There is evidence to suggest that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens had coexisted for approximately 35-40,000 years, (Fagan 2010) from around 60,000 years ago to 25,000 years ago when they finally went extinct (Gibbon 2001). Anthropologists are still uncertain what the cause of their extinction was. This paper will analyze three main theories of Neanderthal extinction. The first theory is the competition theory, which claims that the Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had to compete for resources, ultimately leading to their demise. The second theory I will discuss is the climate change theory, which claims that Homo sapiens lived while Neanderthals died because they were better adapted to the climate. The last theory I will discuss is the possible “extinction through absorption” theory which claims the Neanderthal interbred with the Homo sapiens and became one species. In this paper I will also be comparing the technologies, and diets of both species. In addition, I will look at the anatomic relation between the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, how their body shape and size differed, and if this gave any advantage to one side or the other. My thesis for this paper will state that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis had co-existed but the disappearance of the Neanderthal in Eurasia is due to the appearance of the more culturally advanced and genetically superior Homo sapiens and the failure of the Neanderthal to adapt in an evolving climate.
History
In recent years, the Homo Neanderthalensis were viewed as “subhuman brutes”, but are now seen as a different species from our own (Balter 2001). The Neanderthals were a branch of the Homo genus that evolved in Eurasia at least 200,000 years ago (Fagan 2010). The first Neand...
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...ld be impossible.
Conclusion
This paper has shown how Homo sapiens had several advantages over the Neanderthals including better diets, better tools and just better luck. The Neanderthals could not survive the harsh climates they were thrust into and eventually died out. In this paper I looked at how Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis had co-existed but the disappearance of the Neanderthal ius due in some part to the appearance of the more culturally advanced and genetically superior Homo sapiens. Although the How and Why of how Neanderthals went extinct, it is clear that Homo sapiens had a part in their demise. In the last one hundred and fifty years that we have been studying humans we have seen them come from savage brutes, to Homo sapiens respectable contemporary. If we had not gotten lucky in the past, Neanderthals could be studying us today.
Over the last few hundred years, more and more has been added to the world’s fossil collection, fossils from all over the world. New theories have been created and old theories have almost been proven about the evolution of man. For example, we have proof that different species of man existed with certain types of DNA sequences and instincts, some we may not have anymore, or some that other species did not have back then. Even though it is subjected to much debate, one of the most widely accepted theories however, is that Homo sapiens interbred with the slightly more primitive species of man, the Neanderthal.
Around 1.8 million years ago, two hominids were born, first the Homo Erectus and then the Neanderthals. Although the two very different humans. However, were they that different? Our ancestors were very versatile hominids. They lived in various places and lived in a variety of ways. The Homo Erectus and Neanderthals were all special in their ways. They had similarities and differences that set them apart. They had similarities, but in the same way, their differences helped them survive if they had not adapted to how they lived they would have lasted the same time that their ancestors have lived. The Neanderthals lived for an average lifespan 30 years. They had to have some mistake that decreased their lifespan because if the Homo Erectus had done the same, there’s a chance that we might not be here now. Their differences set the future that we live in today. These
Trinkaus, E. (2007). European early modern humans and the fate of the Neandertals. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America, 104(18), 7367-7372. doi:10.1073/pnas.0702214104
The first theory states that modern humans killed off the Neanderthals. With a much more sophisticated technology, Neanderthals would have had to compete with modern humans for their meals. This would have definitely led to fight with starvation and a decrease in the overall Neanderthal population, which could have been the cause of extinction. Also, in contrast to Cro-Magnons, who lived to well into there fifties, Neanderthals had a much shorter life span, barely surviving until the age of forty. The Neanderthals may have reacted to the new humans as enemies. Since the modern humans are presumed to have been smarter than the Neanderthals, and since modern humans are still alive today, this theory concludes that fighting wiped the Neanderthals out. However, this theory does have its faults. First of all, why would two cultures begin to fight after many thousands of years of peaceful coexistence? Also, it shows a lot of human arrogance to assume that early man could take an entire species that was stronger and almost as smart as them and fight it to extinction.
Ever since the Pleistocene era, human societies have expanded rapidly, developing innovative ways to defend their territories and migrate across the land. Consisting of an aggregate of humans living together, these societies became more powerful as time progressed by consuming more meat (megafauna). Supporting this development, the more mammals that humans would eat, the more protein their bodies would absorb. When humans consume high amounts of protein, they develop stronger muscles, which leads to the stimulation of brain activity. By way of further explanation, amino acids from the proteins are used to make the neurotransmitters that allow your brain cells to network and communicate. Amino acids that come from the protein you eat are the building blocks of your brain’s network. They can excite or calm your brain as well as nourish your brain throughout its lifetime. Also, they allow the body's own proteins to be used to support life, particularly those found in muscle. This led humans to develop intelligence and create a wide variety of tools. These tools are what the early hominids used to develop their culture into that of hunter-gatherer-fishers, making humans a more dominant mammal within that ecosystem.
Neanderthals lived in Europe and Western Asia between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. Fossil record shows that around 150,000 years ago (Bar-Yosef, 1998; Grün & Stringer, 2000) their range extended from Europe to Middle East and Asia spreading to Uzbekistan and Russia (Herrera et al., 2009). They were probably the only hominin group living in Europe and Western Asia for a long period of time until the arrival of modern humans. Their extinction is dated at around 30,000 ye...
The Neandertals lived between 30,000 and 150,000 years ago in Europe, the Near and Middle East, and in Western Asia. Compared to our other human ancestors, much more is known about Neandertals due to a larger fossil record, of which several hundred fossils have been found. Despite this, the question of how the Neandertals met their end is still prominent in their field of paleoanthropology today. In Twilight of the Neandertals by Kate Wong, several theories of how the Neandertals might have met their end are addressed, and the role of the early Homo sapiens in the demise of the Neandertals is speculated.
For centuries Homo sapiens have been considered the most unique species in the primate order. Researchers have shown that Homo sapiens are not the most unique in the homo genus, there have been ancestors that have the same traits that many people consider unique to human. One of these traits is the ability to walk bipedal, which no other primate can do well. It is difficult to state which of the ancestors were the first “humans”, but through various evidence, it can be determined that the Homo neanderthalensis or Neanderthal, were the first to show signs of being human.
The first Neanderthal remains, discovered in Germany in 1856, were presented to the world of science at a meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History Society held in Bonn in February 1857 and named a species, Homo neanderthalensis, by William King in 1864. Some Neanderthal fossils and other remains are in excellent condition, giving a good idea of Neanderthal culture. In 1887, two complete skeletons were found in a cave near Spy in Belgium, and more from sites in France in 1887, 1908 and 1911. These and other finds showed that the Neanderthals had populated Europe widely from about 130,000 to 28,000 years ago after which they became extinct. Most of these fossils were found in caves. Usually they are associated with cold adapted species such as reindeer, arctic fox, lemming and mammoth. The current conclusion drawn from fossil evidence is that Neanderthals emerged at least 230,000 years and maybe even 300,000 years ago. In the Far East, in contrast, there is quite a clear evolution from Homoerectus, by a generalized Homosapiens to Homosapiens sapiens with Mongoloid features, but no Neanderthal presence. In northern Spain, fossils of an 800,000-year-old fossil named Homo antecessor, has also been proposed as the common ancestor to humans and Neanderthals. Others say that Homo heidelbergensis is the more likely of modern and primitive features hints at some surprises as more fossils from this period are unearthed. One line of thought places Homo ergaster as ancestral to Homo antecessor in Africa. A population of Homo antecessor migrated via the Middle East to Europe about one million years ago and evolved into Homo heidelbergensis and then into Neanderthals. The population of Homo antecessor that remained in Africa evolved into Homo sapiens. Another possibility is that Homo antecessor is ancestral to both Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. The Neanderthal was not human. Genetic evidence from a comparison of human and Neanderthal mitochondria shows that while chimpanzee and human lineage's diverged four million years ago, the Neanderthals diverged over 550,000 to 690,000 years ago. Human trunk and limb bones of Homo antecessor, recovered from the Ran Doling site, in the Sierra de Atapuerca have been dated at about 780,000 old and are said to represent the last common ancestor for Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. Living humans have on ...
The proponents of the separate species hypothesis believe that they had a common ancestor, but Neanderthals and modern humans were separate species. They argue that the Neanderthal line was a dead end, and that for some reason Homo sapiens thrived while they went extinct.
Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted for well over 100,000 years. Then suddenly Homo neandertalensis began to die out and surrender the earth to Homo sapiens. Paleontologists and anthropologists have entertained several possibilities to the causes of this event: interbreeding among Neanderthals and humans, competition for natural resources, and Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.” What the real cause has been has plagued scientists for years. Now, due to an international research team from Germany, those possibilities have been even further deduced, making it easier to pinpoint the exact reason Homo neandertalensis became extinct.
Paleoanthropology: Pliocene and Pleistocene Human Evolution. Paleobiology, 7:3:298-305. Frayer, David W. and Milford Walpoff 1985 Sexual Dimorphism. Annual Review of Anthropology, 14:429-473 Key, Catherine A. 2000 The Evolution of Human Life History.
“The scientific study of how humans developed did not begin until the 1800s in Europe. Until that time, people relied on religious explanations of how humans came into existence. Starting in the 1500s a scientific revolution began to sweep Europe. Thinkers started using scientific methods and experiments to try to better understand the world and the creatures living in it. Eventually these methods were turned to the question of human origins” (The Nature Of Human Origins, 1). Earth made it possible for species to change over time because Ancient Earth provides ability to plenty of time.The Homo Sapien a is very complex creature. The species started off very simple by living in caves and surviving with little food and then later evolved into a species that were able to do many more complex things. The first species was Sahelanthropus tchadensis They were one of the most simple humans in that time period and on. They had very small skulls compared to Homo Sapiens today and their motor skills were just the same. We have evolved and changed for the better both mentally and physically. The Evolution of Homo Sapiens started off simple, such as the Neanderthals, and now we are the most advanced species to ever walk the planet so far.
...d to the switch for calorie and protein rich animal products. Soon followed the creation of the revolutionary element; fire which changed the road of human evolution drastically. Homo erectus could now greatly increase the calories gained from food while also keeping warm and protecting from predators of the night. These campfires also led the some of the earliest forms of social interaction among early humans. Besides campfire interactions, Homo erectus also formed a distinct form of hunting and gathering division of labor which is still evident in parts of the world today. Though it is Homo erectus’s great migration out of Africa that may have been responsible for most important role of human evolution. Which would have led to the dispersion of human ancestors around the globe and the formation of the nationalities that we as humans are so proud of today.
The cultural innovations analyses presented here illustrate the presence of cumulative cultural evolution in the upper Paleolithic and portray how a steady rate of change continuous with that seen in later human history. This should serve to encourage interests in the internal process of evolution that may tend to produce a smooth curve, including the possible the autocatalytic effects of the increasing technological