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scpg02

New evidence on the role of climate in Neanderthal extinctio

Contact: Simon Jenkins
S.Jenkins@leeds.ac.uk
44-011-334-35764
University of Leeds

New evidence on the role of climate in Neanderthal extinction

Quote:
THE mystery of what killed the Neanderthals has moved a step closer to resolution after an international study led by the University of Leeds has ruled out one of the competing theories – catastrophic climate change – as the most likely cause.

The bones of more than 400 Neanderthals have been found since the first discoveries were made in the early 19th century. The finds suggest the Neanderthals, named after the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, where they were first recognized as an extinct kind of archaic humans, inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia for more than 100,000 years.

The causes of their extinction have puzzled scientists for years – with some believing it was due to competition with modern humans, while others blamed deteriorating climatic conditions. But a new study published today in Nature has shown that the Neanderthal extinction did not coincide with any of the extreme climate events that punctuated the last glacial period.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/uol-neo091107.php
Baywax

So, the Neanderthals weren't breaking through thin ice and dieing in the mud?

I'll come back with some references to how recently Neanderthals were present on this earth, if, indeed, they truely are extinct. Judging by some of the behaviour among "modern" humans I'd say they or their influences remain alive and quite strong. Wink
scpg02

There was a study that suggested they were related to redheads. I'll see if I can dig it out latter.
Andre

I find the no-climate-explanation rather thin, for instance there is not a single fossil in The Netherlands that is dated between ~25 ka BP and ~15ka BP in carbon years. Not too far from the Pyrenees.
scpg02

Redheads 'are neanderthal'
Monday April 16, 2001
Copyright The Times, London


RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe. Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that the so-called "ginger gene" which gives
people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100,000 years old.

They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200,000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.

Rosalind Harding, the research team leader, said: "The gene is certainly older than 50,000 years and it could be as old as 100,000 years.

"An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals." It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once
fearsome reputation as fighters.

Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces
and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.

The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the "ginger gene" to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in southern Spain and southwest France.

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/hominids/redheads.htm
Essan

scpg02 wrote:
Redheads 'are neanderthal'

The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the "ginger gene" to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in southern Spain and southwest France.



Don't genetic studies show that the British are closely related to the Basques, both groups being descended from homo sapiens who saw out the LGM in SW France?

Maybe during that period there was some interbreeding?
Baywax

Here's what some people are saying about a gradual evolution from Neanderthal to Modern human... the whole article leans heavily toward no connection between the two... siting dentological morphologies that are lacking in modern humans that existed in Neanderthals... (this is not the reference I'm looking for but it represents the standard model that's been around for a while)

Quote:
INTRODUCTION
Over the past two decades research on modern human origins has focused on interpreting fossil
remains within the framework of either of two competing models. These are the Multi-Regional
Evolution [MRE: modern humans evolved from archaic predecessors in many parts of the world (Frayer
et al., 1993; Wolpoff et al., 1984)] and Recent African Origin [RAO: modern humans have a single
origin, from which they spread replacing existing "archaic" hominids in the rest of the world (Cann,
1987; Stringer and Andrews, 1988; Stringer et al., 1984)]. While there seems to be a growing
willingness for researchers to meet somewhere in the middle (that is, to accept some degree of both
continuity and replacement) (e.g., Bräuer, 1984; Smith et al., 1989; Turner, 1995), most new research
remains focused on testing either of the two more extreme models (Holliday, 1999; Kidder, 1999;
Wolpoff et al., 1999


http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cac...n&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=ca

And here's a bit from the other camp... looking for clues that may support an interbreeding taking place when neanderthal and Cro-Magnon began to introduce themselves to each other.

Quote:
5 November 2006
Did Neanderthals and modern humans get it together?

Archaeologists have identified fossils belonging to some of the earliest modern humans to settle in Europe. The research team has dated six bones, found in a cave in Romania, to 30,000 years ago. The finds also raise questions about the possible place of Neanderthals in modern human ancestry. Details of the discoveries appear in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The human bones were first identified at the Pestera Muierii (Cave of the Old Woman) cave in 1952, but have now been reassessed. Erik Trinkaus from Washington University in St Louis and colleagues obtained radiocarbon dates directly from the fossils and analysed their anatomical form. The results showed that the fossils were 30,000 years old and had the diagnostic features of modern humans (Homo sapiens). But Professor Trinkaus and his colleagues argue, controversially, that the bones also display features that were characteristic of our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).

Neanderthals appear in the European fossil record about 400,000 years ago. At their peak, these squat, physically powerful hunters dominated a wide range, spanning Britain and Iberia in the west to Israel in the south and Uzbekistan in the east. Modern humans are thought to have entered Europe about 40,000 years ago, and within 10,000 years, the Neanderthals had largely disappeared from the continent. By 24,000 years ago, the last survivors vanished from their refuge in the Iberian Peninsula. While many researchers think Neanderthals were simply driven to extinction - either by climate change or competition with the moderns - a handful of scientists believe they interbred with the incomers and contributed to the modern human gene pool.


Its not a bad article at

http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/002130.html

Still finding the time to get you the other resources that show Neanderthalian dental morphology can be shown to exist in today's modern human... on Malta. Also... as late as 18,000 bp occupation of Malta and perhaps even more recent.
Baywax

I still have to sit down and dig out the references I'm talking about... but here's some one who has done some major digging and shown the intricacy and the evidence of CroMagnon and Neanderthal co-existing in Isreal... also that they managed long sea voyages, 700,000 years before Thor Hyderthal(sp) and achieved incredible feats of engineering.

Quote:
(A)nthropologist Richard Rudgley presents the results of his research into Neanderthal society, skewering the popular misconception that Neanderthals were subhuman. After a visit to Israel, where Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons once coexisted, Rudgley travels to Portugal, where he talks about the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a child that appears to be a Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon hybrid. Finally, seeking back even farther in time, he examines the few remaining clues to the thoughts and lives of humankind’s most distant relatives: some ochre stains, shaped stones, and tools crafted with fossils embedded in their handles.


http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/video/Secrets.html

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