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I wonder if adaptation to cold in Neanderthals included torpor during the winter. That could at least provide an alternative explanation for their eradication/d
by Qem 2y ago
I wonder if adaptation to cold in Neanderthals included torpor during the winter. That could at least provide an alternative explanation for their eradication/dilution by Sapiens, despite the evidence they had greater physical strength and larger brains than the later. The newly arrived Sapiens learned to raid Neanderthal shelters in the winter, while they slept and were mostly defenseless.
- antegamisou 2y ago> larger brains than the latter What matters though is how efficient were the H. Sapiens brains.
- mistrial9 2y agoI read somewhere, long ago, that larger brain is not necessarily better "intelligence" .. maybe a survey of primate brains.. pointers welcome
- twojacobtwo 2y agoFrom the little I've read and watched regarding animal intelligence, it's typically mentioned that the brain-to-body size ratio is more important/correlated to estimated intelligence than brain size alone. It seems to help explain things like the outsized intelligence of certain smaller animals (e.g. corvids), but it also seems to only be a partial explanation.
- Jensson 2y agoMakes more sense to dedicate larger share of body-mass to brains the smarter the brain is. So I don't think it is that the big brain makes them smart, its that smart brains can make up for being a bigger burden so they grow larger.
- suzzer99 2y agoThat's a fascinating idea.
- jeltz 2y agoThe article claims that while Neaderthals had some cold adaptations they were not exclusively so. So your idea is very far fetched.
- whythre 2y agoHumans can exhibit some mild torpor like behavior in extreme winter conditions. We are not ‘exclusively’ cold adapted lifeforms. Even if the Neanderthals had more adaptations for surviving in northern climates that does not mean they are exclusive polar specialists like the arctic fox or the polar bear.
- icegreentea2 2y agoThere's one paper from 2020 suggesting that Neanderthals may have torpor (there's some evidence in bone growth patterns suggesting that they basically just... stopped during winters). That being said, Homo Sapiens likely could have directly out-competed Neanderthals even without this hypothesis. While Neanderthals almost certainly could overpower Homo Sapiens, we've yet to find any evidence of projectile use amongst Neanderthals, especially bow and arrow. There's also some evidence suggesting that Neanderthals biomechanics/skeletons would have severely restricted their ability to use throwing spears. The spread of Homo Sapiens tends to coincide with local changes in climate transitioning from forest to grassland environments, which would have further favored the the apparent range advantage that H. Sapiens had. That's what we've found so far anyways.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoThere are still many uncertainties about how sapiens outcompeted and interbred neanderthals. How hard was it for them to find food in winter? Less food could also explain slowed growth. Why did they not invent spears or bows? Maybe they were accurate enough with stones.
- inglor_cz 2y ago"we've yet to find any evidence of projectile use amongst Neanderthals, especially bow and arrow" Interestingly, the same is true about their contemporary Homo sapiens sapiens competitors. There is no evidence of use of bows and arrows in Europe until way after the Neanderthals died out.
- andrewflnr 2y agoDon't forget the part about spear throwing.
- teruakohatu 2y ago> There's one paper from 2020 suggesting that Neanderthals may have torpor (there's some evidence in bone growth patterns suggesting that they basically just... stopped during winters). Do you have a link for that. It would be fascinating if true and would easily explain how they were out competed to Homo Sapiens. There is just one warm-blooded Primate, the Lemur, which experiences torpor. So there is precedent within the order taxon.
- wil421 2y agoIs this fiction, fantasy, or some far off prediction based on science? Sapiens barely like sapiens who look different, I’d bet they killed or outcast them just like what happens today.
- lkrubner 2y agoSapiens in Europe went extinct roughly the same time that Neanderthals in Europe went extinct, or shortly thereafter. Careful DNA testing has not been any to detect any DNA signature that carried from 30,000 BC to the present population. All humans, of all species, seemed to have gone extinct at some point. It is known that Europe was colonized by Neolithic farmers who expanded out of Turkey about 17,000 years ago, this group had DNA that is still found in the modern population. But none of the older DNA seems to have survived. Therefore it is not clear that Sapiens eradicated or diluted Neanderthals in Europe. They all died out.
- selimthegrim 2y agoBut then, where did the people the Neolithic farmers mixed with come from?
- lkrubner 2y agoThat mixing of Sapien and Neanderthal genes, which survives in the modern population, occurred in the Middle East, in the Caucus mountains, and in modern day Turkey. But of the Sapien DNA that we have from Europe before 30,000 BC, we cannot find any trace of it in the modern population.
- lukan 2y agoThere are people with Neanderthal genes, so it cannot be true, that they all died out.
- Qem 2y agoMaybe some European fairy-tales have much deeper roots in history than we think? Perhaps the original sleeping beauty was a Neanderthal lady kidnapped as a bride while in torpor, by an invading Sapiens group. Things like that happening back in the ice age could help explain both the remnants of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes and provide an foundation to the folk tale.
- wqaatwt 2y ago