Tie these two sets of information together, and we might be able to theorize some plausible scenarios for Neanderthal extinction. When you look at Neanderthal vs. Cro Magnon, you have to ask why in particular Cro Magnon survives and carries on the human line, but Neanderthals go extinct. One expert on Neanderthals and Cro Magnons argues that Cro Magnons mastered fires, burnt woodlands (hunting in which Neanderthals were better at) which created at least pockets of plains, which were better for herds of animals to be hunted (and then later managed and hunted, and then later domesticated). This seems plausible because we know that MesoAmericans and AmerIndians did this--creating areas for larger buffalo populations. They later got the horse when the Spaniards brought them, so before this they would have had to hunt buffalos on foot with dogs. Another point: burning woodlands drives the wolves off the land (even if they adapt to prairie they lose their social cohesiveness and live in smaller numbers) but perhaps helps turn them into dogs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal Additionally, Neanderthals evidently had little long-term planning when securing food. French caves show almost no salmon bones during Neanderthal occupancy but large numbers during Cro-Magnon occupancy. In contrast, Cro-Magnons planned for salmon runs months ahead of time, getting enough people together at just the right time and place to catch a lot of fish. Neanderthals appear to have had little to no social organization beyond the immediate family unit. Why Neanderthal psychology was different from the modern humans that they coexisted with for millennia is not known.[36] Due to the paucity of symbolism that Neanderthal artifacts show, Neanderthal language probably did not deal much with a verbal future tense, again restricting Neanderthal exploitation of resources. Cro-Magnon people had a much better standard of living than the hardscrabble existence available to Neanderthals. With better language skills and bigger social groups, a better psychological repertoire, and better planning, Cro-Magnon people, living alongside the Neanderthals on the same land, outclassed them in terms of life span, population, available spare time (as shown by Cro-Magnon art), physical health and lower rate of injury, infant mortality, comfort, quality of life, and food procurement. The advantages held by Cro-Magnon people let them by this time to thrive in worse climatic conditions than their Neanderthal counterparts. As weather worsened about 30,000 years ago, Jordan notes it would have taken only one or two thousand years of inferior Neanderthal skills to cause them to go extinct, in light of better Cro-Magnon performance in all these areas.[36] About 55,000 years ago, the weather began to fluctuate wildly from extreme cold conditions to mild cold and back in a matter of a few decades. Neanderthal bodies were well suited for survival in cold climate- their barrel chests and stocky limbs stored body heat better than the Cro-Magnons. However the rapid fluctuations of weather caused ecological changes that the Neanderthals could not adapt to. The weather changes were so rapid that within a lifetime the plants and animals that one had grown up would be replaced by completely different plants and animals. Neanderthal's ambush techniques would have failed as grasslands replaced trees. A large number of Neanderthals would have died during these fluctuations which maximized about 30,000 years ago. [102] Studies on Neanderthal body structures have shown than they needed more energy to survive than the Cro-Magnon man. Their energy needs were up to 350 calories more per day compared to the Cro-Magnon man. When food became scarce this calorie for survival difference played a major role in Neanderthal extinction. [102] Jordan states the Chatelperronian tool tradition suggests Neanderthals were making some attempts at advancement, as Chatelperronian tools are only associated with Neanderthal remains. It appears this tradition was connected to social contact with Cro-Magnons of some sort. There were some items of personal decoration found at these sites, but these are inferior to contemporary Cro-Magnon items of personal decoration and arguably were made more by imitation than by a spirit of original creativity. At the same time, Neanderthal stone tools were sometimes finished well enough to show some aesthetic sense.[36] As Jordan notes: "A natural sympathy for the underdog and the disadvantaged lends a sad poignancy to the fate of the Neanderthal folk, however it came about."[3 http://www.swampfox.demon.co.uk/utlah/Articles/origins1.html Paxton then takes this theory another step forward. By using carbon dating and other anthropological techniques it is known that mankind itself was undergoing a radical evolutionary change during the same period that dogs were being domesticated. We now know that there were actually two separate bipedal ape species around at this time, early Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal man. Yet for some reason Neanderthal man died out leaving Homo Sapiens to become dominant. Some believe that this may have been caused by a mass genocide on the part of the Homo Sapiens, but the period of decline was far too long, between 120,000 and 30,000 years ago. For some reason Homo Sapiens were doing better than Neanderthals, and it is now believed that it may have been the wolf that was the secret to Homo Sapiens success. >From an evolutionary viewpoint, Neanderthals were more advanced. Although Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals had similar brain sizes, Neanderthal man was known to make and trade simple tools with Homo Sapiens. They were also known to bury their dead and place flowers on the graves, something that Homo Sapiens didn't do during the same period. But most notably the Neanderthals also had a protruding face, which indicated that they had a much better sense of smell and a more effective jaw with which to kill and eat. So if Neanderthals were physically superior why did they die out and Homo Sapiens survive? It may have been down to something as simple as the wolf. Homo Sapiens were physically smaller, and with a flat face they had a smaller nasal cavity which meant a less effective sense of smell. But with a smaller head and less developed senses within it they did not require thick neck muscles for support. This allowed them to have better developed vocal cords and facial expressions, and so was capable of a more intricate and advanced society and also gave them the ability to communicate with the wolf. The degraded sense of smell and hearing was no longer important since the wolf would have replaced this sense with it's own. However, this was only half of the story. If this was all there was to the human/canine relationship then it wouldn't have lasted. Something else was required to cement the two together, and so the dogs played on the human parental instinct. The parental instincts are something programmed into the human mind to take care of it's young, so that humans find babies with big heads and large eyes attractive and feel an urge to look after them. Canine pups also share this same physical similarity with human babies, and so humans would take the most friendly and cute wolf cubs into the camp and take care of them. It was this hand rearing of the pups from birth that helped to domesticate the dog, something that has now been proved in Siberia over a period of forty years. By taking Silver Foxes into captivity and selectively breeding them, Russian scientists have discovered the process of domestication. The selection of which of these foxes were allowed to breed was incredibly simple; except for a few control subjects only the foxes that did not try to bite humans were allowed to have offspring. By only the fourth generation the offspring were tame, and by the tenth generation they were completely domesticated to such a point that they acted just like normal household dogs. It was found that these domesticated foxes were mentally in a constant childlike state, and it's for this same reason that we are able to control dogs. For if dogs were allowed to mentally mature they would be more independent and less tolerant towards their human owners. They would still act like the wolf. It may appear as if humans have controlled the dog's evolution, but look at it from the dog's point of view. It was the dogs themselves that decided to join the humans, and for them it's been very successful. Although dogs are more dependant on humans than their wild brethren the wolf, we have more dogs than children, while the numbers of wolves in the wild has been dramatically reduced. So it would truly seem that Man is a Dog's best friend. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
