"Remember that however pleasant it is now, for much of modern human existence Europe was a remote and impossible place for us to get to and to live in."
That's how Americans view it now. On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 5:05 AM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote: >> 2010/6/16 paul stenquist <[email protected]>: >> > But it's politically correct to assume that the nasty and violent >> humans >> > caused the demise of the gentle and peace-loving Neanderthals. >> > > I don't think it's a matter of political correctness, but of people > retaining a belief that was current in the scientific community for a long > time (Man the Hunter) and was used to explain this. The imagery was so > powerful (see 2001 A Space Odyssey, for example) that the last 40-50 years > of research has not entirely removed it from the popular imagination. > > [...] >> >> As BobW pointed to, combat is not the only way. Competitive exclusion >> and parasite/disease resistance would do nicely too. For all we know >> the neanderthals could have been particularly susceptible to a disease >> transferred by, as you say, procreative mingling. > > it's also entirely possible that modern people had nothing at all to do with > the extinction of the Neandertals. They may have been on their way out > anyway, as a result of changes to the environment to which they could not > adapt. At the same time, modern humans were able to exploit the changing > environment, which is why we entered Europe at the same time as the > Neandertals were expiring. One event did not necessarily cause the other - > they may have had the same cause. > > Remember that however pleasant it is now, for much of modern human existence > Europe was a remote and impossible place for us to get to and to live in. > Depending on how the evidence is interpreted, we may have got to Australia > as much 30,000 years before we got to Europe! Yet the Neandertals thrived in > those conditions. It should not be much of a surprise to find that when > conditions had softened enough for us, the Neandertals came under > environmental stress. > > I am on holiday in the Cevennes next week and the week following - I hope to > be able to visit some sites where Cro-Magnon finds were made in the 19th C, > including la caverne de l'homme mort, where some 50 individuals were found, > most of whom had been trepanned. They were probably early Pentax shooters. > > Bob > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- Steve Desjardins -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
