Showing posts with label neandertal man. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neandertal man. Show all posts

Friday, October 8, 2010

Volcanoes Wiped out Neanderthals, New Study Suggests

The Semeru volcano in Indonesia. New research suggests that climate change following massive volcanic eruptions drove Neanderthals to extinction and cleared the way for modern humans to thrive in Europe and Asia. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2010) — New research suggests that climate change following massive volcanic eruptions drove Neanderthals to extinction and cleared the way for modern humans to thrive in Europe and Asia.

The research, led by Liubov Vitaliena Golovanova and Vladimir Borisovich Doronichev of the ANO Laboratory of Prehistory in St. Petersburg, Russia, is reported in the October issue of Current Anthropology.

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Monday, September 27, 2010

Did Volcanoes Wipe Out Neanderthals?

Advances in stone toolmaking and other cultural innovations achieved by modern humans shortly after 40,000 years ago supported survival in harsh, postvolcanic habitats. iStockphoto

From Discovery News:

Neanderthals may have gone out with a bang.

Neandertals didn't get dumped on prehistory's ash heap -- it got dumped on them. At least three volcanic eruptions about 40,000 years ago devastated Neandertals' western Asian and European homelands, spurring a rapid demise of these humanlike hominids, says a team led by archaeologist Liubov Golovanova of the ANO Laboratory of Prehistory in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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Friday, September 24, 2010

Neandertals Blasted Out Of Existence, Archaeologists Propose

TRINKETS OF SURVIVAL Human-made items, such as these pendants fashioned from animals' teeth, appeared in a Russian cave shortly after volcanic eruptions around 40,000 years ago wiped out Neandertal populations in the area, researchers say.Golovanova et al.

From Science News:

Modern humans may have thrived thanks to geographic luck, not wits.

Neandertals didn’t get dumped on prehistory’s ash heap — it got dumped on them. At least three volcanic eruptions about 40,000 years ago devastated Neandertals’ western Asian and European homelands, spurring a rapid demise of these humanlike hominids, says a team led by archaeologist Liubov Golovanova of the ANO Laboratory of Prehistory in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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Neandertals Were Able To 'Develop Their Own Tools'

From The BBC:

Neanderthals were keen on innovation and technology and developed tools all on their own, scientists say.

A new study challenges the view that our close relatives could advance only through contact with Homo sapiens.

The team says climate change was partly responsible for forcing Neanderthals to innovate in order to survive.

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Last Neanderthals In Europe Died Out 37,000 Years Ago

Teeth from Pego do Diabo, Portugal (Credit: Photo by courtesy of PLoS ONE)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 27, 2010) — The paper, by Professor João Zilhão and colleagues, builds on his earlier research which proposed that, south of the Cantabro-Pyrenean mountain chain, Neanderthals survived for several millennia after being replaced or assimilated by anatomically modern humans everywhere else in Europe.

Although the reality of this 'Ebro Frontier' pattern has gained wide acceptance since it was first proposed by Professor Zilhão some twenty years ago, two important aspects of the model have remained the object of unresolved controversy: the exact duration of the frontier; and the causes underlying the eventual disappearance of those refugial Neanderthal populations (ecology and climate, or competition with modern human immigrants).

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Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Many Mysteries of Neanderthals

Comparison between Neanderthal and modern human skeletons. Photo: K. Mowbray, Reconstruction: G. Sawyer and B. Maley, Copyright: Ian Tattersall

From Live Science:

We are currently the only human species alive, but as recently as maybe 24,000 years ago another one walked the earth — the Neanderthals.

These extinct humans were the closest relatives we had, and tantalizing new hints from researchers suggest that we might have been intimately close indeed. The mystery of whether Neanderthals and us had sex might possibly get solved if the entire Neanderthal genome is reported soon as expected. The matter of why they died and we succeeded, however, remains an open question.

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Friday, July 17, 2009

Neanderthals Were Few And Poised For Extinction

From Live Science:

Neanderthals are of course extinct. But there never were very many of them, new research concludes.

In fact, new genetic evidence from the remains of six Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) suggests the population hovered at an average of 1,500 females of reproductive age in Europe between 38,000 and 70,000 years ago, with the maximum estimate of 3,500 such female Neanderthals.

"It seems they never really took off in Eurasia in the way modern humans did later," said study researcher Adrian Briggs of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Neandertals Sophisticated And Fearless Hunters, New Analysis Shows

Model of the Neanderthal man. Exhibited in the Dinosaur Park Münchehagen, Germany. (Credit: iStockphoto/Klaus Nilkens)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (May 14, 2009) — Neandertals, the 'stupid' cousins of modern humans were capable of capturing the most impressive animals. This indicates that Neandertals were anything but dim. Dutch researcher Gerrit Dusseldorp analysed their daily forays for food to gain insights into the complex behaviour of the Neandertal. His analysis revealed that the hunting was very knowledge intensive.

Although it is now clear that Neandertals were hunters and not scavengers, their exact hunting methods are still something of a mystery. Dusseldorp investigated just how sophisticated the Neandertals' hunting methods really were. His analysis of two archaeological sites revealed that Neandertals in warm forested areas preferred to hunt solitary game but that in colder, less forested areas they preferred to hunt the more difficult to capture herding animals.

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