Man's Origins Part 4
Brian Tozer
Homo sapiens neandertalensis
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis--"Neanderthal Man"--was a robust human species
occupying Europe and western Asia from approximately 135,000 to 30,000 years
ago. They flourished in both warm interglacial periods and in the
challenging conditions of glacial advance.
A skull cap found in the Neander valley of Germany in 1857, was one of the
first fossil finds of early humans that forced a radical reconsideration of
human origins. Since the remains were found two years before Darwin's On the
Origin of Species was published, scholars had no way of accounting for the
discovery or explaining its meaning.
The Neanderthals remain something of a mystery in the story of human
descent. Scientists still debate whether they are a closely related
sub-species of modern humans or represent a collateral line of late Homo
erectus, related to but not ancestral to modern humans.
At first glance, Neanderthal remains appear primitive and crude, rather like
Homo erectus and quite different from modern humans. Their arm and leg bones
were, in fact, approximately twice as thick as ours, suggesting their
immense strength and the rugged conditions of their existence. Otherwise,
their bodies are strikingly modern. They had prominent noses, long faces
with sloping foreheads and big skulls. Their average brain capacity
(1400-1500 cc) actually exceeds that of modern humans-- although the
configuration of parts of the brain is different. The speech areas of the
Neanderthal brain are not as developed as ours and the forebrain is smaller.
The Neanderthal were the first humans to live in Ice Age conditions,
surviving by hunting the largest and most formidable Pleistocene
mammals--the mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, and wild cattle. They competed with
large wolves and lions in an extremely harsh Ice Age environment.
Remains of over a hundred Neanderthal individuals have been recovered, and
they exibit a great variety of individual characteristics.
Throughout the life of the Neanderthal species their simple tools remained
relatively unchanged. This provides us with evidence of their cultural
homogeneity and relative isolation from other species or populations. This
constrasts sharply with the rapid advances made in technology by early
modern humans.
Neanderthal sites often reveal evidence of cultural practices. In a
Neanderthal cave burial at Dordogne, France, the deceased was buried in a
fetal position with tools and food;. Flower pollen found in the grave
suggests that medicinal plants were scattered over the body as well. These
practices suggest complex beliefs and rituals.
Some Neanderthal individuals lived to middle age or older, even a few
examples who had suffered crippling diseases or injuries. A male of about 45
years of age from a site in Shanidar, in Iraq, had a left arm completely
withered from an early injury or disease. The fact that the individual with
an injury this severe survived into a relatively advanced age implies the
existence of a complex social life in which other group members would have
shared food and life-supporting tasks. This individual must have contributed
something other than physical strength to the social group in which he
lived.
It is not clear whether Neanderthals had a developed language, but there is
evidence of significant cultural development.
Neanderthals disappeared shortly after the time that modern humans appeared
in Europe, with the last survivors living in Gibralter. It is not clear
whether Neanderthals were out-competed by our ancestors, directly
exterminated, or absorbed into the gene pool of modern humans. The first
possibility appears most likely, given present evidence.
Neanderthal man died out in Europe because modern humans were more
technically and socially efficient, according. Far from being extinguished
in bloody warfare, expired quietly, pushed to the economic margins, and
unable to resist drastic climatic changes.
First appearing more than a quarter of a million years ago, Homo sapiens
neanderthalensis is thought to be the direct descendant of earlier hominids
including Boxgrove Man. Named after an 1856 discovery in western Germany,
the European Neanderthals developed powerful bodies adapted to a cold
climate, and also stone tools made from flakes; whether they had fully human
speech is still not known. Having survived successfully until less than
40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals died out within a few millennia. The fact
that a whole population across an entire continent disappeared suggests that
a complex relationship with new arrivals was the cause.
Just prior to the Neanderthal decline, Homo sapiens sapiens, first appeared
in Europe and rapidly colonised the entire continent as far west as Spain.
Entering from the Near East around 43,000 years ago, the movement was
complete by 39,000 years ago.
Neanderthalers survived the influx, however, and their stone tools at this
period show the influence of technological innovations brought by the
newcomers. The "Aurignacian" tool kit of modern humans was based on long
flint blades, which were then worked into many different cutting, scraping
and piercing implements, and which were also used to make a wide range of
bone, antler and wood tools and hunting weapons.
The distribution of Aurignacian sites documents the rapid expansion of
modern humans, but in southwestern France it is clear that Neanderthal
groups continued to exist side by side with them for up to 6,000 years. This
could have been due to low population densities, so that there was no
immediate competition for resources, or to the targeting of different food
sources: modern humans exploited reindeer herds heavily, while Neanderthals
hunted a wide range of animals.
A drastic climatic change around 35,000 years ago, with temperatures
dropping up to 8C over less than 100 years, reduced the Neanderthals'
resources and thrust them into direct competition with modern humans.
Neanderthal society may have become fragmented, The gross disruption of
economy and society could have left small isolated populations, at much
higher risk of local extinction from disease, resource failure and a
diminished breeding group.
At the same time, modern humans would have had a much more efficient network
of communication to facilitate survival, especially with their use of
speech; even though Neanderthal burial rituals and tools point to a
developed ability to transmit ideas, it is doubtful if they had the
physiological ability to speak in the same way.
The sudden appearance of cave art in western Europe at sites with
Aurignacian tools, with painted caves such as the recently-discovered Grotte
Chauvet dating back some 30,000 years indicates a much more complex symbolic
system. This in turn would make co-operation of groups in pursuit of a
common good, such as large herds of animals, easier.
There does not seem to have been any interbreeding with modern humans: the
notion that our ancestors outcompeted the Neanderthal males for women as
well as food must be discarded. Instead, the Neanderthals were hit by
deteriorating climate and resources, an expanding and culturally more
efficient immigrant population of modern humans, and the fragmentation of
their own society under the strain.
There was a vast change in a very short time, and modern humans had the
abilities to make culture triumph over nature. Their tool kit was more
flexible and efficient as were their social interactions, and they may even
have been better physically adapted to the cold.
Homo sapiens sapiens
Homo sapiens sapiens are often called Cro-Magnon after an early discovery
site in France, with a 130,000 year-old skull representing the earliest
known example of a modern human being. It was found at Omo in East Africa;
skull size and shape are completely modern. Homo sapiens sapiens moved into
Europe around 35,000 years ago at the latest.
A H. sapiens sapiens skull is smaller and more compact and the face is much
less elongated than a Neanderthal, with a higher forehead, less prominent
brow-ridges and smaller teeth. Modern humans are typically much less robust
in body form and skeleton than Neanderthals.
These early Europeans were able to adapt to the severe conditions of the ice
age and compete with the largest carnivores for the most formidable prey
animals. With the aid of their advanced cultural and technological
resources, they were able to specialize and adapt to severe local
conditions. Hunters living near the ice, followed the vast caribou or
reindeer herds; hunters in Central and Eastern Europe lived a dangerous life
hunting the Mammoth.
The artifacts of Homo sapiens sapiens are at first indistinuishable from
Neanderthal tools. Soon thereafter, however, they evolve into far more
sophisticated forms than any which preceded them, and henceforth the tool
kit shows a tendency to change fairly rapidly over time.
Dozens of cave sites have been found in Europe with remarkable paintings and
other art work dating from the the last glacial advance 25,000-14,000 years
ago. Cave sites are still being discovered in Europe with the cave at
Lascaux, France being perhaps the most famous of these sites.. Cave art is
found usually deep underground, far removed from the living areas of the
caves, which helps account for their preservation. A few carved stone
reliefs have been found outside of caves.
Cultural Chronology
Prehistorical times are studied in three separate periods. Since the
emergence of humans until 12000 B.C., this first period is called the
Palaeolithic Age; this period is also named the Old Stone Age. The
Palaeolithic Age which left only cave paintings, primitive stone tools and
monuments was followed by a transitional period between 12000 B.C. and 8000
B.C. called the Mesolithic Age or Middle Stone Age.
This period also established the foundations for systematic organisation of
agriculture and cities during the Neolithic Age. The Neolithic Age emerged
between 8000 and 2700 B.C. It is also known as the New Stone Age. This
period was not experienced at the same time throughout the world.
Continental Europe did not come into the Neolithic Age until much later
after Asia minor.
A genetic investigation of mitochondrial DNA in the European poulation,
suggests, that the bulk of Europeans are descended from people who were here
before the farmers began to arrive. There appear to have been two phases:
first the colonisation of Europe up to 40,000 years ago and then a rapid
expansion of population about 25,000 years ago, which may have been caused
by new immigration or by a warmer climate.
The results indicate that agriculture came to Europe by a process of
education rather than population displacement. The hunter-gatherers learnt
to cultivate crops from the incoming wave of farmers, but were not replaced
by them.
These two groups then interbred, producing today's population mix. As for
the Neanderthals, they neither learnt from the incomers nor bred with them,
losing out to modern man and being replaced totally by him.
EQ
--
Brian Tozer
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