From the Geological Society of America: Boulder, Colo., USA – The Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption in Italy 40,000 years ago was one of the largest volcanic cataclysms in Europe and injected a significant amount of sulfur-dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere. Scientists have long debated whether this eruption contributed to the final extinction of the Neanderthals. This new study by Benjamin A. Black and colleagues tests this hypothesis with a sophisticated climate model.
Black and colleagues write that the CI eruption approximately coincided with the final decline of Neanderthals as well as with dramatic territorial and cultural advances among anatomically modern humans. Because of this, the roles of climate, hominin competition, and volcanic sulfur cooling and acid deposition have been vigorously debated as causes of Neanderthal extinction.
They point out, however, that the decline of Neanderthals in Europe began well before the CI eruption: “Radiocarbon dating has shown that at the time of the CI eruption, anatomically modern humans had already arrived in Europe, and the range of Neanderthals had steadily diminished. Work at five sites in the Mediterranean indicates that anatomically modern humans were established in these locations by then as well.”
“While the precise implications of the CI eruption for cultures and livelihoods are best understood in the context of archaeological data sets,” write Black and colleagues, the results of their study quantitatively describe the magnitude and distribution of the volcanic cooling and acid deposition that ancient hominin communities experienced coincident with the final decline of the Neanderthals.
In their climate simulations, Black and colleagues found that the largest temperature decreases after the eruption occurred in Eastern Europe and Asia and sidestepped the areas where the final Neanderthal populations were living (Western Europe). Therefore, the authors conclude that the eruption was probably insufficient to trigger Neanderthal extinction.
However, the abrupt cold spell that followed the eruption would still have significantly impacted day-to-day life for Neanderthals and early humans in Europe. Black and colleagues point out that temperatures in Western Europe would have decreased by an average of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius during the year following the eruption. These unusual conditions, they write, may have directly influenced survival and day-to-day life for Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans alike, and emphasize the resilience of anatomically modern humans in the face of abrupt and adverse changes in the environment.
FEATURED ARTICLE
Campanian Ignimbrite volcanism, climate, and the final decline of the Neanderthals
Benjamin A. Black et al., University of California, Berkeley, California, USA. Published online ahead of print on 19 March 2015; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G36514.1.
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UGG!
…boots!
They are alive and well in the form of WUWT trolls. :-O
I don’t think so. Neanderthals were highly developed.
The Liberal Climate Change Policies that have been forced upon the populace during the past 30+ years have literally wrecked havoc upon the socio-economic and educational status of the populations of the civilized countries, …. primarily in Western Europe and North America.
And a good introduction to …
“This new study by Benjamin A. Black and colleagues tests this hypothesis with a sophisticated climate model.”
—
Tells you all you really need to know about the study.
afaik
Sophisticated climate models are as rare as honest politicians.
“Sophisticated climate models are as rare as honest politicians.”
Sophisticated climate models (GIGO can be very sophisticated, likewise so can the typical models which are pre-programmed to ‘prove’ CAGW theory) – they are not unusual, but accurate ones are as rare as rocking horse poo.
Here’s a Neanderthal fighting extinction by manipulating “data”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2015/03/21/pachauri-vs-the-police/
This sounds like one of those pieces nore accurately describing wht “finished them off” type of thing. Much as the meteor/comet impact that appears likely to have “finished off” the dinosaurs that were already in declien due to a climate shift to cooling!
Neanderthals were already on their way out at the time of the eruption, about 39.28 ± 0.11 ka.
They were better adapted biologically to cold than Anatomically Modern Humans, but more reliant (it appears) on hunting large herbivores. Some evidence suggests that Neanderthal diet did include plants and fish, but not to the same extent as for AMH, aka Cro-Magnons.
It has recently been suggested that AMH use of dogs contributed to the demise of Neanderthals, but there is no conclusive evidence of dogs older than 30 ka.
If the Neanderthals were better adapted to cold, then wouldn’t a cold snap have hurt the Modern Humans more than the Neanderthals?
On the other hand, the Neanderthal territory had been shrinking, so perhaps the cold spell hurt both populations, but since the Modern Humans had a larger range, including areas no directly affected by the volcano, they might have been better positioned to bounce back after the volcano?
Good point. I am 2.7% Neanderthal so I guess they are not exactly extinct.
MarkW
March 21, 2015 at 8:42 am
“If the Neanderthals were better adapted to cold, then wouldn’t a cold snap have hurt the Modern Humans more than the Neanderthals?”
Makes you wonder whether Neanderthals would have made this glaring logical error when writing that paper.
Sturgis Hooper, you beat me to it in that Neanderthals were better adapted to the cold. They had survived in Eurasia for over 200,000 years.
I suspect theyt would have been wiped out sooner or later, possibly because of the plasticity of modern human brains. Having said that in 2010 it was found that between 1 to 4 per cent of many people’s genomes today is made up of Neanderthal DNA. Previous research published in 2004 disputes this.
Mine is about 2.5% and I have a vestigial brow ridge. I’ve considered filing anti-Neanderthal discrimination law suits.
Here is a question. If we have 97% of our genes in common with chimpanzees, how come that you have only 2.5% of your genes in common with Neanderthals.
Serious question. I’ve seen such percentage numbers before and I have no idea at all what they should convey.
DirkH, the 97% number is an assessment of genetic drift. Since the common ancestor of the chimpanzee and the human, roughly 3% of our genome has differentiated. So, for a terrible example, the brown eye gene common ancestor mutated in people and allowed for a further mutation to become the blue eye gene. These differences, along with “rubbish sites” (or inactive genes) show us how far removed we are from another species.
The 1-4% number of genes found in humans that come from Neanderthals is an assessment of active genetic sequences that are identical or slightly off of the Neanderthal samples we have from bones and remains.
They are percentages that compare different aspects of their genetic profiles.
Dirk,
Different things are being measured.
When comparing individuals of the same species, there are markers that indicate the origins of those genes or that genetic material. For instance, the various genealogical services look for markers to indicate where your mother’s mitochondrial DNA came from.
Modern humans and Neanderthals are obviously very closely related, but we have different versions of some genes. Humans and chimps also often have different versions of the same genes, but also have sequences with so many differences that they’re not the same gene anymore.
Also, a lot of the differences between humans and chimps don’t lie in our genes but in the “epigenetic” mechanisms that control how long certain genes are switched on. That’s why humans have the same number of hair follicles per square inch of skin as chimps, but we aren’t hairy. Our body hair stops growing much sooner than chimps’. Same goes for the structure of our leg bones.
To sum up, geneticists can distinguish between the Neanderthal or AMH origin of the same genes in these two subspecies. But that’s not the same operation as counting the similarities or differences in the genes of humans and our closest ape relatives.
We’re separated from chimps by several millions of years of divergent evolution but only a few hundreds of thousands from Neanderthals.
“To sum up, geneticists can distinguish between the Neanderthal or AMH origin of the same genes in these two subspecies. But that’s not the same operation as counting the similarities or differences in the genes of humans and our closest ape relatives.”
So, if we have the same gene X as the chimpanzee, and the Neanderthal has the same gene X as the chimpanzee, the scientists can tell whether YOUR gene X comes from your Homo sapiens ancestor or your Neanderthal ancestor?
And, as the Neanderthal must als have had about 97% of genes in common with the chimpanzee, how does it matter one iot whether your gene X comes from the Homo sapiens, well wait, I’ll be PC and call him Gay sapiens from now on, that’s better – so from your Gay Sapiens or your Neanderthal ancestor? It’s the same gene X after all because we both (The Gay Sapiens and the Neanderthal) have it in common with the chimpanzee. Plus or minus something that the scientists use to tell whether it came from the Gay Sapiens or from the Neanderthal.
Dirk,
Maybe I didn’t explain the difference well.
There are markers which indicate if your genes came from a Neanderthal or a Modern. In many cases it doesn’t matter because the function will be the same. In others, as for instance formation of a brow ridge, the difference might be visible but make no functional difference.
The reason it’s interesting to some people is because it shows that Moderns and Neanderthals mated and produced viable offspring.
That’s a different sort of conclusion than what can be drawn from comparison of wholly different genes with chimps, other apes, other primates, other mammals, other vertebrates, invertebrates, fungi, plants, etc.
Sturgis….
You have my sympathies but it has occurred to me that it might not be “vestigial”….You might possibly be the vanguard of a de-evolution so I guess your offence may be a little premature…
Just trying to help.
A
Jones,
Which offense do you have in mind?
I can guarantee that my Neanderthal traits are all vestigial, not that there’s anything wrong with Neanderthals. They were well adapted to their environment, and lots of modern groups have also been cannibals.
Hia,
Consideration of filing an anti-neanderthal discrimination suit implied offence. I can see though that it might just be concern at the neolithic struggle of a minority group that’s the driving force so apologies there.
Sincere apologies.
There’s nowt wrong with a Neanderthal ridge in my view lest I be seen as a closet Neanderthalist (heaven forbid).
It’s the single eyebrow to be worried about.
Jones..
P.S. The written word often fails to get nuance and humour across but I am (in an attempted pythonesque way but failing) just taking the renal excretion.
Jones,
My idea was to claim discrimination for any and all offenses I’ve suffered.
Mine isn’t quite a unibrow–it kind of peters out supranasally–but the ridges are definitely there.
Regrettably not the robustness, although stocky as a child, kind of like the chunky 28,000 year old baby found in Portugal and once claimed as evidence for late Neanderthal survival.
“but the ridges are definitely there”
Are you a Klingon?
DirkH March 21, 2015 at 11:34 am
If you look at the genome in the way that geneticists do when comparing humans and chimps, the Neanderthals & AMHs share over 99% of genes.
What the 2% commonality figure refers to is the number of genes in modern people that carry markers as having come from Neanderthals. AMHs and Neanderthals often had different versions of the same gene, as well as a few different genes.
I’m going to disagree with all of you. The Neanderthals did not become extinct. They were a sub species home sapiens neanderthalis. There was geographical and temporal genetic diversity and specialisation amongst hominids but they, and we, don’t deserve a separate species label. Neanderthals had a lower population density than humans as an apex predator of large game. They were a minority of all hominids. Take a population that is 96% human and 4% Neanderthal and let them interbreed for 30,000 years. The result is a gene pool that is 96% human and 4% – what we have today. I could point to a number of boxers and rugby players who have a lot of Neanderthal features including the sloping forehead and prominent eyebrows.
The essential features distinguishing Neanderthals from Moderns are extinct.
Some superficial traits derived from Neanderthals may appear in some individuals, or I may inherit via a Neanderthal gene a function that is identical with a Modern gene.
Bear in mind that if 2% of my genes derive from Neanderthals, in almost every case the allele, which may be recessive, dominant or equal, for that trait on the chromatid from my other parent will be from a Modern. Thus only a tiny share of Neanderthal traits will actually be expressed.
Alan, seems to me europeans are Guys who migrated from Africa, had sex with, and also out competed white folk named after a place in Germany. These white folk disappeared and what remains is mostly Africans with a little bit of the non African DNA.
“There is no conclusive evidence of dogs older than 30 ka”
That’s pretty old for a dog. I’ve never heard of any dog even close to that age.
I find it strange, they harp on about settled science in Climate Change and then they somehow manage to ignore the DNA evidence that Neanderthals didn’t die out, They interbred with the modern species and what we have today is the result. Suddenly when its useful to climatology the myth that the Neanderthals died out is trotted out with a convenient climate demise for them, you know, it happened before, it can happen again fear tactic. Just goes to show that climastrology is a science free zone.
Neanderthals did die out. The average person from outside Subsaharan African has only about 1.5 to 2.1% Neanderthal ancestry, ranging as high as perhaps 4% among some Europeans. En toto, maybe as much as 20% of the Neanderthal genome has survived. Maybe. And the majority of those genes don’t do anything differently from our own Out of Africa genes.
PS; Some researchers think that, with enough test subjects, they could find as much as 40% of the Neanderthal genome lurking among living people, but I’m dubious.
In any case, Neanderthals as a distinct subspecies, ie a large population with a consistently different genome from ours, are long gone.
Neanderthals didn’t die out, they are running councils across Britain.
yup… I am one…..I admit it.
The simple fact that Neanderthals interbred with AMH, aka Cro-Magnons tells us that they were not a separate species. We see the same thing in modern humans. Considerable differences in size and color between sub-species caused by environmental pressure.
The DNA ratio doesn’t necessarily mean Neanderthals died out. If you mix 2 poodles in with 98 collies, over time most of the descendants will look a lot like collies, but a few will look a lot like poodles. Unless there is some selective advantage, the end product will be 2% poodle and 98% collie. In some ways both the collies and the poodles died out, and in some ways both survived.
So, if a full blooded Neanderthal and a full blooded Anatomically Modern Human mate their offspring is ½ (50%) Neanderthal. That “half breed” mates with a 100% AMH the result is a ¼ (25%) Neanderthal. That quarter breed mates with a 100% AMH the result is 1/8 (12.5%) Neanderthal. That eighth breed mates with a 100% AMH the result is a 1/16 (6.25%) Neanderthal. That sixteenth breed mates with a 100% AMH the result is a 1/32 (3.1%) Neanderthal. That thirty-second breed mates with a 100% AMH (mail ordered from sub-Saharan Africa because they became so hard to find) the result is a 1/64 (1.6%) Neanderthal. So, in just a few generations a small population of 100% Neanderthals can be bred out of apparent existence through mating with a large population of AMH. They didn’t die out, they we’re bred out, and they are now part of us.
Neanderthal genes were just out of Africa earlier.
John West: Your scenario assumes that there was only one interbreeding event.
In reality there would have been a number of events, resulting in multiple lines, which over time interbred, so you would get a situation where a 98% pure human breeds with a 98% pure human.
Slight mis-statement Ferdberple.
Closely related species can interbreed successfully. There is not a interbreeding barrier between species; though there are other reasons that cause separate species to avoid interbreeding. e.g. preference, fertility season, birthing difficulties and sexual organ physical differences.
Horticulture breeders frequently interbreed related species in seeking particular plant behaviors and benefits.
A common image of a difficult species interbreed effort are the mating of a donkey to a horse. There are enough differences in their breeding genetics that the result, a mule, is almost always sterile.
A possible reason for the lack of identifiable Neanderthal DNA in modern humans may be a result of a lack of or reduced fertility in Modern/Neanderthal progeny.
For what it is worth:
My Mother’s side includes native American ancestry. One side effect of the Amerindian blood is a lack of hirsute relatives; e.g. one of my Brothers has what is known as a ‘basketball’ mustache, i.e. five on each side. Several male relatives don’t bother shaving more than a couple times a week, and no-one notices.
Then there is my way over the top hair growth. Shaving everyday at age 14, five o-clock shadow at 10AM and very shaggy from the neck to ankle.
Trying to discover why has led me to wonder if any ancestors married a bear. One day, while suffering more questions, my Father looked at me and said that his Mother used to complain that one of her Brothers back in the Ukraine was unbelievably hirsute.
One never knows just what physical aspects may be a reflection of their Neanderthal ancestry.
DNA testing identifies both my Father’s DNA and Amerindian ancestry. I’d get a kick out their finally identifying where that hairy Neanderthal bonus gene snuck in…
Sturgis, I had a cousin who must have had a lot of Neanderthal. He was huge, really strong, and was the hairiest person you’ll ever see. My dad (who was an MD) used to joke we must have been part Neanderthal because we had huge molars (mine were so large I had four brand new molars extracted when I was 13). And our heads are so large that when I was sixteen and worked in a furniture factory I couldn’t find a painter’s cap to fit me properly. I had to slit the ones they gave me and put a bunch of masking tape around my head.
Fernando,
Your cousin might be one of those four-percenters!
We do not consider Africans and Caucasians as different species (in polite company at least). Caucasians share genes with Neanderthals but Africans don’t, but why are there 2 species here? Why consider Neanderthals as a different species to Africans? Yes, there are details surrounding alleles and differential survival rates of gene variants but it’s the definition of ‘species’ which is the issue.
Alan G,
The (ultimately) African immigrants to Europe from the Middle East and the indigenous Neanderthals weren’t different species, but subspecies of the same species.
You’re right though that talk of “new humans” sounds as if that’s what is being implied.
You beat me to it. They interbred – this is what science has become – speculation and then skip all the other steps, build a self-fulfilling model and present a scientific paper on it. It’s similar to the one on melting permafrost of the other day with up to 164petagrams of carbon to release. The average thickness of overburden in northern Canada is ~3-4m the rest of the frozen permafrost is in solid rock with no CO2/CH4 to release and since the ‘active layler’ is 0.5-3m, (the annual melting top), most of the gases have already been released. This is science in the common room, not field work.
I resent being told I interbred with Neanderthals!
andrewmharding…
We have video evidence.
I’m afraid DNA evidence isn’t sensitive enough to do a good job once you are dealing with trace amounts of ancestry. You may have an heirloom suggesting your great-great-great-great-grandmother came from Lower Slobovia, but it isn’t easy to show you are 1/64th Sobovian from your DNA.
There is also the problem that since both humans and neanderthals share a fairly recent, common ancestor they are going to share a lot of DNA even without interbreeding.
Bobl… you are correct. Neanderthals and Sapiens interbred to yield a new creature… US!
Sapiens produced numerically more genes to “US” but neither pure species exists any more… except maybe in Africa. African humans have nearly no Neanderthal DNA.
AMHs and Neaderthals are not separate species. We are subspecies of H. sapiens. AMHs are H. sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals are H. sapiens neandertalensis.
It was always obvious to me that the two races were capable of mating and producing viable offspring. Even back when some few questioned this fact, there was never unanimity that we are (or were) separate species. IMO Moderns could also have produced viable offspring with H. heidelbergensis, the ancestor of both Moderns and Neanderthals. I’ll go out on a limb and claim that that applies to H. erectus grade populations as well. H. habilis, probably not, and only the most warped among the moderns would want to try.
Sturgis,
It is definitions – again!
Whether AMH and Neanderthals (and Denisovans, and heidelbergensis, and perhaps georgicus) and others too (perhaps) are all of one species is a matter of semantics.
There certainly is a group of gull species, living round the Arctic, where there is a cline that runs from [I Think!] Norway, across Eurasia, through Beringia, and across the Canadian Arctic, then to Greenland and [possibly also] Iceland. There is extensive interbreeding with neighbouring species [There are, I think, about six or eight, but welcome correction].
But, crucially, there is no known interbreeding across the ‘Atlantic Gap’ [Greenland or Iceland to Norway].
What is a species?
It’s something that a respected zoologist says is a species. No?
My rule of thumb for genera [plural of genus] is that they can be seen to be different across the room. But I’m a seaman, not a zoologist, so that is possibly irrelevant.
And this is – mostly – a climate thread/site. No?
Auto
Species is a pleasant fiction designed to make life easier on taxonomists. All life is just one long continuum of varying allele frequencies amongst ever-bifurcating populations. Hell, even the mitochondria which make tracing the lineage of certain organisms along maternal lines easier only have their own distinctly non-nuclear DNA because it’s all but certain that they used to be bacteria which fell into an endosymbiotic relationship with some long since extinct (or unrecognizably evolved) single-celled eukaryote.
Directed more to the topic of this thread, I believe it is a mistake to characterize Neanderthals as more violent or somehow less … human … than their Cro-Magnon contemporaries. Not enough data and far too influenced by what I see as our overly-developed (read: a load of bull) sense of cultured refinement. A Neanderthal living in the modern world might not exactly go unnoticed in a crowd, and in fact could probably make more than a decent living as an NFL lineman. Or as an actor on prime time television:
http://metalfrog.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Lou.jpg
The makeup artists would have an easier time of it for sure. I can’t speak for the hairstylists.
Gates, when you come right down to it, that argument could apply to just about everything.
It’s all about definitions, isn’t it? Where we draw the lines.
I had a student who complained about my assertion that we are all, ultimately, descended from fish. “I ain’t no fish!”… to scattered applause from his peers. O.k. so maybe I was waxing a little too freely on Darwinian evolution. I still think there’s some of those fish genes swimming around in the pool somewhere.
The vast majority of our genes are in common with fish, especially lobe-finned fish, like the lungfish and coelacanth. Lungfish are closer to tetrapods, but their genomes are enormous.
Even the ray-finned Puffer fish and Zebra fish (85% commonality with humans) are so genetically similar to human beings that their genomes are being deciphered as model organisms for research. They’ve helped us understand our own genomes a lot better.
Agree with you. See my comment above. The idea of hermetically isolated species is largely discredited.
The whole point of evolution is that species are fungible.
The victim was shot, stabbed and beaten about the head and shoulders last night. Cause of death, the sun going down.
Didn’t they make themselves extinct with there CO2 producing power stations and SUv’s?
Somehow the Eemian Interglacial managed to be a lot warmer than even the balmiest stretches of the present Holocene Interglacial without benefit of a Neanderthal Industrial Age. Imagine that!
Obrital forcing was higher. So were sea levels.
sorry typo,”there” should read “their”
Nice save.
Catastrophic evolution occurs at magnetic reversals, says Australian archeologist – Video
The last complete geomagnetic reversal was 41kya, called Laschamp. It was a brief event, only a few hundred years, so it doesn’t show up on most reversal timelines, but it was a complete reversal and during the transition the earth’s field strength diminished to a few percent of normal.
The only complete reversal experienced by sapiens.
Wait a minute. If 1.5°C per century is going to kill us all despite our modern technology how did Alley Oop’s relatives manage to be better at survival with nothing but stone tools?
as opposed to which other extinctions?
So, we’re not going to die?
Can I get a refund?
the temperature here locally changes 10C in one day, and 30C over 6 month’s. Yet we are to believe that a couple of degree’s change over 4-5 generations of humans will somehow wipe us out?
That having survived repeated ice ages and interglacials with stone age technology, science new tells us that somehow present day humans will not be able to survive any further climate change. Unless of course we pay a huge honking big wad of taxes to someone else. Then we will be OK.
Big surprise. Don’t pay taxes on carbon, we are all going to die. Pay taxes on carbon, everything will be OK. Even if the taxes don’t change carbon pollution, we will be OK because at least we are doing something.
Only thing is, once the carbon taxes are in place, some new scare will surface that can only be solved by new taxes. The only sure way to prevent this new problem is to prevent carbon taxes. So long as carbon remains tax free, the new problem will not develop. Only after carbon taxes are solved will scientists discover this new threat.
Right. The illogical is mind numbing. Carbon taxes coming here to Vermont, while Bernie Sanders burns jet fuel and hallucinates about being POTUS. But, Boehner has flown off to Israel as some sort of savior of what exactly?
So, time to sell out and leave VT, but where to go . . . Belize?
Is there anywhere that remembers the carbon cycle? the water cycle? Or is all new age science CAGW, so pay your dues?
Because they didn’t know any better?
It took a major effort of will to read past the reference to “a sophisticated climate model” at the end of the first paragraph.
“Sophisticated” is a relative term. perhaps it prefers caviar over cheese and crackers.
Yes, Dawtgtomis, the “sophisticated” models nibble daintily on small bits rather than chew on whole bytes.
Now that there is funny.
perhaps it prefers caviar over cheese and crackers.
Please! Sour Cream!
Quite right.
Agree. A “sophisticated climate model”??? How sophisticated is it if its never been right?
No model ever is.
If it were right, they would call it the right climate model. This one is the sophisticated one.
One hopes a more sophisticated model would be less wrong than a less sophisticated one. That’s arguably true of the GCM approach over old-school two-slab energy balance models. But, as has been pointed out, more sophistication implies more complication — and complexity can breed error. But not necessarily so, thus popular sweeping opinion here resting on this truism is not a very satisfactory argument. Invoking Box is my little way of answering in kind, with the subtle reminder that some wrong models are still useful so long as they are judged according to their specified capabilities and intended use.
Wistfully pining away for “accurate” long-term weather forecasting models when discussing AOGCMs intended to suss out changes in climate is pure folly. But such is the foolish game of those who delight in wilful ignorance whilst bizarrely claiming superior knowledge based on … well … nothing, really. I say the last bit because generally those who reject physics-based simulations of climate also tend to claim that the observational data are inconclusive, or have been fabricated outright. Leaving one wondering why they aren’t fabricated to match the model output better … but going there would require consistency, a quality ever so lacking in a crowd fond of pointing out that …
1) Climate is always changing
2) It’s been warmer in the past
… based on even less reliable proxy data obtained and analyzed by researchers presumed to belong to the very same cabal of instrumental temperature fixers.
Of course, there’s no doubt whatsoever that it’s getting colder in Antarctica, which means more ice. Funny how the “skepticism” vanishes when the otherwise unreliable, massaged, manipulated, tortured — if not wholly invented from whole cloth — data conform to the desired narrative. Isn’t it.
Brandon Gates comments making sweeping and harsh generalizations of the ‘skeptic’ crowd.. generalizations which I’m afraid are broadly accurate, based on my experience here and elsewhere. Unfortunately, Brandon, I think your critique will fall on deaf ears here, although by now you probably know that better than I do.
That I’ve resorted to the broad brush is one indication of my painful awareness.
They are confusing the term “sophisticated” with the term “complex”, the poor dears.
I wouldn’t do it if I were you.
Climate change is going to happen regardless of what we do about it. Adapt, or die— that seems to be the choice.
I’ve seen some studies of Neanderthal skulls which suggest that their brains were larger, but their tongues were less able to form the consonants we Cro-magnons use for our speech.
This can can lead to only one logical conclusion. If Neanderthal had larger brains and didn’t speak, obviously they communicated telepathically.
This also suggests the reasons Neanderthals vanished. If they could read minds, and had to read the moronic minds of “modern” Cro-magnons, it would obviously cause them great anguish.
Can you imagine reading the mind of an Alarmist? We should thank God we aren’t psychic.
Maybe I am psychic, I get a really painful almost unbearable headache when I try to communicate with the warmistas.
If Neanderthal had larger brains and didn’t speak
Prb’ly the reason Cro-Mag males found the Neanderthal women attractive. 🙂
I notice from the illustration that this “sophisticated climate model” apparently can’t get the extent of the inland ice 40,000 years ago even approximately right. No surprise really, because I’ve never seen a climate model that can get it right. But it does rather lessen the credibility of the modelling when you know that it starts out from the wrong initial conditions.
test
oops, sorry,
No, we Neanderthals are still here,,now the conditions did force us to cross the land bridge, come down into the now American Southwest, the climate made us shorter, leaner, and meaner.
Apaches are the descendants of those big old ones, but just as tough as ever.
The DNA of Neanderthals tell a much different story.
Neanderthals and sapiens coexisted for many years based on the fossil record. The DNA of Neanderthals make up 2-3% of Caucasian DNA. Africans have nearly no Neanderthal DNA. The number of differences between Neanderthal and sapien DNA cannot be accounted for using DNA mutation rate given the fact that they coexisted.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140129-neanderthal-genes-genetics-migration-africa-eurasian-science/
The new theory is that Neanderthals interbred with sapiens to yield a new human.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/modern-human-dna-neanderthal_n_4689506.html
Neanderthals had bigger brains than Homo Sapiens. They also seem to have had a better immune system. The also spoke a language. Key genes were identified in their DNA that are understood in humans.
http://www.livescience.com/7973-human-speech-gene.html
They are still here amongst us …look around.. Ron Pearlman….Nikolai Valuev
Neanderthals never disappeared…they were absorbed and we are still here.
So the whole study, and the human evolution model is seriously flawed.
mix 2 poodles in with 98 collies. most descendants will look like collies but a few will look like poodles.
ferderble,
yes well taken… but looks aren’t everything! I know a few mathematicians that would get lost in a community of Neanderthals….Einstein…look at a picture of him! I postulate that Neanderthals were “smarter” than sapiens. To make a conclusion about the intelligence of Neanderthals base on the size of their nose or brow is absurd. Rather, it would make more sense to develop a hypothesis based on the cranial cavity, #folds on the brain, and the genetic make up.
Ferd,
Dogs are all the same species, a subspecies of wolf. While perhaps a helpful analogy, it’s not fully apt for comparing subspecies with important behavioral and biological differences, instead of superficial ones like hair curliness.
No descendant of Neanderthal-Modern matings, ie just about everyone outside Sub-Saharan Africa, is going to look like a Neanderthal in any meaningful way. All modern humans have the same kind of brain, for instance, ignoring developmental disorders. Neanderthals’ brains were different in important ways. No one, not even the biggest gym rat, is built like just a Neanderthal weakling. No one has their nose, throat, larynx, tongue and mouth arrangement (also lacking chins). They probably lacked highly visible, white sclera (the whites of their eyes). The list of significant differences is long. There were also superficial differences comparable to your canine example, as Neanderthals had less melanin in their skin, although their paleness derived from a different genetic basis than that of modern Europeans and Asians (whose paleness method also differ from each other).
When the majority of the genome of a subspecies is gone, as is the case with Neanderthals, you can’t bring it back. With selective breeding over many generations you could perhaps produce vaguely Neanderthalish looking individuals, but they would not be even the human genetic equivalent of a wolf-dog cross.
Paul,
We do know a lot about the Neanderthal brain, and they were not as smart as we are. Their culture remained unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. That of Moderns is constantly changing.
By your line of thought “We” Neanderthal “hybrids” (2% does not a hybrid make) are distinct from Sub-Saharan Africans. In fact, despite superficial differences, H. sapiens populations are remarkably similar genetically, suggesting a bottleneck (as some have proposed for the Toba eruption). All modern humans, even the most unusual groups, are much more closely related than chimp groups are with each other, despite our cosmopolitan distribution and their limited range in tropical African habitats.
The greatest degree of genetic difference is not between non-Africans and Africans, but among Africans, which is to be expected given that it’s the cradle of humanity. Genus Homo certainly arose there, as did AMHs. It’s also highly likely that the intervening H. erectus-grade groups did, too.
Hi Sturgis,
Well I was careful to suggest a “postulation”. Here is why. I grew up through school being absolutely abused by hair-brained teachers who, with inappropriate certainty, told the class(es) that there was this linear “evolution” of mankind. We know that the fossil record does not support that assertion. I recall asking if there is abundant archaeological evidence and I also recall being told of 1000s of skeletons as proof. It turns out that not a single complete skeleton has been unearthed and only about 50 partial skeletons of “neanderthal” have been found. The sheer lack of samples of skulls make my appropriate skepticism sound.
Archaeologists are so quick to make all sorts of assumptions without data….
Now we have genetic evidence of a couple of individuals.
Referring CU-Boulder researcher Paola Villa…
“The evidence for cognitive inferiority is simply not there,” CU-Boulder researcher Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. “What we are saying is that the conventional view of Neanderthals is not true.”
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6833/20140430/neanderthals-just-as-smart-as-modern-humans.htm
“Many people are tempted to pinpoint cognitive inferiority for Neanderthals’ demise, but archaeologists assert that there is no evidence to support this popular opinion.”
So don’t think the science is settled on this one. There is plenty-o-axe grinding and shoe-horning of data to support agenda-driven theory.
I have 2-3% “Neanderthal” DNA (whatever that means). 10 years ago I was told I had none because Neanderthals died off long before sapiens. So. What I know is that scientific theories change as data is revealed. We have not met a neanderthal so we do not “Know” much about them. IMO
True, science has to infer a lot about them, but we have more to go on now.
DNA was collected from over a dozen individuals to assemble the whole genome.
There is also now a lot more information about their occupation sites to fill in blanks on behavior and diet.
There’s a new hypothesis that might appeal to you, ie that Neanderthals lost out because of reduced fertility in the male “hybrids”:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/neanderthal-genes-found-in-modern-humans/2014/01/29/f7f81852-8774-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html
Sturgis, remember that the species, subspecies arguments are about labels based on traits that we have grouped together as a way to organize organisms… and not about how the organisms organized themselves. That’s especially true when all we have is fossilized osteological evidence for a very limited number of individuals. My Physical Anthro’ professor pounded into our heads to ignore the Linnaean taxonomic labels when analyzing as it would bias our perceptions of the remains we were studying.
Neanderthal brains were on average a little bigger than those of moderns, but they were arranged differently.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1758/20130168
Neanderthal brains focused on vision and movement (to control their massive bodies), leaving less room for the higher level thinking required to form large social groups. They were not as “smart” as Moderns, at least in terms of social intelligence.
This fact has long been observed, based upon Neanderthal habitation sites.
The characteristic occipital bun of Neanderthals, associated with their greater visual acuity, is rare in Moderns.
Just because a Modern has a vestigial Neanderthal brow along with a Sub-Saharan African chin does not make him or her a “new human”. He or she is an anatomically modern human with a noticeable brow ridge.
Neanderthals lived in North Africa as well as Europe and the Middle East, as far east as Uzbekistan. Among the many evidences that they were a true subspecies, ie “race” in the biological sense, is the fact that Moderns and Neanderthals co-existed for tens of thousands of years in regions like the Holy Land, yet maintained their distinctive traits and cultures. When the climate was colder, Levantine caves were occupied by Neanderthals. When warmer, the Moderns moved in.
Until about 50,000 years ago, when Late Paleolithic Cro-Magnon culture developed (possibly earlier in Africa). Unlike Neanderthal culture, we highly adaptable Moderns are always changing. Neanderthal culture always remained Middle Paleolithic, although there are hints that at the very end they might have adopted some Cro-Magnon technology.
When Moderns invaded Europe and farther afield in Africa and Asia, bringing their advanced Cro-Magnon culture with them, the jig was up for Neanderthals.
Sturgis Hooper
March 21, 2015 at 9:00 am
“Neanderthal brains focused on vision and movement (to control their massive bodies), leaving less room for the higher level thinking required to form large social groups.”
Sounds to me like total conjecture. Neanderthals were smaller and bulkier than we but put one in modern clothes and he would be able to walk through a city without getting recognized. I know some work colleagues with quite massive bodies and I dispute the notion that they have larger brains than I.
Also, I can’t see much higher level thinking in large social groups.
It’s not conjecture. It’s based upon cranial anatomy and primate studies.
Brains don’t get importantly larger because of exercise. Neanderthals’ brains were about the same size as Moderns’ but arranged differently. This is visible in the size of area devoted to such functions as vision and movement. They were born that way, unlike the brains of body builders.
Well, I guess you can call it “body building”…
I remember reading somewhere a theory that Neanderthals were nocturnal hunters. Makes sense if you want to get close to large game. If so, it might explain visual differences
So much dope about soft tissue from so few fossilised remains 🙂
We maybe ought to ponder upon population densities at the time in both Neanderthal and Cro Magnon groups ? Terms such as ‘Invasion’ may conjure quite a different picture from the reality whose real progress may well have been Glacial 🙂
Does that mean dinosaurs never disappeared? I bet Archaeopteryx tastes just like chicken!
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/2/5/1233856741313/Archaeopteryx-artists-imp-004.jpg
Some of them might well have tasted a lot like chicken. Maybe the omnivorous or insectivorous ones. Or at least more than snake does.
Except short on the white meat.
The keeled sternum with big breast muscles attached didn’t evolve until the Cretaceous.
Geez…I didn’t realize what a COMPLIMENT being called a “Right Wing Conservative Neanderthal” actually is, at it’s base meaning. I need to get a tee shirt, with the WUWT website on it, and a picture of a Neanderthal on the back. (So there will be NO mistake as to my leanings, attitudes, etc.) Thanks for the heads up WUWT readers!
I don’t know what the politics of the Neanderthals were but it is a fact that humanity contains Neanderthal DNA. Here at WUWT, facts are facts. It may have been a error to think that Neanderthals were stupid, since they had bigger brains than sapiens. They also had fully developed speech centers equal to sapiens AND they had much larger spacial centers in their brains…the geometry part. I don’t think intelligence is such an easy calculation anymore.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/wuwt-stuff/
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/skepshirt2.jpg?w=475&h=489
Everyone knows their final demise came after Aaragorn raised the army of the dead to defend Minas Tirath and after Frodo battled with Golum which resulted in the One Ring being cast into Mount Doom. The subsequent eruption killing all Neanderthals that were in the opposing army of Sauron.
Sorry Sauron’s Army was Cro-Magnon, Neanders are the good guys.
http://planetsave.com/2012/10/17/ice-age-magnetic-reversal-was-global-event-and-linked-with-super-volcano-and-rapid-climate-variability-says-new-research/
There were two magnetic reversals or excursions which occurred during the downfall of the Neanderthals which could have contributed to their demise.
I thought that one was anthropogenic.
yea….then there’s nothing to worry about
“and emphasize the resilience of anatomically modern humans in the face of abrupt and adverse changes in the environment.”
I am convinced that meerkats are going to replace humanity as the dominate species on Earth.
It’s already happening in my neighborhood.
You have watched way too much Animal Planet.
“Black and colleagues point out that temperatures in Western Europe would have decreased by an average of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius during the year following the eruption” based on their “model” projections.
According to the IPCC (models) we humans live in a +2 to +4 degree C world as is. Yet, measurements and observations refute the IPCC’s claims and refute the “physics” employed by their models.
Another paper that should have been rejected.
The Campanian event in Italy was noted as the largest volcanic eruption to effect Europe in the last 200,000 years. It is estimated to have vented up to 72 sq mi (300 sq km) of ash over 1.4 million sq mi (3.7 M sq km). Wouldn’t one surmise that was sufficient bury enough Neanderthals up to their necks to critically alter the population without worrying about SO2 and climate?
http://www.livescience.com/31560-ancient-super-eruption-larger.html
Alright then, how about silicosis.
Paul, I assume your numbers 72 and 300 actually refer to cubic miles?
Correction: Cubic Miles. Thank you.
I agree, Paul. From the abstract, it appears Black et al seem less interested in the gigantic amount of dust ejected than with the chemical aerosols:
I always assumed it was the massive dust cloud that does the most to change climates after a super-eruption? This feels like an attempt to salvage a failed research into ghg-induced catastrophe… just guessing.
It would also have buried sapiens up to their necks.
Actually both lots were probably sapiens…sapiens sapiens and sapiens neanderthalensis.
If they were genetically close but actually separate species they would be able to produce offspring but the offspring would not be viable/fertile [eg lions and tigers, horses and donkeys].
If they produced viable offspring when they mated they would be, by definition, the same species.
Most humans of European and Asian origin carry between 1% and 4% DNA of Neanderthal origin so mating between the two groups produced viable offspring. Neanderthals did not become extinct, they were just absorbed into the larger Asian and European sapiens sapiens population.
Researchers have been unable to find any Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in modern humans, suggesting that the mothers of sapiens sapiens and sapiens neanderthalensis children must have been modern humans.
What was going on in those cold caves ?
Danny Vendramini, a Robert Ardrey-like student-author (and escapee from entertainment/script-writing) developed a Predatory Neanderthal theory. He has not been able to sell it effectively.
DV says Neanderthal systematically attacked Modern types, eating them and leaving their calling-card with the females. Eventually, Moderns ‘got their back up’ and fought off & conquered the Predator. DV appears not to note, that over prolonged intromission of predator-aggressor genes, the Moderns were – by his construct – “given” the means to resist, by their Neander tormentor himself.
Neanderthals were certainly predators of big game animals, but going up against modern humans would have been an overmatch. Despite their superiority in one on one close combat, that’s not how the fights would have happened. Neanderthals would have been picked off one by one or in small groups. If a squad or platoon-scale skirmish did occur, modern tactical superiority would carry the day, IMO.
The proof is in the pudding. We are here and they are not. Odds are that adult male Neanderthals were eaten and the women and kids either also or enslaved. Neanderthals were a lot meatier than lightly built moderns, with their tropical origins. And of course their brains and bone marrow were a great source of fat.
I doubt that Neanderthals could ever have assembled a platoon-sized unit of warriors. Their groups were too small. Even a squad of ten or 12 men would seem unlikely.
It has always been my view that the Neanderthals must have had a more sophisticated social structure in view of the fact that they had managed to survive at least 4 ice ages. Without cooperation, investment and planning I cannot see how a fur less animal that takes 10 years to raise a new generation could have managed this incredible feat of survival. I believe this is what caused their larger brains to develop and is also the reason why most of the art and religious artifacts dating back to 40 000 years are found within regions where Neanderthals flourished. It is my guess that we have more than our immune system to thank the Neanderthals for.
Furthermore I do not think the interbreeding of the last ice age was unique. My view is that the various breeds of modern humans ( Denisovians et al) were pushed together by the desertification of the African savanna and the ice encroachment in the North which accompanied each ice age cycle. This partial mixing of DNA under strong competitive pressures and subsequent migration of genetically diversified groups was a recipe for innovation.
The startlingly fast evolution of modern man is a product of climate change. Climate change, like any other environmental challenge, is not to be feared it is to be embraced.
Neanderthals adapted to glacial advances by moving, just like the animals they hunted.
Even H. erectus grade humans were able to live as far north as Britain during the interglacials, then retreated to Spain, Italy and the Balkans during glacials.
Desertification alone didn’t drive the Neanderthals, Denisovans and Moderns together, although climate certainly affected the ranges of the subspecies. The expanding range of Moderns, with their advanced, Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian culture, did in their sister subspecies as separate races. The Neanderthals remained stuck in the Middle Paleolithic, with their Mousterian culture, until perhaps, as I mentioned, right before their end, when the Châtelperronian culture emerged, which appears to be Aurignacian elements grafted onto Mousterian and seems to be associated with Neanderthals rather than Cro-Magnons.
@Sturgis Hooper
Hey, even those up to date humans had to abandon northern Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum. In western Europe, the survivors huddled together and hunkered down in the refugium of southern France and Spain, where they developed the spectacular Solutrean culture, with really impressive, beautiful big blades, just like the Spanish of today. Great artists, too.
Then when it warmed up, they became Magdalenian reindeer herders and recolonized the north. So everyone in northwest Europe is Basque! Or would be if it hadn’t been for those Indo-European speaking interlopers from the east moving into the ‘hood and cutting down all the trees to plant grains.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379110003434
The tie in with Neanderthal extinction and magnetic reversals occurring during this time.