distinct species of human that just didn't have the attributes to cope with increased competition from other human sub-groups.

No, they may just not have had the numbers to represent themselves that much in the modern human genome. There's no evidence for competition, just dilution. 

 

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

If you look at it from apysical capacity to fight and compete for resources then the neanderthals would have had a natural advantage over their smaller and less hardier 3rd cousins. But they are not here any more and we are.

But that doesn't follow, as above, there's evidence in our genome which supports the idea of integration more or less than conflict or competition. And we weren't necessarily smaller, nor less physically capable. 

 

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

But they are not here any more and we are. Which means that mental capacity and intelligence played a dominate factor.

But they are, at least in part. Again, how do you determine that intelligence was the key factor in the relative amounts of their DNA  in us, rather than numbers? 

 

[Unusual Tournament]

2 minutes ago, oldrover said:

Neandertals were occupying the areas to the north and west of sapiens, sapiens from about 400,000 kya until their extinction about 35kya. Of course there were incursions of sapiens, sapiens into their southern range in that period.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(199710)104:2<245::AID-AJPA10>3.0.CO;2-%23/full

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.10070/full

And for balance

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248410002198

Well I'm not sure you understood what i said or maybe i didn't BUT the assumption that the neanderthals were only in certain areas based on their physiology is wrong. a quote from your own links say's so. They were freely in competition with other humans. 

Many morphological features of the Pleistocene fossil hominin Homo neanderthalensis, including the reputed large size of its paranasal sinuses, have been interpreted as adaptations to extreme cold, as some Neanderthals lived in Europe during glacial periods. This interpretation of sinus evolution rests on two assumptions: that increased craniofacial pneumatization is an adaptation to lower ambient temperatures, and that Neanderthals have relatively large sinuses. Analysis of humans, other primates, and rodents, however, suggests that the first assumption is suspect; at least the maxillary sinus undergoes a significant reduction in volume in extreme cold, in both wild and laboratory conditions.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248410002198

[oldrover]

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

Which means that mental capacity and intelligence played a dominate factor. That's not to say that the neanderthals couldn't copy other homo-sapians and their achievements just that they couldn't come up with any of their own to save themselves. Darwin's law. 

Again, where are you getting this idea of conflict or direct hostile competition from? And which of Darwin's laws are you citing? 

All we have is evidence of two human populations, fairly geographically distinct for long periods, but with evidence for interbreeding. It's reasonable to assume that sapien, sapien significantly outnumbered Neandertals, but yet we still have up to 5% of their DNA in us. And that's not the full picture. All the Neandertal DNA we have is in our mitochondrial DNA, which has been interpreted in various ways, but, in the case of a heterogametes  species, during interbreeding with a another obviously sufficiently close, but distinct species/sub species, the heterogametes gender is often sterile. 

[oldrover]

18 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Well I'm not sure you understood what i said

That is a possibility we can't afford to ignore, it's late Saturday night here and I have been sharper. 

18 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

BUT the assumption that the neanderthals were only in certain areas based on their physiology is wrong. a quote from your own links say's so. They were freely in competition with other humans. 

Again, yes that's true. As I said earlier they were in contact with us in certain parts of their range. But, Neandertals were present in areas where H sapiens, sapiens were not, and for significant periods of their evolutionary history. 

As to that paper, it should be remembered that the remit of it refers specifically to the paranasal sinuses were cold adapted, not the question of whether Neandertals themselves were. 

But it was my own link and one I didn't read properly, so any error is entirely on me. 

Edited January 22, 2017 by oldrover

[Unusual Tournament]

7 minutes ago, oldrover said:

Again, where are you getting this idea of conflict or direct hostile competition from? And which of Darwin's laws are you citing? 

All we have is evidence of two human populations, fairly geographically distinct for long periods, but with evidence for interbreeding. It's reasonable to assume that sapien, sapien significantly outnumbered Neandertals, but yet we still have up to 5% of their DNA in us. And that's not the full picture. All the Neandertal DNA we have is in our mitochondrial DNA, which has been interpreted in various ways, but, in the case of a heterogametes  species, during interbreeding with a another obviously sufficiently close, but distinct species/sub species, the heterogametes gender is often sterile. 

I'm assuming so. Different groups of people have always had a hard time co-existing. Two survival based groups at a lake fishing is bound to cause a problem. Multiply that and you have a threat for both groups. That's not to say that they didn't get on when it was for their mutual benefit. But generally i can imagine competition for the same areas and food and from the DNA influence they have left in our gene's, women too. Which wouldn't rule out any matriarchal inherited DNA. Everything is open to speculation. But i think I'm on the mark. 

[oldrover]

2 hours ago, Captain Risky said:

 

[oldrover]

3 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

I'm assuming so. Different groups of people have always had a hard time co-existing. Two survival based groups at a lake fishing is bound to cause a problem. Multiply that and you have a threat for both groups.

Yeah, fair enough. That holds true with our modern understanding of interaction between groups. How true it would have been 40 kya I have no idea. 

 

5 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

from the DNA influence they have left in our gene's, women too. Which wouldn't rule out any matriarchal inherited DNA. Everything is open to speculation. But i think I'm on the mark. 

I'm not sue I follow, the DNA we see today is entirely through the female line, my point was that there's every chance we've lost any input from potential male sapiens, sapiens/Neandertal hybrid for the reasons I cited. 

 

[Doc Socks Junior]

On 1/21/2017 at 6:06 AM, Harte said:

It is erroneous to say Neanderthals were more primitive and ape-like than humans. Mainly because Neanderthals are correctly classified as humans.

That said, I've been very interested for over 40 years in the idea that H. Erectus (also human, by the way) was seafaring as well. I'm not suggesting a world-wide sea power like England of the past, or the Spanish Armada or anything. But I certainly don't think rafting would be beyond the abilities of either Neanderthal or Erectus.

Harte

Was this interest brought on by the hypothesis that the seafaring H. erectus would have inevitably stumbled upon Vergina?

[Harte]

Taboo topic.

But, given the name, I'd say that hypothesis is quite firm.

Harte