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If you enjoy factual take downs of poorly thought-out evolutionary biology theories you'll like this video that takes apart a fringe theory about neanderthals being some kind of evil ape super-predators.
I think it's really sad that neanderthals aren't around anymore, I think we could learn a lot by interacting with humans who were more significantly different from anyone who is alive today.
With "theories" like this about human origins it's worth thinking about what need such folk tales fill. That's what this theory is, a folk tale.
For some people this lore is needed because they don't like (human) evolution and neanderthals kind of force us to realize that, yes, humans also evolved just like every other living thing. For others I think it's about some deep impulse to separate everything into in-groups and out-groups.
But, there are no clear borders.
I can sympathize with being annoyed or disappointed that our closest relatives are other primates. I'm not a huge fan of primates generally. Mostly because they are similar to people, but different enough that the less ... admirable traits stand out more.
It's hard not to look at chimps and think of how badly they fail at being human. This is also very silly since we fail very badly at being chimps (and chimps might even be able to appreciate this... certainly cats can ...)
@futurebird It has been forever since I read about that scientist who lived among apes for some years, but I think somewhat was actually said to the effect of what you just said: the apes felt the human was kind of bad at being an ape.
I think you have a good point besides. It's a bit of the uncanny valley effect perhaps. If we were bug beings then we might find our evolutionary similar cousins to be unpleasant and might like apes more.
Never try to wrestle a chimpanzee.
@michael_w_busch @futurebird Apes have significantly more muscle strength to body weight ratio than we do. It's part of the cost of so many of our calories going to our brains instead of our muscles from what I've read.
@nazokiyoubinbou @michael_w_busch @futurebird I've also seen the suggestion that we wouldn't have the fine motor skills in our hands if we were as strong as chimpansees
(Also, while our brains require a lot of calories, apparently Neanderthals managed to evolve both brains and muscle mass to the point of requiring over twice as many calories a day as we do, which worked just fine for a while. Until that became a selection pressure against them. There's a pbs eons episode about it on YT)
@vanderZwan @michael_w_busch @futurebird That would explain why neanderthals were so much fewer and swallowed up into our own subspecies so quickly. It would have been a lot harder to truly sustain those requirements.
It's popular to act like neanderthals were dumb because they were "cave men" but, in fact, they were quite intelligent (supposedly they taught our subspecies a lot of ways to make better tools and hunt better.) Of course, people confuse knowledge and intelligence for being the same thing when they aren't. (By that same token, humans 10,000 years from now -- if our species lives that long -- will think we were ignoramuses for not knowing how to create such super simple exotic energy sources as they've been using forever and bending spacetime or something, lol.)
@nazokiyoubinbou @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch
Well, if other people are projecting their philosophical ideals on to this question of neanderthals vs. sapiens sapiens I'll mention my pet notion:
sapiens sapiens could figure out how to live in much larger groups than neanderthals, something, maybe reproductive speed, maybe all those calories, maybe a commitment to living in small groups on vast tracts of land limited neanderthals.
They couldn't get into the 100s, let alone the 1000s
@futurebird
I’ve read several books about Neanderthals and their lives, but I don’t recall much about their vocal abilities. They could definitely vocalize but it’s not clear they had language as we think of it now. This lack would limit their abilities to pass on lore and learning. They had tools, and glue, and string, probably fur/skin clothing. But could they teach skills other than by showing?
@qurlyjoe @nazokiyoubinbou @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch
They had to teach each other. They also had awls which means they were punching holes for sewing.
@futurebird
“Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death, and art”, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes, is excellent.
@futurebird @nazokiyoubinbou @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch
@LeMoustier has an account here, but it doesn’t appear to have any recent activity.
@futurebird
We didn’t have writing until just 4-5 thousand years ago. But we were apparently quite chatty. We had phenomenal memories for passing along the oral traditions. Maybe Neanderthals couldn’t do that?
@qurlyjoe @futurebird @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch Bear in mind that we're talking about times pretty much only recorded in the form of cave art. They may well have had oral traditions, but this goes so far back that even if anything had survived in any oral form there would be absolutely no means of knowing. Most of what we even do know of from oral traditions comes from stuff so late era that it survived long enough to eventually be written down. Anything as far back as we're discussing here predates that by such a long time that nothing short of a time machine will find it.
@qurlyjoe @futurebird @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch I saw a special on PBS a long time ago -- I can't recall specific details to look it up -- and it talked a lot about the neanderthals and what has been discovered in recent times. Besides stuff you probably already know like the fact they were actually integrated into our subspecies, not actually going extinct and that it was probably from them that we got the way our immune system now works (including the way it can overreact to things and cause allergies, lol) they talked about how the neanderthals taught our subspecies various tool making tricks and such. They had a lot of greatly improved tools and the like that would have required a lot of time and effort and wouldn't have been possible without communication.
@qurlyjoe @futurebird @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch As a side note, they discussed how their noses and facial shapes would have affected their sound. Neanderthals actually likely sounded a lot higher pitched than what people imagine.