Should we bring back the neanderthal species?

Post Reply New Topic

The neanderthal was acustomed to the ice age, hunting in fog and thick brush, and the stabbing spear can be used to hold the game down till it is dead. Something that runs vanishes, it seems they used the stab and lever over method.

The ice withdrew, and between 27,000 and 22,000 years ago it was hot. Several degrees warmer than today, with sea level seven meters higher. The whole hunting complex of the neanderthal was gone, the other animals were also greatly reduced, less food and more bugs.

...

The warm phase returned 8,000 years ago, turned grass, lakes, trees, with very old species of crocidiles, hippos, to bones, and formed the Sahara. It was quick. While the heat went away the desert stayed.

For what it's worth, we are still in the ice age. It began something like two million years ago (I'm not sure about the most accepted date for the beginning of the ice age.)



No.

After reading later, I see that you are talking about the previous interglacial warm period known as the Eemian. It began about 130,000 years ago and lasted for about 12,000 to 16,000 years.

There was an intermittent period where it warmed up about 60,000 years ago and lasted until about 30,000 years ago. That period was apparently not warm enough to be considered an interglacial warm period.



The most accepted time for the begining of the Holocene, our current interglacial warm period, was about 11,700 years ago. 8,000 years ago was the Holocene Climatic Optimum when it is thought to be the about two to three degrees Centigrade warmer than today. The Sahara Desert is thought to have been green during the Holocene Climatic Optimum.

All in all, I think that your description is quite accurate (don't know about the snowing six inches a day for a thousand years, though), but many of the dates seem to be way off.

There was even a brief reversion to the Ice Age between 1350 c.e and 1715 c.e (approximately) in that period there were several summers "without sun" and famine followed since the crops did not ripen for the harvest.

Now I have a question. All those prior warming periods came without any human involvement. Why is the current warming period looked upon as a man-made disaster?

ruveyn

Elephants have bigger brains than do neanderthals, modern men, or modern women.

Sperm whales (the species that moby dick belonged to) have the biggest brains of all- bigger even than the brains of the bigger blue whales (the largest animals on the planet).

Men have bigger brains than women because men have bigger body sizes.


Neanderthals were bigger boned and more muscular on average than we are. So relative to their body wieght they may not have been brainier than us.

Even if they were, and even if they were indeed 'smarter' than we are they were probably less able to pool their wisdom than we are through communication.

The Mousterian (neanderthal) stone tool culture was superior to that of the lower paleolithic ( homo erectus), but was way surpassed by that of the upper paleolithic (anatomical moderns).

There was as steady increase in "cutting edge per once of stone" in the stone tools of stone age cultures -the neanderthals were superior to their predecessors but inferior the anatomical moderns ( us when we were cave men) who drove them to extinction.

I doubt that they were unambiguously "smarter" than we are.

But their extinction was probably more complex than them being just dumber than we are either. They probably lacked some key mental talent that we have-like communication- or language skills.

All the more reason to clone them- I say- and find out!

BTW- its not as simple as the ratio of body size to brain size either.

Smaller animals have bigger brains relative to their sizes than do big animals (chihuahuas have bigger brains relative to their sizes than do st. Bernards but have no greater intelligence).

The animal with biggest brain relative to its size is the gibbon.
But gibbons are very small apes. And they are the least intelligent of apes- lower in IQ than Orangutans, chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and ofcourse humans.

So-its complex.

But one on one- a neanderthal could kick an anatomical modern's ass in any physical fight.

We don't have a complete Neanderthal genome, nor are we likely to get one.

The Neanderthals died out because we were smarter then they were. Do you want to dumb down the human race?

ruveyn

Exactly. Why create a race of humans that will be inferior? It would be cruel and twisted to the Neandertals themselves.

A larger brain, while containing more interconnected brain cells - and thus be more intelligent, would likely also be slower due to longer signal travel times.

I think some brain size contributes to intelligence but it's brain size in proportion to head size.