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If that were true, I'm not sure we'd use the term "extinct" to refer to Neanderthals. (Some) humans are willing to mate with just about anything. There would b

If that were true, I'm not sure we'd use the term "extinct" to refer to Neanderthals. (Some) humans are willing to mate with just about anything. There would be human-dog hybrids if it wasn't genetically impossible, as unsettling as that thought is. Seems more likely that we treated Neanderthals as humans do with other outsiders: we exterminated them and took their resources. Word has it that you can find their descendants on Wall Street though.

tshaddox 5y ago
> If that were true, I'm not sure we'd use the term "extinct" to refer to Neanderthals. Why not? Lots of our ancestors are extinct.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  You're right. I'm simply mistaken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis I like that Homo habilis translates to "handy man" since they were the first to use stone tools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Evolution_of_genus_Homo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Evolution_of_g... is also an interesting read.
mc32 5y ago
Isn't it possible that humans simply outbred them? You don't have to "get rid" of a population if you can interbreed and outbreed a given stock, no? It's not like one day they exist and the next they don't; rather, they slowly get absorbed into the larger, faster breeding pop. Or even disease they had no natural immunity for. I presume there would be some conflict as even among human pops conflict is a given --but not necessary one to the end.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  It's possible. It's just one of those explanations that we'd really love to believe, since the alternative is so unthinkable. It's been a hobby of mine to be skeptical of it. Even Kurzgesagt mentioned in passing that we're not sure if it was due to "a series of minor genocides." - https://youtu.be/dGiQaabX3_o?t=79 https://youtu.be/dGiQaabX3_o?t=79 - https://youtu.be/CWu29PRCUvQ?t=165 https://youtu.be/CWu29PRCUvQ?t=165 If anyone knows of breadcrumbs to follow, please chime in. Genetic testing implies it should be possible to figure out how much interbreeding took place. We seem to be able to trace extinction events with some degree of accuracy, so it would be surprising if a genocide-type extinction event was easy to confuse with interbreeding.
  - ivanhoe 5y ago
    Neanderthals and humans co-existed for some 5,000 years. Think of that in terms of our modern history, and how many ethnical groups was there in that time span - and almost all of them perished completely, either destroyed or assimilated by others (usually a combination of both). Thinking of it, neanderthals actually lasted for quite long time, probably thanks to the overall scarcity of hominid populations and vast territory available to them.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      We also lived in caves for several tens of millenia across multiple stretches of time, without written language. There may have been some sort of ephemeral symbolic transfer (knots, beads, wood carvings,) but it looks like those cultures used primarily oral traditions. We know many non literate cultures develop memory palace techniques, so rigorous oral traditions can be incredibly durable and stable, with lots of information passed down accurately. All that to say, human tribes could have had detailed and specific knowledge of interactions with Neanderthals over millenia, and developed peaceful tradition that maximizes cooperation, or at least borders that kept conflict minimized. Neanderthals could likely do the same memory tricks. 5000 years is a blip - if humans find a sufficiently habitable environment, we apparently can settle for a pretty low quality of life. It only works until it doesn't, though. Neanderthals or humans could have initiated an incident, in which traditions were distrusted or discarded or lost on either side, resulting in hostility, or they lost their elders to disease and the knowledge to survive. Just like megafauna extinction, "bad humans were bad" probably doesn't come close to what actually happened. Neanderthals were likely as or more intelligent than humans, implying susceptibility to all the same conflicts, biased thinking, and bad incentives that affect human cultures. It could be environmental or biological or a pure fluke that Neanderthals didn't outlive humans, but whatever the reason they're gone, it's going to be just as convoluted and nuanced as the rise and fall of millenia old human cultures.
      - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
        Nobody ever lived in caves. Artefacts were left in caves because they're the only place where the artifacts can persist for hundreds and thousands of years, and ancient man knew this just like the modern man.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  A clearer view might be, the population distribution changed. Fewer 'purebred' anything existed over time, and more mixed individuals. Until today we have a large fraction of humanity with both genes. It's not necessary to posit a catastrophic change. There were simply more of the new kind, so there were more of their genes in the mix and fewer Neanderthal.
ivanhoe 5y ago
They certainly didn't treat other humans anything different. In those days "us" meant the tribe or family group. Everyone else was "them", sometimes an ally, sometimes a foe, depending on the situation, resource scarcity and the power of both sides. And those were the violent times, so when there was no enough food for everyone, competition (whether it's human, neanderthal or animal) had to be either scared away or destroyed. That's how all creatures in nature function, it's a matter of survival, there's nothing unethical about that.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  It's important not to underestimate the intellectual life of ancient cultures. They were humans, with language, and probably had music, stories, traditions, religion, conflict, politics, and more. Methods of oral traditions have been identified that are essentially equivalent to modern memory athlete techniques, hundreds of thousands of factoids could be transferred with very little "bitrot" over generations. There are traditions in Australian aboriginal cultures that go back 40,000 years, and very sophisticated memory techniques that perpetuated their culture. The relations between tribes near each other would have been as nuanced and varied and sophisticated and weird as any collectives of humans in relation to each other in modern life. "Those asshats downriver are rude, but they trade fair" Modern life has given us profound advantages over previous generations, but we are basically the exact same kind of creature as plains walking humans from 300k years ago. The notion of primitive simple hunter gatherer tribes doesn't account for the innate complexity of individuals. Their experience going through life would be the same as ours, we just have better (on most measures) tools and knowledge.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    We are a lot less violent on average, though. Hunter-gatherer societies tend to war a lot. We don't see it as high-intensity conflict because of the low casualty numbers and lack of pitched battles. But when you look at it as percentage of the overall population, it turns out to be worse than our worst conflicts. (To be clear, not all hunter-gatherer societies are like that. Some are more peaceful than others, and there are extremes like the Moriori. But the average is what it is.)
nradov 5y ago
There is a fringe hypothesis that humans are hybrid product of chimpanzees and pigs. (I don't necessarily believe this, just found it entertaining.) https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html

tshaddox 5y ago

> If that were true, I'm not sure we'd use the term "extinct" to refer to Neanderthals. Why not? Lots of our ancestors are extinct.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
You're right. I'm simply mistaken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis I like that Homo habilis translates to "handy man" since they were the first to use stone tools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Evolution_of_genus_Homo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Evolution_of_g... is also an interesting read.

mc32 5y ago

Isn't it possible that humans simply outbred them? You don't have to "get rid" of a population if you can interbreed and outbreed a given stock, no? It's not like one day they exist and the next they don't; rather, they slowly get absorbed into the larger, faster breeding pop. Or even disease they had no natural immunity for. I presume there would be some conflict as even among human pops conflict is a given --but not necessary one to the end.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
It's possible. It's just one of those explanations that we'd really love to believe, since the alternative is so unthinkable. It's been a hobby of mine to be skeptical of it. Even Kurzgesagt mentioned in passing that we're not sure if it was due to "a series of minor genocides." - https://youtu.be/dGiQaabX3_o?t=79 https://youtu.be/dGiQaabX3_o?t=79 - https://youtu.be/CWu29PRCUvQ?t=165 https://youtu.be/CWu29PRCUvQ?t=165 If anyone knows of breadcrumbs to follow, please chime in. Genetic testing implies it should be possible to figure out how much interbreeding took place. We seem to be able to trace extinction events with some degree of accuracy, so it would be surprising if a genocide-type extinction event was easy to confuse with interbreeding.
- ivanhoe 5y ago
  Neanderthals and humans co-existed for some 5,000 years. Think of that in terms of our modern history, and how many ethnical groups was there in that time span - and almost all of them perished completely, either destroyed or assimilated by others (usually a combination of both). Thinking of it, neanderthals actually lasted for quite long time, probably thanks to the overall scarcity of hominid populations and vast territory available to them.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    We also lived in caves for several tens of millenia across multiple stretches of time, without written language. There may have been some sort of ephemeral symbolic transfer (knots, beads, wood carvings,) but it looks like those cultures used primarily oral traditions. We know many non literate cultures develop memory palace techniques, so rigorous oral traditions can be incredibly durable and stable, with lots of information passed down accurately. All that to say, human tribes could have had detailed and specific knowledge of interactions with Neanderthals over millenia, and developed peaceful tradition that maximizes cooperation, or at least borders that kept conflict minimized. Neanderthals could likely do the same memory tricks. 5000 years is a blip - if humans find a sufficiently habitable environment, we apparently can settle for a pretty low quality of life. It only works until it doesn't, though. Neanderthals or humans could have initiated an incident, in which traditions were distrusted or discarded or lost on either side, resulting in hostility, or they lost their elders to disease and the knowledge to survive. Just like megafauna extinction, "bad humans were bad" probably doesn't come close to what actually happened. Neanderthals were likely as or more intelligent than humans, implying susceptibility to all the same conflicts, biased thinking, and bad incentives that affect human cultures. It could be environmental or biological or a pure fluke that Neanderthals didn't outlive humans, but whatever the reason they're gone, it's going to be just as convoluted and nuanced as the rise and fall of millenia old human cultures.
    - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
      Nobody ever lived in caves. Artefacts were left in caves because they're the only place where the artifacts can persist for hundreds and thousands of years, and ancient man knew this just like the modern man.
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
A clearer view might be, the population distribution changed. Fewer 'purebred' anything existed over time, and more mixed individuals. Until today we have a large fraction of humanity with both genes. It's not necessary to posit a catastrophic change. There were simply more of the new kind, so there were more of their genes in the mix and fewer Neanderthal.

ivanhoe 5y ago

They certainly didn't treat other humans anything different. In those days "us" meant the tribe or family group. Everyone else was "them", sometimes an ally, sometimes a foe, depending on the situation, resource scarcity and the power of both sides. And those were the violent times, so when there was no enough food for everyone, competition (whether it's human, neanderthal or animal) had to be either scared away or destroyed. That's how all creatures in nature function, it's a matter of survival, there's nothing unethical about that.

robbedpeter 5y ago
It's important not to underestimate the intellectual life of ancient cultures. They were humans, with language, and probably had music, stories, traditions, religion, conflict, politics, and more. Methods of oral traditions have been identified that are essentially equivalent to modern memory athlete techniques, hundreds of thousands of factoids could be transferred with very little "bitrot" over generations. There are traditions in Australian aboriginal cultures that go back 40,000 years, and very sophisticated memory techniques that perpetuated their culture. The relations between tribes near each other would have been as nuanced and varied and sophisticated and weird as any collectives of humans in relation to each other in modern life. "Those asshats downriver are rude, but they trade fair" Modern life has given us profound advantages over previous generations, but we are basically the exact same kind of creature as plains walking humans from 300k years ago. The notion of primitive simple hunter gatherer tribes doesn't account for the innate complexity of individuals. Their experience going through life would be the same as ours, we just have better (on most measures) tools and knowledge.
- int_19h 5y ago
  We are a lot less violent on average, though. Hunter-gatherer societies tend to war a lot. We don't see it as high-intensity conflict because of the low casualty numbers and lack of pitched battles. But when you look at it as percentage of the overall population, it turns out to be worse than our worst conflicts. (To be clear, not all hunter-gatherer societies are like that. Some are more peaceful than others, and there are extremes like the Moriori. But the average is what it is.)

nradov 5y ago

There is a fringe hypothesis that humans are hybrid product of chimpanzees and pigs. (I don't necessarily believe this, just found it entertaining.) https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html