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Why did modern humans take so long to settle in Europe?
- littleweep 5y agoInhospitable conditions when compared to temperate climates?
- JoiDegn 5y agoThat's not a sufficient explanation because Neanderthals faced the same conditions but were outcompeted eventually. The question is: if Neanderthals were going to be outcompeted, why did it take so long for homo sapiens to establish themselves in Europe. What changed so that they would become the dominant humans
- LatteLazy 5y agoIsn't technology the only good explanation in that case? 1. Humans without tech can't even settle there. 2. Humans develop tech (textiles, fire etc). 3. Humans suddenly don't just settle there, they out-compete neanderthals. Step 2 took too short a time for major genetic changes. So the changes were behavioural. Seems logical to my non-anthropologist brain...
- raxxorrax 5y agoI could imagine another case were Neanderthals had technology or the wrong faith, were declared witches and heretics and consequently prosecuted until extinction. Age old story and a clear pattern in human history. Being out-competed sounds very unlikely because neanderthals probably were generalists too so at least some would have survived. You generally don't out-compete people by advanced technology. The opposite seems true with modern humans.
- prepend 5y agoIt’s a pretty big geographic space. I can’t imagine a religion that would span the entire continent and be responsible for genocide. Seems like there would be many different religions between both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Even in the Middle Ages not all of Europe was a single religion.
- CRConrad 5y ago> Being out-competed sounds very unlikely because neanderthals probably were generalists too so at least some would have survived. SF author Philip José Farmer wrote at least one novel, I think a series of novels, where they did, and still live among us. Discreetly, on the fringes of society.
- Mikeb85 5y agoWe do know the climate changed significantly. Homo sapiens moving northward did coincide with the end of the last glacial period. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Period https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Period > When the glaciation event started, Homo sapiens was confined to lower latitudes and used tools comparable to those used by Neanderthals in western and central Eurasia and by Denisovans and Homo erectus in Asia. Near the end of the event, H. sapiens migrated into Eurasia and Australia.
- twofornone 5y agoNeanderthals were a distinct genetic group. There's no reason to suggest that they weren't simply better adapted for the contemporary European climate before arrival of initial human populations. The humans who eventually outcompeted neanderthals in Europe were probably genetically and culturally distinct from those that originally arrived, assuming it took some number of generations to adapt to the northern geography/climate.
- anonporridge 5y agoThis is what I'm thinking. Neanderthals were genetically very well adapted to the climate, but they already mostly filled the niches. Homo Sapiens came into an already crowded land, and had to take time to develop the cultural tools and knowledge sufficient enough to give them a large advantage over the more specialized genetics of the Neanderthals.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- brabel 5y agoAs the article says, humans interbred with Neanderthals to a degree that even today, Europeans have 2% of their genes coming from them. It's possible that it was the "mixed" species that had the advantage over both the first human arrivals and the Neanderthals... with time, more human arrivals probably diluted the Neanderthals genes to the levels we see today.
- random314 5y agoAlternatively, considering the mixed species weren't able to compete with the later human arrivals, or take over the human controlled areas in Africa - humans appear to have a distinct advantage over the mixed species.
- raxxorrax 5y agoI think it is far more likely they got the treatment which homo sapiens regularly gets from other homo sapiens. Andamanese for example are genetically distinct but certainly are homo sapiens but that didn't help for their survival in the end. There probably are many cases like this.
- yobbo 5y ago> outcompeted What would they have competed for? There were few humans altogether in Europe, maybe on the order of thousands to tens of thousands across Europe (I assume, this is not known). They wouldn't need to ever meet.
- xyzzyz 5y agoWe don’t really know very well how many humans (including Neanderthals) lived in Europe. We have pretty good estimates of effective population sizes from genetic data, but these don’t tell us much about actual population sizes beyond giving us lower bounds. What we do know, though, is that hunter-gatherer peoples have very low population densities, and that these low population densities are a result of resource scarcity, and violent inter-group competition for these scarce resources. Other hunter-gatherer groups impact you even if they are miles from you. Oh, and we do know that anatomically modern humans met Neanderthals, at the very least because they interbred.
- dstick 5y agoThis is meant in the context of genetic survival. Homo sapiens were, eventually, better equipped to reproduce and survive. And if you read the article, it mentions at the bottom that part of the Neanderthal genes have been... essentially assimilated into the Homo Sapiens gene pool. Hence why Neanderthals seized to exist, and other species that live in a vaccuum (island) did survive. Many Homo Sapiens today are also part Neanderthal.
- hulitu 5y agoThey were not allowed to carry guns. Also guns market was at the begginning. And, i presume, they needed some time to adapt to heavy winters.
- bserge 5y agoYou mean stones or bones :D
- DeathArrow 5y ago>That's not a sufficient explanation because Neanderthals faced the same conditions but were outcompeted eventually. How do we know that Neanderthals were outcompeted? Genetic studies show that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens interbred and modern humans have inherited genes from Neanderthals.
- PeterisP 5y agoWell, as after the interbreeding the survivors have 1-2% of Neanderthals and 98-99% of humans, and none with the opposite proportion have survived, that counts as outcompeting and very one-sided assimilation.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoIs this just a measurement thing though? like "dark matter" is the stuff that's left over after we account for everything else. Similarly, saying modern humans have 98% modern human DNA seems a bit circular. And how is that 98% calculated? Don't we share 98% DNA with chimpanzees and bananas or whatever? Is it 99% of that final 1%? A more relevant example: the diversity of genetics in Africa could be counted as like 20 "races" if races were based on genetics, but instead we generally lump them mostly into 1 of 4-5 vague historical socioeconomic groupings. So you have one "white" parent and you're mixed race, but you could have two more genetically different African parents and not be considered mixed. It's nostly about where you draw subjective lines.
- carlob 5y agoYou're mixing two different ways of measuring difference. When we say we share a large portion of DNA with other species it's about the whole genome and it is mostly a statement of how similar the proteins that make life work are. When we say we have 2% Neanderthal DNA (in Europe, less elsewhere), this is usually done with SNPs [0] which are used as a way to quickly differentiate between populations without sequencing the whole genome. In practice when companies like 23 and me tell you that you are 20% Pacific Islander it means that they have detected a number of single base-pair variations that is statistically compatible with that result, but it doesn't mean that Pacific Islanders and Scandinavians are not largely the same genetically, just that we know some easy places to look to tell them apart. I should probably also mention that one interesting and politically relevant result of these population studies is that the concept of race doesn't really have a solid statistical base, because we have found the variation inside the group to be so large compared to the variation across groups, that there is no unambiguous way to cluster the human population. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-nucleotide_polymorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-nucleotide_polymorphism
- cyberpsybin 5y ago[flagged]
- fsloth 5y agoNobody knows why neanderthals died. There was considerable amount of crossbreeding - modern europeans may carry genes inherited from neanderthals - so it's far from obvious what exactly happened.
- dang 5y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments. That's not what this site is for. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- q1w2 5y agoI imagine all human migrations resulted in genocide - everywhere they happened. This isn't Europe specific. ...it's not even human specific as other animals do the same thing.
- Mikeb85 5y agoConsidering modern Europeans all have Neanderthal genes, they could have simply just been bred out of existence.
- georgeoliver 5y agoIs there any good estimate of the number of modern humans in Europe c. 40-50 ka ago?
- vimax 5y agoAccording to this chart, the first anatomically modern human, homo sapian sapian, dates back to 46,000 years ago https://www.southampton.ac.uk/~cpd/history.html https://www.southampton.ac.uk/~cpd/history.html
- black_13 5y agoGentrification.
- sriram_malhar 5y agoVisa issues ? :)
- ebanana 5y agoHaha, that’s where my mind went!
- tasogare 5y agoIf wonder if Neanderthals discussed an idea akin to the great replacement and if most of them thought/argued that was a conspiracy theory.
- inpdx 5y agoAre your genes inferior? Then evolution will replace you over time. That's how it works.
- vixen99 5y agoYes, calling them inferior or superior is merely another way of describing survival. Why are the genes inferior? Because they don't survive. Why don't they survive? Because ... Sometimes supposedly inferior genes work better in a specific environment as is the case with sickle cell anaemia where mutation resulting in under-performing haemoglobin confers some resistance to malaria.
- DeathArrow 5y ago>Yes, calling them inferior or superior is merely another way of describing survival. Genes survived either because some populations were aided by geography, as in they weren't challenged by foreign populations or because the individuals were smarter. The modern humans are trying to reverse how nature worked until the recent past but I'm not sure it will work. Competition will always win.
- DeathArrow 5y ago>Are your genes inferior? What do you mean by inferior genes? Not being adapted to the climate? Being predisposed to some diseases? Having a low IQ? Not enough physical strength?
- estaseuropano 5y agoLess adapted to the environment, which of course can include all of the above.
- blfr 5y agoEarlier groups of humans could have also been genocided by the later migration waves which would explain why they left no trace in modern populations. Although this is less likely for women.
- jleyank 5y agoLow populations increased the likelihood that new wave n brought a disease that wiped out new wave n-1. We saw that with European arrival into the Americas. And 2% Neanderthal dna might be all that is noticeable as humans are 98-99% similar to chimps.
- gargalatas 5y agoWell, if life started from Africa then let's face it guys: Europe is not for humans unless you like hair because being naked in Europe your hair will grow back all around you body!
- netcan 5y agoOne of the most fascinating points, to me, in "Sapiens," is that we have no evidence suggesting homo sapiens were culturally or behaviourally more sophisticated than other species prior to this period. We inhabited a different geography and evidently had a preference for different ecosystems than neanderthals. Skeletal injuries suggest different hunting and/or warfare methods. But, no signs of more sophisticated tool use or such. That changes circa 40kya. I think the answer to the question in this article is the same (unknown) answer to many questions. YNH's hypothesis is that it was language sophistication. Language got to the point where it allowed for different types of culture including cooperation in large groups to emerge. If the neanderthal replacement story is a conflict story, cooperation in large groups, the ability to form alliances and such is a pretty straightforward explanation. Who knows though. A lot appears to have changes in this period. Wolves were domesticated, for example. Wolf husbandry alone might be enough to explain sapien expansion into large game rich territory.
- raxxorrax 5y agoCould very well be that the real uncultured babarians survived as homo sapiens. I don't think more sophistication at this level necessarily leads to more evolutionary success against other intelligent primates.
- agumonkey 5y agoAre we walking 'worse is better' ?
- wahern 5y agoJoseph Jordania theorizes that human intelligence preceded articulated speech, which he suggests may have arisen as a simple neurological mutation in East Asia about 40k years ago and quickly migrated back toward Europe and Africa. Jordania is an ethnomusicologist and believes that human vocal chords evolved for polyphonic singing, part of an adaptation (along with dance) permitting humans to act in tight unison for, e.g., defense and intimidation. This social mimicry permitted them to create an ecological niche into which both intelligence and altruism could grow, with articulated speech (i.e. language as we know it today) being the very last and quite recent step, and perhaps the most important distinguishing characteristic--IOW, presumably closely related hominids were nearly as or similarly intelligent and social, just lacking the ability for complex, individual speech with its concomitant benefits (greater specialization and more sophisticated culture?). AFAIU, this is in stark contrast to most anthropologists, who generally believe things happened in the reverse order, with simple language (e.g. sign language) providing the impetus for vocal chord development and articulated speech, which in turn laid the foundation for rapid coevolution of greater intelligence.
- Proven 5y agoNo social state handouts to appeal to migrants and speed the process up?