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Note that humans and Neanderthals diverged 400,000 years ago, and when they died out ~40,000 years ago, they were basically technologically and socially indisti

Note that humans and Neanderthals diverged 400,000 years ago, and when they died out ~40,000 years ago, they were basically technologically and socially indistinguishable from humans. So I'm doubtful the secret sauce of humans had its origin 70,000 years ago.

malloryerik 9y ago
They were humans, right? Just not homo sapiens. Human is the genus, not the species?
- crowbahr 9y ago
  Correct. Also they are still in our genome to varying degrees.
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    Yeah, that comment started out as "anatomically modern humans" with a caveat on later interbreeding before editing; I hope the elisions were a net gain for getting the point across, if slightly less precise.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  Yes. But species are to some extent artificial categories. Sapiens and Neanderthals were close. Genetically compatible and behaviorally similar (as far as we can tell). It would not be unreasonable to define them all as subspecies or ever varieties within a species.
  - Mayzie 9y ago
    Like dogs!
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    Apart from the minor fact that until we knew some of us are descended from Neanderthal they were consider by everyone to be different species. Ideology 1, science 0.
    - dalbasal 9y ago
      It's impossible to deny that studies of our biology attracts a lot of interest, and we're not best placed for objectivity. That said, tghe splitter-lumper dynamic always exists. Are polar bears just big, white, aquatic brown bears that don't hibernate, or a species? New information about interbreeding should tip the balance in favour of subsceices. That's happening. Science works. I don't think there's an ideology problem here, at least not more than anywhere else. ideology: 1 , science: 1.1 - slight edge
      - eru 9y ago
        Wolfs, dogs and coyotes interbreed, too. And coyotes have long been thought their own species. (They are quite fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf .)
kobeya 9y ago
You ever met one? Had a conversation? Assessed it’s working memory, capacity for abstract thoughts and manly layered thinking? There is a lot we don’t know. The fact that Neanderthal buries their dead with some sort of symbolism, cared for elders, and lived in (small!) groups doesn’t really give us firm answers to these questions.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  You are right that we don't know, but the user said indistinguishable, which is true. It is interesting that they actually had larger brains than modern humans, as did the Cro Magnon homo sapiens we have also found).
  - animal531 9y ago
    Right, I've read the same. In practice they could very well have been more intelligent than humans. One interesting idea is that humans ultimately triumphed because we had better social connections, we traveled much further and had much larger circles.
- nkozyra 9y ago
  If personal interaction/observation is the bar for scientific validity, there's a whole lot of science to be skeptical of.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  The evidence we have for Neanderthal development is subject to precisely the same limitations to the evidence we have on the development of other hominids. If you can't meet & talk to humans from 80,000 and 60,000 years ago, are you able to say any change happened 70,000 years ago?
- eru 9y ago
  We didn't meet the other humans (Cro Magnon) of the time either. So our evidence is just as good or bad for those guys.
V-2 9y ago
Surely the Neanderthals have been subject to the same selection pressure as homo sapiens throughout the aftermath of the Toba catastrophe nevertheless... No? Assuming the bottleneck theory is valid to begin with, this was a global ecological disaster - it's not like the Neanderthals sat this one out on another planet : )
- saalweachter 9y ago
  The extinction of megafauna (eg, mammoths) didn't begin until tens of thousands of years later, so the effects at northern latitudes could not have been too severe.
dalbasal 9y ago
Some of this comes down to "what counts as secret souce"? Did the "secret sauce" of mouse-gui originate in the 70s with Bell Labs or Apple in the 80s? Did the secret sauce of early aggricultural civilization (Hati, Sumer, Hindus Valley..) start the first time a person grew stuff for food or when a larger scale grain economy first emerged? There is plenty of evidence that paleo-humans from well before that 70k ybp cutoff was special, unique in the animal kingdom. Knowing what we know about people, a lot of that behaviour was almost certainly cultural and probably language-based. Very complex tool use, hunting and gathering methods, shelters, fire. Perhaps even fire-aggriculture practices. Regardless, 70k ybp (or 40 or 100) the "secret sauce," whatever it is, begins to yield fruit. There are artifacts with symbolic expression, what we'd call art or even politics. The human population grows. We inhabit more (almost all) ecological zones. People get everywhere, including australia by 40-50k ybp. Maybe earlier. Tool invention gets faster... something happened.

malloryerik 9y ago

They were humans, right? Just not homo sapiens. Human is the genus, not the species?

crowbahr 9y ago
Correct. Also they are still in our genome to varying degrees.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  Yeah, that comment started out as "anatomically modern humans" with a caveat on later interbreeding before editing; I hope the elisions were a net gain for getting the point across, if slightly less precise.
dalbasal 9y ago
Yes. But species are to some extent artificial categories. Sapiens and Neanderthals were close. Genetically compatible and behaviorally similar (as far as we can tell). It would not be unreasonable to define them all as subspecies or ever varieties within a species.
- Mayzie 9y ago
  Like dogs!
- danieltillett 9y ago
  Apart from the minor fact that until we knew some of us are descended from Neanderthal they were consider by everyone to be different species. Ideology 1, science 0.
  - dalbasal 9y ago
    It's impossible to deny that studies of our biology attracts a lot of interest, and we're not best placed for objectivity. That said, tghe splitter-lumper dynamic always exists. Are polar bears just big, white, aquatic brown bears that don't hibernate, or a species? New information about interbreeding should tip the balance in favour of subsceices. That's happening. Science works. I don't think there's an ideology problem here, at least not more than anywhere else. ideology: 1 , science: 1.1 - slight edge
    - eru 9y ago
      Wolfs, dogs and coyotes interbreed, too. And coyotes have long been thought their own species. (They are quite fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf .)

kobeya 9y ago

You ever met one? Had a conversation? Assessed it’s working memory, capacity for abstract thoughts and manly layered thinking? There is a lot we don’t know. The fact that Neanderthal buries their dead with some sort of symbolism, cared for elders, and lived in (small!) groups doesn’t really give us firm answers to these questions.

wallace_f 9y ago
You are right that we don't know, but the user said indistinguishable, which is true. It is interesting that they actually had larger brains than modern humans, as did the Cro Magnon homo sapiens we have also found).
- animal531 9y ago
  Right, I've read the same. In practice they could very well have been more intelligent than humans. One interesting idea is that humans ultimately triumphed because we had better social connections, we traveled much further and had much larger circles.
nkozyra 9y ago
If personal interaction/observation is the bar for scientific validity, there's a whole lot of science to be skeptical of.
saalweachter 9y ago
The evidence we have for Neanderthal development is subject to precisely the same limitations to the evidence we have on the development of other hominids. If you can't meet & talk to humans from 80,000 and 60,000 years ago, are you able to say any change happened 70,000 years ago?
eru 9y ago
We didn't meet the other humans (Cro Magnon) of the time either. So our evidence is just as good or bad for those guys.

V-2 9y ago

Surely the Neanderthals have been subject to the same selection pressure as homo sapiens throughout the aftermath of the Toba catastrophe nevertheless... No? Assuming the bottleneck theory is valid to begin with, this was a global ecological disaster - it's not like the Neanderthals sat this one out on another planet : )

saalweachter 9y ago
The extinction of megafauna (eg, mammoths) didn't begin until tens of thousands of years later, so the effects at northern latitudes could not have been too severe.

dalbasal 9y ago

Some of this comes down to "what counts as secret souce"? Did the "secret sauce" of mouse-gui originate in the 70s with Bell Labs or Apple in the 80s? Did the secret sauce of early aggricultural civilization (Hati, Sumer, Hindus Valley..) start the first time a person grew stuff for food or when a larger scale grain economy first emerged? There is plenty of evidence that paleo-humans from well before that 70k ybp cutoff was special, unique in the animal kingdom. Knowing what we know about people, a lot of that behaviour was almost certainly cultural and probably language-based. Very complex tool use, hunting and gathering methods, shelters, fire. Perhaps even fire-aggriculture practices. Regardless, 70k ybp (or 40 or 100) the "secret sauce," whatever it is, begins to yield fruit. There are artifacts with symbolic expression, what we'd call art or even politics. The human population grows. We inhabit more (almost all) ecological zones. People get everywhere, including australia by 40-50k ybp. Maybe earlier. Tool invention gets faster... something happened.