Were they actually the same species? There are some theories that say they intebred and neandertals were absorbed into homo sapiens, others say that humans drove neandertals to extinction. Anyone have opinions on this?
some scientists say that they were another specie (source- discovery). I tend to agree with that There has been found a skeleton of a small girl that clearly shows that neandertals had sex with homo sapiens- but it is not known if it's a rare case or smthing usual. The main theory why neandertals perished is because homo sapiens were nomads- they went there, where their food was- followed their food. Neandertals sticked in one place for hundreds of jears (cave excavations) supposedly when ice age retreated , food changed it's location and neandertals didn't follow- thus the extenction but I think that homo sapiens had put their hand into it- first they drove neandertals out of their living territories when homo sapiens came from the south following the glacier neandertals were driven off to poorer territories- less food , less chance to survive there are no findings of what I know of any neandertal and homo sapiens battles though
reply to Avatar Neanderthals and modern humans are considered to be the same species (but different sub-species). I have not seen any references that they're considered separate species. The theory you site for Neanderthal extinxtion (non-nomadic) is probably incorrect. I can't imagine where you read it. But, if one took species persistence as a criteria for success, then Neanderthals would be considered more successful than modern humans as they persisted for a few hundreds of thousands of years (probably through more than one ice age) and modern humans have persisted for about 50 thousand years.
ok- I agree with you - different specie it is not thank you my source of non-nomad theory is discovery here I don't agree- Modern humans maybe weren't yet "formed" then, but when they did, Neanderthals couldn't compete with them. Neanderthals had existed longer, but who exists now? also I would like to hear your theory of why Neanderthals perished...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
a possibility Perhaps something like this happened to the Neanderthals, which would explain why Homo Sapiens exist today and they (Neanderthals) do not. ------------------------------------------ Did chimps outlast ancient AIDS? AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Aug. 29 — Researchers theorize that an AIDS-like epidemic wiped out huge numbers of chimpanzees 2 million years ago, leaving modern chimps with resistance to the AIDS virus and its variants. Full article here: http://www.msnbc.com/news/801032.asp ------------------------------------------ Maybe there was some other epidemic that Homo Sapiens had a resistance to, but Neanderthals did not. As for the "are they the same species" question: I read somewhere a few days ago that DNA fragments have been extracted from Neanderthal remains, and from what they can tell now, they don't appear to be different from Homo Sapiens. But I guess you probably couldn't tell for sure unless you had a full living cell to do more testing on. *shrug*
Reply to Avatar You said, "Modern humans maybe weren't yet "formed" then, but when they did, Neanderthals couldn't compete with them." There is no evidence that modern humans and Neanderthals ever "competed." Even if they did, it was on a very localized scale (i.e. Neanderthals were extremely widely distributed relative to modern humans). If (and this is a big if) Neanderthals "perished," I suspect it was due to an epidemic, no evidence here though. It has been suggested that Neanderthals are NOT extinct, and exist among us today, that in fact we ARE part Neanderthal. I suspect that this is true.
true- especially if you have been to some parts of russia...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I have a wild theory. That aliens came and had sex with the neanderthals and that homo sapiens where their children. But sometimes I wonder if we still don't have neanderthals left on Earth, because some people actually do look exactly like them. I do not think that they were less intelligent than homo sapiens, just that they hadn't evolved to the final stage yet. And then came the aliens and rushed the whole thing ahead, so the species died out before its time. So maybe they should have been the true earthlings. We are just hybrids, hence our low understanding of the deep connection that nature and ourselves have. We are chopping off the branch we are sitting on. Would they have done that?
According to a discovery channel program I saw a long time ago, Neanderthal is a totally different specie. There is no traces of Neanderthal found in human. That has changed last year. Some scientists found evidence of Neanderthal genes in human and suggested that human didn't actually kill off Neanderthal but assimilated them.
reply to popcorn There were indeed more species in the genus Homo, all of which are now extinct. I am not sure how many, if any, of these species co-existed or if they were sequential. This should be easy enough to determine with a little literature research.
