Neanderthals: Too smart to survive

As a biologist I like point out the famous quote "it is not the smartest or the strongest that survive, but the most adaptable". In this particular instance the reason (for as far as we can tell anyways) Homo sapien sapien (us) out competed Homo sapien neanderthalus (neanderthals) is because of our ability to communicate verbally. Due to the way their tongue was attached and because of their larynx they had a much smaller vocabulary. Our ancestors were able to catch up to and then surpass their technology by learning from each other.

I love the fact that we are constantly learning new things about our world and the past. It's a bit humbling, don't you think?
 

Hi Monk:
Basically, that theory was popular 20 years ago. Back then people did not know that modern humans are part Neanderthal and part cro magnon. I am essentially approx 4% Neanderthal and 96% cro magnon. It is now believed that Neanderthals could talk and make musical instruments so they probably had singing. Also, they buried the dead with flowers and probably had religion, but they were not the same as us.


I believe that a drought in Africa caused a flood of people to move into europe. The Sahara used to be fertile and green many years ago.

The latest theory is that Neanderthals died because they had big eyes.
BBC News - Neanderthals' large eyes 'caused their demise'
 

Due to modern DNA technology, we now know that our ancestors did not cross breed with Neanderthals (at least not on a large scale). Their mitochondrial DNA is too different from ours and anyone who knows much about genetics knows mitchondrial DNA does not change much at all over generations. The most popular belief today is we outcompeted due to communication.
Unless of course only male Neanderthals breed with female Homo sapiens...... Then all bets are off lol
 
Neanderthals were likely the result of genetic experimentation. First generation that filled a need, then were abandoned when we were developed.
 
Cosmo said:
Neanderthals were likely the result of genetic experimentation. First generation that filled a need, then were abandoned when we were developed.
Click to expand...
Did you know that when a horse and donkey mate, you get a sterile, larger, stronger creature with an odd number of chromosomes called a mule? When a tiger and lion mate, you get a creature twice as big, called a Liger, or the smaller, Tyon, also sterile because it has an odd number of chromosomes. I wonder what happens when a human and chimp/organutan/gorilla hybridize............????
 
TimeTravel_00 said:
Cosmo said:
Neanderthals were likely the result of genetic experimentation. First generation that filled a need, then were abandoned when we were developed.
Click to expand...
Did you know that when a horse and donkey mate, you get a sterile, larger, stronger creature with an odd number of chromosomes called a mule? When a tiger and lion mate, you get a creature twice as big, called a Liger, or the smaller, Tyon, also sterile because it has an odd number of chromosomes. I wonder what happens when a human and chimp/organutan/gorilla hybridize............????
Click to expand...

Humanzee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

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