New Information (relatively) on Neanderthals being like US and part of our Ancestry

[JimBowie1958]

Some recent discoveries regarding Neanderthals and some not so recent, give us a totally different view of Neanderthal and the ideas on how they went extinct.

Neanderthal Speech and Language Comparable to Modern Humans : Science : Nature World News

Researchers Dan Dediu and Stephen Levinson review all these strands of literature and argue that modern language and speech are an ancient feature of today's humanity dating back at least to the most recent ancestor we share with the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, another form of humanity known mostly from their genome.

This interpretation of the limited information available on the topic contradicts the scenario usually assumed by most language scientists of a sudden and recent emergence of modernity, presumably due to either a single or limited number of genetic mutations. Rather, the scientists argue that a gradual accumulation of biological as well as cultural innovations is much more likely.

In doing so, the researchers push back the origins of modern language by a factor of 10 from the oft-cited 50,000 years or so ago to around one million years ago between the origins of our genus, Homo, and the emergence of Homo heidelbergensis.

Scientists say our languages might preserve Neanderthal talk - NBC News.com

 

[JimBowie1958]

Neanderthals Lacked Social Skills : Discovery News

Another theory, supported by this new study, is that Neanderthals went extinct because they were less capable of forming larger social networks. Pearce theorized that "smaller social groups might have made Neanderthals less able to cope with the difficulties of their harsh Eurasian environments because they would have had fewer friends to help them out in times of need."

She continued, "Overall, differences in brain organization and social cognition may go a long way towards explaining why Neanderthals went extinct whereas modern humans survived."

Dunbar further thinks that new diseases brought in by humans could have hurt Neanderthals. He said, "It was clear that, by the end, they were struggling to maintain a foothold in Ice Age Europe, having been squeezed down into the southern appendages of Europe (in places like Spain and Italy)."

Clive Gamble, an expert on the archaeology of human origins and a professor at Southampton University praised the new work, saying, "This paper cracks a big problem in human evolution. Neanderthals had brains as big as ours, yet did not regularly produce the sorts of cultural stuff- art, ornamentation and complicated tools -- that we take for granted…Brains got bigger, but in different ways."

http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm

Al

l the areas that are central to neurodiversity are related to species-typical adaptations that vary widely between species. These include nonverbal signals, social organization, sensory acuteness, perception, motor skills, general preferences, sexuality, courtship, physical traits and biological adaptations. Some of this diversity is poorly understood and virtually unresearched and therefore is not published in peer-reviewed journals. Because of this lack of research, Aspie Quiz, an online questionnary, is heavily referenced for these traits.

Recent genetic research have demonstrated that Neanderthals contributed at least 1-4% to the non-African genome. Aspie Quiz have demonstrated in a large survey in the US population that Afroamericans have only 1/6 of the autism incidence of non-African groups.

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of Aspie Quiz yields axes that seems to be related to the first Eurasian Homo, the formation of modern humans in Africa or South Asia and the hybridization between modern humans and Neanderthals in Eurasia.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Famous Cave Paintings Might Not Be From Humans : NPR

Study: Neanderthals Wore Jewelry And Makeup : NPR

Most Neanderthals Were Right-Handed Like Us | LiveScience

Sex with Neanderthals Gave Humans Immunity Boost | Neanderthals & Denisovans | HLA Genes & Human Immune System | Out-of-Africa Theory & Human Evolution | LiveScience

And off topic a bit, but thought many might find it interesting
One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes | LiveScience

 

[Friends]

Evidence from their skeletons and campsites gives evidence that Neanderthals were less intelligent than the Cro Magnons who displaced them.

There was some intermingling between Neanderthals and Cro Magnons. Some Neanderthal genes were worth having, so they remained with us.

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd fergot to dress up fer Halloween - ever'body thought he was a Neanderthal...

Slow Flow of Human Migration May Have Doomed Neanderthals
October 31, 2017 — What killed off the Neanderthals? It's a big debate, and now a study says that no matter what the answer, they were doomed anyway.

Our close evolutionary cousins enjoyed a long run in Europe and Asia, but they disappeared about 40,000 years ago after modern humans showed up from Africa. The search for an explanation has produced many theories including climate change, epidemics, or inability to compete with the modern humans, who may have had some mental or cultural edge. The new study isn't intended to argue against those factors, but just to show that they're not needed to explain the extinction, says Oren Kolodny of Stanford University. He and colleague Marcus Feldman present their approach in a paper released Tuesday by the journal Nature Communications.

They based their conclusion on a computer simulation that represented small bands of Neanderthals and modern humans in Europe and Asia. These local populations were randomly chosen to go extinct, and then be replaced by another randomly chosen population, with no regard for whether it represented the same species. Neither species was assumed to have any inherent advantage, but there was one crucial difference: Unlike the Neanderthals, the modern humans were supplemented by reinforcements coming in from Africa. It wasn't a huge wave, but rather “a tiny, tiny trickle of small bands,” Kolodny said.

Reconstructions of a Neanderthal man, left, and woman, at the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann, Germany.​

Still, that was enough to tip the balance against the Neanderthals. They generally went extinct when the simulation was run more than a million times under a variety of assumptions. If survival was a game of chance, “it was rigged by the fact that there's recurring migration,” Kolodny said. “The game was doomed to end with the Neanderthals losing.” Kolodny said the evidence that such migrations actually occurred is suggestive rather than conclusive. Such migrations would not be expected to leave much of an archaeological trace, he said.

Experts in human origins said the paper could help scientists pin down the various factors that led to the Neanderthals' demise. It fits in with other recent attempts to explain the extinction without assuming behavioral differences between Neanderthals and our ancestors, said Wil Roebroeks of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. The notion of such differences is largely disproven, he said. Katerina Harvati of the University of Tuebingen in Germany said while the new work could be useful in solving the extinction mystery, it doesn't address the question of why modern humans dispersed from Africa into Europe and Asia. It's important to figure out what was behind that, she said in an email.

Slow Flow of Human Migration May Have Doomed Neanderthals

 

[whitehall]

Did you read the link? It's based on broad assumptions and complete double talk and mostly bull shit. Scientists ain't got a clue of Neanderthal speech.

 

[harmonica]

Did you read the link? It's based on broad assumptions and complete double talk and mostly bull shit. Scientists ain't got a clue of Neanderthal speech.

based on intelligent assumptions by scientists that study the subject

 

[harmonica]

IMO only, considering the complex culture of the Egyptians, Romans, etc I would think man would have had to had an ''alphabet''/writing/speech thousands of years before those cultures
...an alphabet [ written language ] is very conducive to advancement of culture/technology/etc
it just makes sense speech comes before an alphabet/writing
seems logical the Neanderthals would have an ''advanced'' speech culture