Naughty_Felid
kneesy earsy nosey
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
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Some people think they could speak and had high voices ..
Only those that left their genitalia on a beach in Dorset.
Some people think they could speak and had high voices ..
Neanderthal cave paintings discovered in Spain put Neanderthals in new light
THE world’s oldest known cave paintings were made by Neanderthals, not modern humans, suggesting our extinct cousins were far from being uncultured brutes.
A high-tech analysis of cave art at three Spanish sites, published Thursday, dates the paintings to at least 64,800 years ago, or 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa.
That makes the cave art much older than previously thought and provides the strongest evidence yet that Neanderthals had the cognitive capacity to understand symbolic representation, a central pillar of human culture.
“What we’ve got here is a smoking gun that really overturns the notion that Neanderthals were knuckle-dragging cavemen,” said Alistair Pike, professor of archaeological sciences at England’s University of Southampton, who co-led the study.
A second related study published in Science Advances found that dyed and decorated marine shells from a different Spanish cave also dated back to pre- human times.
Taken together, the researchers said their work suggested that Neanderthals were “cognitively indistinguishable” from early modern humans.
...and in direct contradiction to the post above - the Nanderthals could paint, and maybe earlier than Homo Sapiens:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...t/news-story/e2e87bc7026cbaafaf87971f1838584f
It suggested rather that Neandertals were unable to draw recognisable human images, a lack of skill
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/...rticle®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Matter
Neanderthals were making art long before modern man. This is one of many reasons to discount supposed surviving neanderthals as the almasty of Russia and former Soviet Central Asia. These are more likley to be an early offshoot of Homo erectus or Homo habilis.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/...rticle®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Matter
Neanderthals were making art long before modern man. This is one of many reasons to discount supposed surviving neanderthals as the almasty of Russia and former Soviet Central Asia. These are more likley to be an early offshoot of Homo erectus or Homo habilis.
Neanderthals' Big Noses Get an Airy Explanation
In the human family tree, Neanderthals are our closest extinct relatives, and they looked a lot like modern humans. But one defining difference was a distinctive skull shape, with the middle part of their faces pushed forward dramatically — far more so than in their human cousins.
Scientists have argued about what might have shaped Neanderthal skulls, with some suggesting that this adaptation meant greater biting power, and others proposing that it could have been due to an enhanced airway.
Now, thanks to digital 3D modeling, a new study has answers. And they point to the "enhanced airway" hypothesis. ...
Is this just hindsight doe?
So, Neanderthals may have cooperated to take down their prey, too, adding to the list of complex social behaviors our extinct cousins were capable of.
Sounds more like Captain Obvious to me.
We know Neanderthals did cave paintings - but we doubted their ability to engage in complex social behavior?
Neanderthals could start their own fires, new research proves
Neanderthals weren't dependent on lightning strikes and natural wildfires for their flames, new research suggests. The early human relatives were able to start their own fires.
When researchers found microscopic wear on flint hand-axes collected at Neanderthal archaeological sites, they recognized the signature of flint striking found around the hearths of early human settlements.
"I recognized this type of wear from my earlier experimental work," archaeologist Andrew Sorensen, professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in a news release. "These are the traces you get if you try to generate sparks by striking a piece of flint against a piece of pyrite."
The hand-axes, however, were much older than the fire-making tools Sorensen had previously analyzed.
In the lab, researchers used advanced imaging to detail the unique microscopic signatures. The images revealed tiny C-shaped indentations, as well as parallel scratches, or striations -- all signatures of the type of rock-striking used to make sparks.
Sorensen and his colleagues found the same microscopic wear on dozens of hand-axes dated to 50,000 years ago, suggesting the practice of fire-starting was widespread among Neanderthals.
"Being able to make their own fire gives the Neanderthals much more flexibility in their lives," Sorensen said. "It's a skill we suspected, but didn't know for sure they possessed."
The findings, detailed this week in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests Neanderthals were capable of technological insights similar to those of early humans.
From the link:A Neanderthal Odyssey.
Neandertals, Stone Age people may have voyaged the Mediterranean
By Andrew LawlerApr. 24, 2018 , 4:35 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Odysseus, who voyaged across the wine-dark seas of the Mediterranean in Homer’s epic, may have had some astonishingly ancient forerunners. A decade ago, when excavators claimed to have found stone tools on the Greek island of Crete dating back at least 130,000 years, other archaeologists were stunned—and skeptical. But since then, at that site and others, researchers have quietly built up a convincing case for Stone Age seafarers—and for the even more remarkable possibility that they were Neandertals, the extinct cousins of modern humans. ...
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018...ly_2018-04-24&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=1991622
From the link:
<<Modern humans braved treacherous waters to reach Australia by 65,000 years ago. But in both cases, some archaeologists say early seafarers might have embarked by accident, perhaps swept out to sea by tsunamis.>>
Translates as, "Some archaeologists had such a strong preconception of early humans as stupid, that, rather than accept the evidence to the contrary they came up with stupid explanations for the facts." This is prejudice or preconception writ large.
One or more groups comprising sufficient people to form a viable colony, but without access to boat were swept out to sea by an incoming tsunami, and stayed together and survived until they landed on a distant island where they were able to build a community.
Either that or, just maybe, they had boats.
Yes, but academia tends to be conservative. Which is obviously good in some instances but in others it can seem a bit weird. And accidental rafting has happened with other species which have gone on to form viable populations, an example would be roughly 40% of the terrestrial mammal species of Australia which are Eutherians. Obviously though in that case they're very small, have large numbers of young, and are very fast breeding.
Yes, small mammals and the like can be carried on a fallen tree or a loose raft of driftwood and debris. It seems less likely with humans just because of the scale. Dug put boats with outriggers, or manmade rafts are surprisingly capable vessels. If you can find and extract the right sized piece of flint, shape it, and attach it to a shaft, then work with others to kill large animals for food, you can probably tie a few logs together. As they used to say at the time, "It's not raft science."
There is a difference in having boats and being able to cross the ocean. Are we perhaps talking about small coastal boats being carried off during tsunamis etc?
At the same time though, what would have been the factor that made people decide to take an over the horizon sea journey without knowing if there was anything there? Obviously people have done this, but there's another possibility that they were either swept out or micalculated their course while on coatal journeys.
First concern with these ideas is fresh water supplies. You can survive a few days without food, or even catch fish if you have some basic equipment, but if you set off by accident without adequate drinking water, you soon die.
Second concern is the sheer numbers required for a viable and sustainable population when you make landfall. How many people would be washed out to sea together and remain together and make landfall reasonably close to each other? What would the proportions of males and females? If it was one or more coastal boats that blew off course, then from every other culture I can think of before the days of cruise liners, everyone, or almost everyone, on board a boat on a normal working voyage would be male.
However, the simplest explanation for a viable starter population, including a good proportion of females, all surviving the crossing and landing close enough to each other to regroup, is that it was a deliberate migration.
However the migration occurred, it almost surely wasn't a single 'one and done' event. IMHO the most likely interpretation is that news of land beyond the horizon arrived with fishermen or other sea voyagers, with one or more expeditions occurring thereafter.
A handy crowd.
Despite their brutish reputation, Neanderthals ...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2018-09-26&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2393578
And some quite extraordinary flint tool making, the apparently simplicity of which completely obscures the skill and intelligence required to make them.Delicate hand movements would fit well with un-brutish tasks such as gathering berries, nuts and fruit.