5 ms·

The first comment on the substack links to this article, from 2010, that basically refutes this theory and this book. https://blog.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/2010/1

The first comment on the substack links to this article, from 2010, that basically refutes this theory and this book. https://blog.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/2010/10/killer-neandertals-does-this-o/ https://blog.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/2010/10/killer-neandertal...

roenxi 5y ago
"Proves" and "refutes" are both pretty vague words in a historical context. In my experience when historians say "I will prove this to you" they typically mean "not only is it a good story, but unusually I have at least 1 piece of actual evidence". So in the loose world of history where nobody has any idea, maybe the idea is refuted. Realistically, probably both posts are wrong but we'll never know about which aspects. 10,000 years is a long time, there should have been multiple occurrences of the impossible. History is huge, and we only have tattered records for 1 in ~3,000 years events.
- quietbritishjim 5y ago
  The article linked by the parent is very clear about when things are unknown or suspected but unproven (from real but inconclusive archaeological evidence). In contrast, it shows that the book in question is completely speculative (not based on any archaeological evidence whatsoever) while presenting itself as unequivocally correct. There is no need to beat around the bush. The linked article fully refutes the original one.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    The book is a work of history. Of course it is completely speculative. The point of historical books is to convince people to read them, typically they have a fairly thick dose of spice and storytelling. Thucydides wasn't trying to bore people. The first "evidence that they may have had the technology to make sewn garments" link [0] looks like some dude ran a model. Now it is certainly possible to claim that as conclusive evidence. But probably only in a debate between historians, I wouldn't bank on it. 50,000 years ago is a long time. There is not a lot of confidence about how things happened, and reality defies mixing generalisation and truth. [0] https://anthropology.net/2009/06/26/neanderthals-dried-fresh-meat-wore-tailored-clothing-energy-study/ https://anthropology.net/2009/06/26/neanderthals-dried-fresh...
    - throwanem 5y ago
      Do you mean to construct a defense of the "cannibal rapist Neandertal orcs" idea on the post-factualist basis that, well, there's no actually knowing anything, so we may as well pick whatever just-so story we like? That's a pretty weak defense, is why I'm asking. Almost anything else would be more convincing. So maybe it's worth asking whether you've got anything else to offer.
      - roenxi 5y ago
        > there's no actually knowing anything, so we may as well pick whatever just-so story we like? What do you think is going on here? There isn't enough evidence to create an accurate truth, we've got no way of deciding if an accurate truth has been uncovered and it doesn't matter at all anyway. The process by which "truth" is found has a heavy bias towards good storytelling and typically strong political overtones. Do you feel HN is upvoting the story because anyone feels that accurately depicting the neanderthal lifestyle will have profound bearing on the course of the modern world? I doubt even the historians think that. Maybe something will come of it, but realistically everyone is in this for the fun of imagining what might have happened, and the joy of arguing about it confidently from flimsy evidence.
        throwanem 5y ago
        > What do you think is going on here? Well, to go by your prior comments, you're confusing "pick whatever just-so story you like" with how history is done. Feel free to continue, of course; I've more or less given up arguing with post-truthers in general, and certainly see no point in doing so here.
        wolverine876 5y ago
        Please don't give up. Give them something positive - they really have better options in life than a world of confusion and ignorance.
        5y ago
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  Nonsense, look at the actual archaeological record from the time. Yes, anything could have been but then the person making those claims has to provide proper evidence for it, not the other way around.
- daveFNbuck 5y ago
  If 10,000 years is too long to ever know what really happened, then we can dismiss the idea that stories from less than 10,000 years ago accurately reflect the reality of more than 40,000 years ago.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > when historians say "I will prove this to you" they typically mean "not only is it a good story, but unusually I have at least 1 piece of actual evidence". So in the loose world of history where nobody has any idea, maybe the idea is refuted. Wow, that describes Internet posts (and HN comments), but it's utterly unlike the serious histories I've read, which are filled with primary evidence and incredible amounts of research, with the historians traveling around the world digging up new evidence in archives and museums. If you want far better histories than what you've encountered, I suggest looking up the topic you are interested in on a college syllabus. The Open Syllabus Project[0], which collects millions of college syllabi and offers statistics too (most assigned, etc.) is a great resource. Or better, ask a reference librarian in the topic at a research library (e.g., a university) - I find they will often help people with recommendations if you are polite and show that you've made an effort to learn what you can without them. [0] http://opensyllabusproject.org/ http://opensyllabusproject.org/
Semiapies 5y ago
Yeah, I remember when this 'theory" came around the first time. It was silly even in passing, and supporters weren't even playing up the idea that the entirety of humanity had migrated to the Levant in order to be nearly wiped out by Neanderthals. Especially when there's a much more plausible alternative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory When someone gets introduced as a "heterodox thinker", there's always something badly thought-out coming.
betwixthewires 5y ago
Thanks for this, I didn't see the comment in the article. The minute I saw "horizontal slit eyes" I was pretty much done. There's literally no way to know if that was true, for that to be a claim in a proposed theory rightly discredits that theory. I can see them being hairy. But deducing from having larger eyes that they'd be nocturnal and therefore have horizontal slit eyes... And then there's the issue of the flat face. I'm no anthropologist but I understand the structure of the face and I have seen a few pictures of Neanderthal skulls, they absolutely had a protruding hooded nose just like us, no doubt about it. Looking at a skeleton, they obviously are very similar to us in form. All this stuff about them being vastly different looking monstrous human relatives is just fantasy.
- projektfu 5y ago
  The suggestion that Neanderthal had a tapetum lucidum is also weird as that is a feature that has been lost in almost all extant primates, including nocturnal ones, except the bush baby.
  - mattkrause 5y ago
    I believe some tarsiers have it too, but yeah...this whole part seems like evolutionary fan-fiction.
    - projektfu 5y ago
      I was wrong, some lemurs also have tapeta but, oddly, tarsiers don’t, in spite of having many more adaptations to low light. What’s weird is that the advocate of the orc theory just throws in details without even considering whether they’re plausible. A full hair coat? Easy, we already have hair, and most of our “relatives” have full coats. Larger teeth? Sure. A gain of function that’s been lost to an entire phylum, including the apes he references? Unlikely.
      - projektfu 5y ago
        I meant clade not phylum. Sleepy?

roenxi 5y ago

"Proves" and "refutes" are both pretty vague words in a historical context. In my experience when historians say "I will prove this to you" they typically mean "not only is it a good story, but unusually I have at least 1 piece of actual evidence". So in the loose world of history where nobody has any idea, maybe the idea is refuted. Realistically, probably both posts are wrong but we'll never know about which aspects. 10,000 years is a long time, there should have been multiple occurrences of the impossible. History is huge, and we only have tattered records for 1 in ~3,000 years events.

quietbritishjim 5y ago
The article linked by the parent is very clear about when things are unknown or suspected but unproven (from real but inconclusive archaeological evidence). In contrast, it shows that the book in question is completely speculative (not based on any archaeological evidence whatsoever) while presenting itself as unequivocally correct. There is no need to beat around the bush. The linked article fully refutes the original one.
- roenxi 5y ago
  The book is a work of history. Of course it is completely speculative. The point of historical books is to convince people to read them, typically they have a fairly thick dose of spice and storytelling. Thucydides wasn't trying to bore people. The first "evidence that they may have had the technology to make sewn garments" link [0] looks like some dude ran a model. Now it is certainly possible to claim that as conclusive evidence. But probably only in a debate between historians, I wouldn't bank on it. 50,000 years ago is a long time. There is not a lot of confidence about how things happened, and reality defies mixing generalisation and truth. [0] https://anthropology.net/2009/06/26/neanderthals-dried-fresh-meat-wore-tailored-clothing-energy-study/ https://anthropology.net/2009/06/26/neanderthals-dried-fresh...
  - throwanem 5y ago
    Do you mean to construct a defense of the "cannibal rapist Neandertal orcs" idea on the post-factualist basis that, well, there's no actually knowing anything, so we may as well pick whatever just-so story we like? That's a pretty weak defense, is why I'm asking. Almost anything else would be more convincing. So maybe it's worth asking whether you've got anything else to offer.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      > there's no actually knowing anything, so we may as well pick whatever just-so story we like? What do you think is going on here? There isn't enough evidence to create an accurate truth, we've got no way of deciding if an accurate truth has been uncovered and it doesn't matter at all anyway. The process by which "truth" is found has a heavy bias towards good storytelling and typically strong political overtones. Do you feel HN is upvoting the story because anyone feels that accurately depicting the neanderthal lifestyle will have profound bearing on the course of the modern world? I doubt even the historians think that. Maybe something will come of it, but realistically everyone is in this for the fun of imagining what might have happened, and the joy of arguing about it confidently from flimsy evidence.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        > What do you think is going on here? Well, to go by your prior comments, you're confusing "pick whatever just-so story you like" with how history is done. Feel free to continue, of course; I've more or less given up arguing with post-truthers in general, and certainly see no point in doing so here.
        wolverine876 5y ago
        Please don't give up. Give them something positive - they really have better options in life than a world of confusion and ignorance.
        5y ago
trompetenaccoun 5y ago
Nonsense, look at the actual archaeological record from the time. Yes, anything could have been but then the person making those claims has to provide proper evidence for it, not the other way around.
daveFNbuck 5y ago
If 10,000 years is too long to ever know what really happened, then we can dismiss the idea that stories from less than 10,000 years ago accurately reflect the reality of more than 40,000 years ago.
wolverine876 5y ago
> when historians say "I will prove this to you" they typically mean "not only is it a good story, but unusually I have at least 1 piece of actual evidence". So in the loose world of history where nobody has any idea, maybe the idea is refuted. Wow, that describes Internet posts (and HN comments), but it's utterly unlike the serious histories I've read, which are filled with primary evidence and incredible amounts of research, with the historians traveling around the world digging up new evidence in archives and museums. If you want far better histories than what you've encountered, I suggest looking up the topic you are interested in on a college syllabus. The Open Syllabus Project[0], which collects millions of college syllabi and offers statistics too (most assigned, etc.) is a great resource. Or better, ask a reference librarian in the topic at a research library (e.g., a university) - I find they will often help people with recommendations if you are polite and show that you've made an effort to learn what you can without them. [0] http://opensyllabusproject.org/ http://opensyllabusproject.org/

Semiapies 5y ago

Yeah, I remember when this 'theory" came around the first time. It was silly even in passing, and supporters weren't even playing up the idea that the entirety of humanity had migrated to the Levant in order to be nearly wiped out by Neanderthals. Especially when there's a much more plausible alternative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory When someone gets introduced as a "heterodox thinker", there's always something badly thought-out coming.

betwixthewires 5y ago

Thanks for this, I didn't see the comment in the article. The minute I saw "horizontal slit eyes" I was pretty much done. There's literally no way to know if that was true, for that to be a claim in a proposed theory rightly discredits that theory. I can see them being hairy. But deducing from having larger eyes that they'd be nocturnal and therefore have horizontal slit eyes... And then there's the issue of the flat face. I'm no anthropologist but I understand the structure of the face and I have seen a few pictures of Neanderthal skulls, they absolutely had a protruding hooded nose just like us, no doubt about it. Looking at a skeleton, they obviously are very similar to us in form. All this stuff about them being vastly different looking monstrous human relatives is just fantasy.

projektfu 5y ago
The suggestion that Neanderthal had a tapetum lucidum is also weird as that is a feature that has been lost in almost all extant primates, including nocturnal ones, except the bush baby.
- mattkrause 5y ago
  I believe some tarsiers have it too, but yeah...this whole part seems like evolutionary fan-fiction.
  - projektfu 5y ago
    I was wrong, some lemurs also have tapeta but, oddly, tarsiers don’t, in spite of having many more adaptations to low light. What’s weird is that the advocate of the orc theory just throws in details without even considering whether they’re plausible. A full hair coat? Easy, we already have hair, and most of our “relatives” have full coats. Larger teeth? Sure. A gain of function that’s been lost to an entire phylum, including the apes he references? Unlikely.
    - projektfu 5y ago
      I meant clade not phylum. Sleepy?