Neanderthals - Science topic

A) All hominins (~6 Ma)

B) Genus Homo (~2 Ma)

C) Homo sapiens (~300 ka or ~200 ka)

D) Post-140,000y hominins (incl. REAL (post-140 ka) Neanderthals & Denisovans, Eyasi 1-like Africans except the latest Erectus from Java)

Dear friends of knowledge and wisdom: - About 40.000 years ago homo sapiens knew about the ovulation of women and 20.000 years ago they had a calendar for the whole period of pregnancy.

(Paleolithic Preventive Medicine: the Prenatal Recording Schedule of Mal´ta. In: J Altern Complement Integr Med, 8: 306, 2022, DOI:10.24966/ACIM-7562/100306.)

(Paleolithic Family Planning – From Mal´ta in Siberia to Iberia. In: J Altern Complement Integr Med, 9: 318, 2023, DOI:10.24966/ACIM-7562/100318.)

In addition two caves in France have been newly investigated where they could find Neanderthal art dating 60.000 years back.

What impact does this mean to you, your research and your view of the world of today?

Intelligence emerged in homo sapiens by progression but the means it developed remains unclear let alone why.

Some humility is required.

Homo groups were preyed upon by a host of predators, many of which have since died out. Homo Hablis was the choice lunch of various cats in the past as we are still for leopards in the present, although mainly children are captured and eaten. Chimpanzees and gorillas are also the food of choice for leopards. Neanderthals, our close relatives, were hunted down by hyenas. So probably were we.

Did intelligence develop in a weapons race with ancient predators, emerging as we moved out of the forests and became more vulnerable. Walls around cities were first created to keep predators out not human enemies. Most of the animals who predated on us are now gone. Did we remove them?

I need to discover the actors of ecosystem where Neanderthal lived, in order to better understand his role in that ecosystem. Datation near -40ka are preferred. I can use reviews that list the bone faunal remains, for example into caves or similar.

if Homosapiens could interbreed with Neanderthals and produce fertile offspring , why are they considered two different species ?

what definition would make them 2 different species ?

I am reading about Neanderthals, and also happened to go over the migration of Native Americans to the American continent. The ice age that lowered the sea level by 400 feet and allowed that migration. Was there any similar land bridge events before that?

If so, and the Neanderthals were active well before "modern humans", would they have migrated to the America's before? Say 40,000 years ago or 80,000 or 120,000, or 200,000+?

It is hard to search because all anyone on the web wants to talk about is the last ice age. "Our" ice age.

I am not being facetious. This question seemed interesting enough to share. I could just add it to my personal list of thousands of such questions. But ResearchGate is maturing and growing every day. It ought to be a collaborative site.

Could Neanderthals could have crossed during the last 250,000 years?

I found this page at https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1506 where its says "last 20,000 years" but, thankfully, the chart of sea level goes back 140,000 years. At least it was narrower. Would it have frozen over? Could it have ice intermittently (ice islands, ice sheets, frozen areas)?

This is not something I know about that well. But it seems to me there have been many periods where humans (our humans) paddled and made their way across waters. And where ice might make a difference. Or maybe Neanderthals, so well adapted for cold, just loved to paddle long distance through the ice. The Bering Strait varies in depth from 100 to 165 feet (today). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait

So where might such adventurers have wanted to live in their new continent? Probably caves? Probably Alaska? I don't know. I am not ever sure how to go about it. So I am asking this large and thoughtful group, if anyone has some ideas?

I just ordered all the Jean Auel books again. I have not read them in a long time. Her Neanderthals were a bit hidebound and brutish. (Pardon me, Jean). But Bruniquel Cave is about 176,500 years ago. And they had fire, organization, tents, strength and purpose. If they were smart enough to build a shelter inside a cave, it seems they knew how to stay warm and comfortable.

Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France

I don't know. I think it could be important. I think it could be fun.

Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation

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I searched "Neanderthals in North America" and came up with this page, but it requires registration or pay.

Humans Lived in North America 130,000 Years Ago, Study Claims at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/science/prehistoric-humans-north-america-california-nature-study.html

Five Breakthrough Signs of Early Peoples in the Americas at https://www.sapiens.org/column/field-trips/earliest-people-north-america/

This is so confusing. But 130,000 years ago in California sounds about right. That is 46,500 years after Bruniquel. I once walked 2700 miles when I got my first Fitbit. Over a long time, but steady, 10-20 miles a day. If people could go, so would other species (reindeer, elk, moose, bear, sloths, mammoths, birds, etc etc etc. Plants?).

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Ice Age Footprints | Full Episode | NOVA | PBS (23,000 Humans) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS7ChlsZsGI

Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum at

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Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo at https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08835 5500 years ago to "New World"

Neanderthal Life No Tougher than That of "Modern" Inuits at https://www.newswise.com/articles/neanderthal-life-no-tougher-than-that-of-modern-inuits

The Neanderthal: A new look at an old face at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248486800422

Inuit people have the same 'caveman genes' that helped an extinct type of human survive the last Ice Age at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4052228

("Inuit" OR "eskimo") ("neanderthal") has 2.07 Million entry points (3 Jun 2022 Google)

Denisovan DNA at https://www.archaeology.org/issues/60-1301/trenches/311-hominin-neanderthals-humans-siberia "Native Americans and people from East Asia have more Neanderthal DNA, on average, than Europeans"

Upward Sun River "Sunrise Girl-Child" at https://www.seeker.com/history/ancient-infant-dna-sheds-light-on-native-american-ancestors

There is a lot going on. But it is scattered over many sites, publishers, groups, individuals, styles and methods.

A large number of species have died out, their disappearance we know has been down to human beings. The moa, dodo, so many others. But would the very landscape be different? What effects have building mega-cities occasioned? Would the survival of neanderthals have made a difference?

The apparent length of time between the emergence of human beings (c 250,000 years ago) and human creativity, which today defines us, raises immense questions about human development and potential. Rebecca Wagg Sykes attempts in Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art to answer that by looking at homo sapiens relationship to Neanderthals. This is further discussed in The New York Review where the idea is expressed that we human beings are hybrid, and it is our coupling with other human species that created human potential.

Is this right or are there perhaps better explanations? Were Neanderthals too different from us to warrant this explanation

We know that current humans have around 2% of Neanderthal genes (except for Africans). Neanderthals became extinct some 40,000 years ago. I would like to discuss two assertions:

1.) Some 40,000 years ago humans already had 2% of the Neanderthal genome.

If not, then through many and many generations up to now this percentage would naturally decline to a very small amount. But if (all) humans already had 2% of Nenaderthal genes 40,000 years ago, than even when human population grew to 7 billion, this percentage would not change.

2.) Now, if we assume that Ad 1) is true, then it means that 1 in 25 children that grew to adulthood (capable of breeding) was an offspring of a human and a Neanderthal. If only mixed children were born, than the resulting population would have 50 % of Neanderthal genes. Since it should be only 2%, then the proportion is 1:25.

What do you think about it?

It would be interesting to perform simulations on human-Neanderthal breeding, since we know the final state (2%). Parameters such as the number of children of both races or the ratio of inbreeding could be considered and modeled so that the final result is in an agreement with the current state.

A pair of researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Germany found that a cluster of genes on the third chromosome is linked to respiratory failure in patients with Covid-19. According to the first version of the article, published in bioRxiv, these genes would have been inherited by modern humans (Homo sapiens) from Neanderthals.

I am only in the beginning phases of this research and could use all the help you are willing to give! If anyone has anything that may be of use to me, be it the oxygen isotope concentrations or articles about Neanderthal breathing habits please send it this way! Thank you!

The following is a note that I included in a Sunday column for a news paper:

If you can't draw a picture, then you can't use a spear. That's how things were set in the days of our ancestral hunters, and the logic behind it is deceptively simple. Neanderthals used thrusting spears to bring down tamer prey in Eurasia (says one source), while Homo sapiens, or modern humans, spent hundreds of thousands of years spear-hunting dangerous game on the open grasslands of Africa. Consider this difference in conjunction with comparative drawing skills. "Neanderthals were able to mentally visualise previously seen animals from working memory, but they were unable to translate those mental images effectively into the coordinated hand-movement patterns required for drawing," writes Richard Coss. He has studied the strokes of charcoal drawings and engravings of animals made by human artists 28,000 to 32,000 years ago in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in southern France. The visual imagery used in these cave paintings was certain to modulate arm movements in a manner similar to how hunters visualised the arc their spears must follow in order to hit their targets. Coss added: "There are enormous social implications in this ability to share mental images with group members.

After writing this (with all of the great stuff that Robert Audrey wrote in the back drop), I happened to read a piece written by Lonny Meinecke

and It suddenly dawned upon me that all we know about cave paintings, by way of primitive aesthetics, is wrong. Cave paintings were narcissistic logbooks: "This is the animal that I killed today", or "my friend killed today". It is also educational records for future generations: "This is the animal that you should kill."

I have gone through scores of images of cave paintings. The evidence is there. All the animals painted were big game, and there were paintings on hunters in action. You won't see animals that were not hunted for a living, or a mere scenary. And I couldn't see a single painting that is of any anatomical significance, which is surprising. And that speaks a volume.

Amen.

P.S. Kindly bear with my typos :)

PLEASE READ MY UPDATE BELOW IN RESPONSE TO NOTES FROM Gerrit Leendert Dusseldorp

Neanderthals were extant till a comparatively recent past. In fact nobody is very sure about when or how they disappeared. Also it is found that non-African modern humans carry a small but significant amount of their DNA. On the other hand throughout folklore, mythology, and cryptobiology we come across 'other type of human or human-like beings'. Taken together these raise the tantalizing possibility of finding isolated populations of extant Neanderthals. Again, through genetic manipulations, we may regenerate such individuals. I would like to know the possibility of either if these.

I say it does. If for example some early cave art was done by Neanderthals, a distant cousin, or Denosovic, does that mean we are not special but merely exhibit traits that many other species have exhibited before? Should we revise many of our ideas?

Did Neanderthals possess the human white of eye?

When did the human white-of-eye appear in evolution? When will Paleogenetics be able to determine in which species it arose? I imagine that we may, at least, be able to know soon whether Neanderthales and Denisovans had it or not. “The high-quality Neanderthal genome allows us to establish a definitive list of substitutions that became fixed in modern humans after their separation from the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans. So, the challenge ahead is to find out which of these changes are functionally significant.” In addition, the white-of eye seems to be a simple feature, which would very likely allow an easy search within the genoma or, more specifically, one more “atomised” than that of the genes which make possible both language and other complex cognitive abilities.

The issue of the white of eye is enormously interesting. The 'cooperative eye' is accepted by all researchers, it is no longer hypothetical. We alone among mammals have eyes with enlarged white sclera, the better to allow a potential cooperative partner to see where our attention is directed. Likewise, there is nowadays a growing acceptance that this type of eye appeared to facilitate the reception of the pointing gesture. Lastly, if so, given the unlikeness that human language would appear before pointing gestures, it would not be possible to attribute human-like language to fossil species that lacked the enlarged white sclera.

Taking into consideration this shared background, some researchers consider the reception of pointing gestures as highly demanding; others, however, do not. Thus, the former would place the origin of the white of eye towards the end of the evolutionary segment between apes and humans, and others, on the other hand, more at the beginning. But the issue is interesting for all. In addition, the discovery of when the human-type white of eye arose would be of assistance to introduce a little more falsifiability in the field of the evolution of language.

This piece (see image), coming from a middle palaeolithic site, is most likely a compact (silicified?) limestone about 65 mm in length. One side is convex and seems to be a natural surface, the other side is somewhat flatter and shows a certain degree of iron staining. Most notable, and undoubtedly anthropogenic are two big removals at struck from the flatter side, removing flakes from the cortical side. Further removals can be observed on the flat side, struck from the bottom (cf. the image). 

Although the piece shows various scratches across its surface going in variable directions, the top part of the cortical side show a strong concentration of (sub)parallel scratches, starting from the concave extremity up to about 1 cm onto the piece. These traces are matched by small (incidental?) removals on the reverse side. 

My question is whether the scratching at the top can be considered the result of anthropogenic activity and what for what kind of activity this partly flaked, partly scrachted piece could have been used? I have considered a retoucher, and a kind of wedge/chisel like piece (the latter possibly struck from the base), but I am lacking comparative finds in the literature. Do people know of comparable finds from other sites?

Approximately 1 to 4% of non-African modern human DNA is shared with Neanderthals. dont it affect the theory of only one mother of all of us?

I have some data on skeletal heighth, mass estimates, but I'm trying to find more exact cortical bone measurements and joint sizes to better approximate Neanderthal (and AMH) body masses and TEE's. 

Any advice would be helpful.

Looking for any data sets with skeletal measurements, energetics, or growth statistics.

I am preparing a term paper on the use of plants with pharmacological properties by Neanderthals (in Europe or Eurasia).  Also, what information is there about how these properties may have changed over time.  

Dear colleagues, for my book, I try to find two maps that demonstrate vegetation units (polar desert, tundra, steppe, etc.) in Europe during MIS 6 and MIS5e. Of course, I know and I have the article of Andel-Tzedakis from 1996, but the quality of maps is poor (graphic, not the content :)

I remember I saw nice maps even in colour, but I can't find them again. Would you be kind to share your knowlege within this topic?

Thank you for any suggestions

Petr

I'm trying to track down any examples of prehistoric occupation floors where the main/full-size camp (hearths, activity areas, sleeping areas, etc), might have a smaller miniature version right next-door (so to speak), or very nearby? 

I´m looking for Middle Palaeolithic sites (either residence, symbolic or other activity-related) which have been found in the deep cave interior, or at least in zones lacking natural light, and thus far away from the entrance. An outstanding example of this would be the stalagmite structures of Bruniquel cave, but other not so deep and not so spectacular sites are welcome.

Many thanks in advance.

Could anyone please suggest bibliographic references about the second metacarpal bones of neanderthal and paleolithic human? Thank you!

The body of Paleolithic finds and information from southeast Europe has been growing to a great extend in the recent years. Nevertheless from certain areas such as Kosovo there are no finds reported whatsoever. Is this due to lack of accessible publications or lack of research in this particular field of archaeology?

Dear Collegues,

My name is Aritza Villaluenga, I am Postdoctoral researcher in zooarchaeology in MONREPOS Research Centre, Neuwied, Germany.

I am writing a new postdoctoral project, involving a holistic faunal analysis of a Middle Palaeolithic site of Germany, known as Buhlen(55.000-60.000BP), located SW of Kassel (Germany).

This site was excavated in 60s by Prof. Bosinski and in 80s by Dr. Fiedler. However, macromammal remains never have been studied, only in 2004 a partial analysis of Dr. Fiedler excavation was produced in the University of Leiden (Netherlands).

In one of the excavated areas, known as Upper Site, were discovered 1586 egg shell fragments. Avifauna bone remains were taxonomically analyzed by  Anne Eastham in 1998.Due to some,  problems was not possible to develop a microscopic method for identifying taxonomically those egg shells. 

Egg systematical recollection by neanderthals would be an interesting behavior, with clear seasonal implications, in the exploitation of small vertebrates and energy adquisition.

I would like to contact a researcher able to identifying taxonomically these egg shell fragments.

Aritza Villaluenga.

Research is increasingly supporting the idea that non-Africans are the interspecific hybrid offspring of male Neanderthals and female humans. Standard naming practices for hybrid offspring follows the rule that the first half of the name comes from the male parent and the second half comes from the female parent. According to this naming system, do non-Africans have to stop using the title of human?

Khrameeva et al. found that Europeans possess many genes of Neandertals origin for the catabolism of lipids. My question is if these findings can be interpreted as pointing to a relatively high consumption of fats among Neandertals.

Khrameeva, E. E., Bozek, K., He, L., Yan, Z., Jiang, X., Wei, Y., ... & Khaitovich, P. (2014). Neanderthal ancestry drives evolution of lipid catabolism in contemporary Europeans. Nature communications, 5.

Need help from someone who knows how to look at the Neanderthal genome sequence

Here is the link to the database at the Max-Plank-Institute http://www.eva.mpg.de/neandertal/index.html

I have a very specific question concerning modern human/neanderthal studies. As long as I understand, neanderthal trace in human genome is due to some recombinant loci. That means, neanderthal clonal genes (Y-chromosome, mt-DNA) were completely washed out from the modern human populations due to gene drift, but some recombinant loci still remain in the gene pool. Moreover, they exist in literally any non-African human person.

Discovering presence of neanderthal alleles in the sapiens genome became possible after scientists sequenced neanderthal genome. Thus, the location of the neanderthal alleles in Eurasian genomes is known and, perhaps, even available. That means, primers can be easily designed for these fragments and the "neanderthal" fragments should be relatively easy to sequence for any modern human.

That means, by sequencing these fragments for humans from the different parts of Eurasia one can reconstruct the underlining Neanderthal phylogeny, i.e. one can compare the neanderthals from West Europe, Caucasus, Central and East Asia, whose differences may well be much deeper in time than the differences between respective modern human lineages, which are thought to diverge 100 TY or similar. Should the existing differences between modern human populations be completely attributed to the divergence that started 100,000 TY? Or, perhaps, they at least partly root into the time of divergence among neanderthal geographic populations?

It sounds too simple, that means, most likely is something wrong and stupid in this logic, or evolutionary anthropologists already working on this. Or?

Would appreciate much for the comment.

Is there any DNA evidence for Neanderthal remains from the British Isles?

Has there been any DNA analysis carried out on the remains of the Lagar Velho child, which appears to share features of both Neanderthals and Modern Humans?