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The actual paper[1] clarifies something I suspected before even reading it: they were not able to rule out that these were created by early modern humans: > Un

The actual paper[1] clarifies something I suspected before even reading it: they were not able to rule out that these were created by early modern humans: > Unfortunately, the context of Le Moustier allows reasonable doubts as to whether the authors of these pieces were Neanderthals. This is so because there are no radiometric dates available for our assemblage and direct dating of the lower shelter at Le Moustier [56 to 40 ka (75)], which is adjacent to the upper shelter from where our adhesives were excavated, situates the site at the end of the Neanderthal presence in Europe. At this time (76), and even before (33, 77), H. sapiens incursions into southern Europe make it possible that Neanderthals and H. sapiens were present at the same sites. The phys.org article should have mentioned this! I suspect a lot of these "Neanderthals were more advanced than we thought stories" are actually "modern humans left Africa earlier we than thought." [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl0822 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl0822

jumploops 3y ago
Article-specifics aside, why do we always put ourselves on a pedestal? Many modern humans are, at least in part, descended from Neanderthals. Other hominids have displayed seemingly complex behavior[0]. Maybe it’s just me, but human technological superiority seems to be some combination of “enough” on the intelligence scale and “luck” (in the sense of time and place). [0] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/small-brained-hominid-species-challenges-human-exceptionalism-says-paleoanthropologist-1.7075618 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/small-brained-hominid-specie...
- SamBam 3y ago
  I've always felt it is a great sorrow that the world couldn't fit more than one intelligent hominid species on it for more than a short period before all but one were wiped out (killed, outbred, whatever). Imagine living on a planet with multiple human-level intelligent species, who somehow had managed to get to now without eradicating each other.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    These saccharine moral statements aren't really productive IMO. Nature doesn't care about any of this stuff. You might as well lament the wind that blows over a house. It's also a bit of a cognitive hijack because morality is a mechanism that existed in a very specific context because it outcompeted other genes. Applying these blueprints to this amended context is kind of an unintentional self-cuckoo.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Be like Middle-earth...
  - philwelch 3y ago
    We didn’t eradicate each other. Many of us are descended from Neanderthals and Denisovans.
    - Tor3 3y ago
      A little bit of DNA from brief interactions in the past isn't what is usually considered "descended from". It's fine to say "there's a tiny bit of Neanderthal and Denisovan in my ancestry" though.
      - zizn 3y ago
        [dead]
      - seszett 3y ago
        Studies seem to indicate that the Neanderthal population was always low though (in the low tens of thousand individuals max) unlike Homo sapiens. So at the extreme all Neanderthal individuals at one point could have been far outnumbered and ended up mating only with Homo sapiens in mixed tribes, and today we would have still ended up with only a few percent Neanderthal DNA, while all Neanderthal DNA would have ended up merged with Homo sapiens DNA. It's unlikely to be the case, but what I mean is that even though we only carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA, it doesn't mean that such a large part of Neanderthal DNA was actually lost.
- mannyv 3y ago
  Because homo sapiens survived and the others did not. Homo Sapiens beat natural selection and became more generalized instead of more specialized...for whatever reason. In fact, there is no reason, really, unless you believe the Mesopotamians (ie: we were created as work slaves).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
    Neanderthals and sapiens are the same species. People built the first cities, and the soils around got depleted, as they sent their waste down the river, instead of returning it into soil. These deficiencies turned people into deformed and mentaly ill "sapiens". The "Sapiens" didn't win, the depletion eventually became universal (or it was made so). Animals are also affected, all the megafauna died back then, now everything is dead, as the ability to remove the "toxin" exceeded the ability of life to adapt.
    - throwaway8877 3y ago
      The nature is diverse indeed.
- 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  afaik it's still debatable whether they are seperate species. maybe just a semantic thing. i think they are just one of the earlier waves of migration out-of-africa altough 99% the same as us outside of some physical adaptations.
- blurbleblurble 3y ago
  It's pretty annoying and honestly seems to be made of the same urge as racism.
zilti 3y ago
> I suspect a lot of these "Neanderthals were more advanced than we thought stories" are actually "modern humans left Africa earlier we than thought." At this point, not even that is clear anymore, by the way. There is a growing number of things that suggest Homo Sapiens might not even have originated in Africa at all.

jumploops 3y ago

Article-specifics aside, why do we always put ourselves on a pedestal? Many modern humans are, at least in part, descended from Neanderthals. Other hominids have displayed seemingly complex behavior[0]. Maybe it’s just me, but human technological superiority seems to be some combination of “enough” on the intelligence scale and “luck” (in the sense of time and place). [0] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/small-brained-hominid-species-challenges-human-exceptionalism-says-paleoanthropologist-1.7075618 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/small-brained-hominid-specie...

SamBam 3y ago
I've always felt it is a great sorrow that the world couldn't fit more than one intelligent hominid species on it for more than a short period before all but one were wiped out (killed, outbred, whatever). Imagine living on a planet with multiple human-level intelligent species, who somehow had managed to get to now without eradicating each other.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  These saccharine moral statements aren't really productive IMO. Nature doesn't care about any of this stuff. You might as well lament the wind that blows over a house. It's also a bit of a cognitive hijack because morality is a mechanism that existed in a very specific context because it outcompeted other genes. Applying these blueprints to this amended context is kind of an unintentional self-cuckoo.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Be like Middle-earth...
- philwelch 3y ago
  We didn’t eradicate each other. Many of us are descended from Neanderthals and Denisovans.
  - Tor3 3y ago
    A little bit of DNA from brief interactions in the past isn't what is usually considered "descended from". It's fine to say "there's a tiny bit of Neanderthal and Denisovan in my ancestry" though.
    - zizn 3y ago
      [dead]
    - seszett 3y ago
      Studies seem to indicate that the Neanderthal population was always low though (in the low tens of thousand individuals max) unlike Homo sapiens. So at the extreme all Neanderthal individuals at one point could have been far outnumbered and ended up mating only with Homo sapiens in mixed tribes, and today we would have still ended up with only a few percent Neanderthal DNA, while all Neanderthal DNA would have ended up merged with Homo sapiens DNA. It's unlikely to be the case, but what I mean is that even though we only carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA, it doesn't mean that such a large part of Neanderthal DNA was actually lost.
mannyv 3y ago
Because homo sapiens survived and the others did not. Homo Sapiens beat natural selection and became more generalized instead of more specialized...for whatever reason. In fact, there is no reason, really, unless you believe the Mesopotamians (ie: we were created as work slaves).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  Neanderthals and sapiens are the same species. People built the first cities, and the soils around got depleted, as they sent their waste down the river, instead of returning it into soil. These deficiencies turned people into deformed and mentaly ill "sapiens". The "Sapiens" didn't win, the depletion eventually became universal (or it was made so). Animals are also affected, all the megafauna died back then, now everything is dead, as the ability to remove the "toxin" exceeded the ability of life to adapt.
  - throwaway8877 3y ago
    The nature is diverse indeed.
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
afaik it's still debatable whether they are seperate species. maybe just a semantic thing. i think they are just one of the earlier waves of migration out-of-africa altough 99% the same as us outside of some physical adaptations.
blurbleblurble 3y ago
It's pretty annoying and honestly seems to be made of the same urge as racism.

zilti 3y ago

> I suspect a lot of these "Neanderthals were more advanced than we thought stories" are actually "modern humans left Africa earlier we than thought." At this point, not even that is clear anymore, by the way. There is a growing number of things that suggest Homo Sapiens might not even have originated in Africa at all.