Neuroscience: Neanderthals in mind (Clive Gamble)

Neuroscience: Neanderthals in mind (Clive Gamble)

another article by Gamble...

Climate Change May Have Doomed Neanderthals

Climate Change May Have Doomed Neanderthals

THE GIST

• In response to drastic cooling of the climate, Neanderthals and early humans started roaming farther from home.
• As they moved more, the two groups mingled more and their interbreeding may have led to Neanderthal extinction.
• The fate of Neanderthals may hint at the future of cultures in places that are threatened by climate change.

Neanderthals Vanished Because of Their Own Success, Suggests Study

Neanderthals Vanished Because of Their Own Success, Suggests Study

Using data obtained from the archaeological record, a team of researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado, Denver, conducted experiments using complex computer modeling to analyze evidence of how human hunter-gatherers responded culturally and biologically to the dramatic changes that took place during the last Ice Age. The results showed, among other things, that the Neanderthals, thought by many scientists to have become extinct at least in part because of their inadaptability and inability to compete with the expanding presence of modern humans, may have actually been victims of their own success. 

Dear Professor, I think my husband may be a Neanderthal

Dear Professor, I think my husband may be a Neanderthal

In May 2010, biologists broke the news that our modern human ancestors had sex with their Neanderthal cousins in Europe and Western Asia as they trudged out of Africa to colonise the world.

Many of us who live outside Africa today are a living legacy of those ancient couplings. Though modern humans more or less replaced Neanderthals, the encounters left an imprint on our genetic makeup. We carry inside our cells a smidgen of Neanderthal DNA.

Neanderthal Genes Comic

Neanderthal Genes Comic

The excavation of buried articulated Neanderthal skeletons at Sima de las Palomas (Murcia, SE Spain) (Walker et al)

Link: The excavation of buried articulated Neanderthal skeletons at Sima de las Palomas (Murcia, SE Spain) (Walker et al)

At Sima de las Palomas del Cabezo Gordo (Murcia, Spain) remains of several Neanderthals have been excavated recently. From about 50,000 years ago articulated parts of 3 adult skeletons (including skulls with mandibles, vertebral column, rib cages, shoulder blades, hip bones, upper and lower limbs, hands and feet, often in anatomical connexion) were excavated from the lower part of a cemented accumulation of scree and large stones (éboulis) sloping downwards and inwards into the cavity, along with burnt bones of large mammals and Mousterian implements. The excavation of the skeletons is the subject of this paper (palaeoanthropological skeletal descriptions are soon to be published elsewhere). Behind the cemented scree there accumulated a layer of finer sediment containing burnt animal bones, followed by more fine sediment that filled the cavity up to the overhanging rock roof and contained isolated teeth and unburnt bone fragments of Neanderthals, including 3 mandibles, as well as Mousterian implements and faunal remains, all dating from before 40,000 years ago. Altogether, at least 9 Neanderthals are represented by finds from the site (including 3 unstratified mandibles), ranging from babies to adults. Dating methods include radiocarbon, uranium-series, and optical luminescence. Pollen analysis implies conditions less severe than those of the Heinrich 4 cold oscillation at 40,000 years ago.

¿Ganaría una mujer neandertal al campeón mundial de pulsos?/Could a Neanderthal Woman Win at Arm-wrestling? (in Spanish)

Link: ¿Ganaría una mujer neandertal al campeón mundial de pulsos?/Could a Neanderthal Woman Win at Arm-wrestling? (in Spanish)

This is silly.

But, in his new book Manthropology, Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister says, yes the lady Neanderthal would win against a modern man based on calculations made from upper long bones of a La Ferrassie specimen.

New Dating of Cave Site Upsets Neanderthal History

Link: New Dating of Cave Site Upsets Neanderthal History

Members of our species (Homo sapiens) arrived in Europe several millennia earlier than previously thought. This was the conclusion by a team of researchers, after carrying out a re-analyses of two ancient deciduous teeth.

These teeth were discovered in 1964 in the “Grotta del Cavallo”, a cave in southern Italy. Since their discovery they have been attributed to Neanderthals, but this new study suggests they belong to anatomically modern humans. Chronometric analysis, carried out by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford, shows that the layers within which the teeth were found date to ~43,000-45,000 cal BP. This means that the human remains are older than any other known European modern humans. The research work was published in the renowned science journal Nature.