tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-938713220377547711.post5381609838992131072..comments2024-02-25T12:26:48.318-08:00Comments on Metazoica: Neanderthals Couldn't Take the CompetitionDee TimmyHutchFanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15186094514615567835noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-938713220377547711.post-89703433870083831362009-01-28T16:21:00.000-08:002009-01-28T16:21:00.000-08:00I do not think that competition from their souther...I do not think that competition from their southern cousins was the only thing that did Neanderthals in. Some studies suggested that in Neanderthal family groups, both men and women hunted big game; just about the only food that Neanderthals ate. When anatomically modern Homo sapiens sp. came from the south, I think there were probably three reasons that the Neanderthals went extinct.<BR/><BR/>1. Competiton<BR/><BR/>As I mentioned before, Neanderthals were almost completely dependent on big game. Despite having bigger brains than us, they did not farm (then again, we didn't at this point either), gather, or hunt for smaller fare. However, modern humans gathered nut and fruit and ate small animals in addition to the big ones. If an area's megafauna "dried up", they could survive on small game indefinitely or at least until the animals returned. Neanderthals had to migrate or die.<BR/><BR/>2. Food Sources<BR/><BR/>Neanderthals would not have suffered much from a change in climate. Through earlier warm-cold shifts in the Pleistocene, they switched from mammoth to straight-tusked elephant and back again several times. However, Neanderthals almost exclusively preyed on big game animals, mammoths, cave bears (who were herbivores, not carnivores), aurochs, megaloceros, wisent, etc. But as humans with new hunting techniques came through, they may have massacred the animals in Europe, who had some idea of humans but not enough to save them from the more pursuit-based rather than ambush-based tactics of Homo sapiens. This may also be why the Eurasian fauna survived a bit longer than the megafauna in Australia and the Americas, but still went extinct.<BR/><BR/>3. Warfare<BR/><BR/>Not all hominids are not known for being kind to one another. Chimpanzees kill and eat one another in the wild, there is some evidence of combat between hominids, and let us not forget genocide, ethnocide, and religious violence in humans. Humans in particular seem to hate things that are new and different to them. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to see Homo sapiens once in a while methodically wipe out a Neanderthal tribe to gain access to their lands. And they wouldn't even have to go that far; hunting big game is a dangerous task, putting a few members on the sidelines could be fatal.Metalraptorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053007518293924808noreply@blogger.com