Get a load of this guy? Scary to say the least. The Neanderthal seemed like quite an adversary for our ancient human cousins, and they certainly don’t look like the cuddly Geico Commercial cavemen we see all the time. Can you imagine this guy hunting and eating you, or kidnapping the women in your tribe and raping them–and probably eating them afterwards? This is the kind of stuff of horror movies if you ask me.
What I picked up on though, was how the humans were reduced to a few survivors, and these survivors happen to be the smart ones who got organized and turned around the fight. I really liked the concept of breeding to get more diverse genetics within a tribe, hence further enhancing our mental capability to fight and defend self and others. This was a fearsome enemy, and humans definitely evolved into the better ‘man’. But it took building snowmobiles and out thinking this adversary, and you see hints of that throughout this book. I think Boyd would have enjoyed reading this, because this is really the first war that we can truly learn from, as far as human behavior and why we do what we do on the battlefield and in society.
For the record, I have not been able to read this book, and have only been able to read bits and pieces that are available online. It is on my list though, and I figured I would put this out there for the readership to consider. Interesting stuff. –Matt
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70,000-year war with Neanderthals created modern humans
Neanderthals were a race of super-predators that hunted early humans to the edge of extinction in the Middle East until, at one stage, there were only about 50 of our ancestors left. These resilient survivors evolved into modern humans and staged a fight-back that led to the extinction of the Neanderthals.
These are just some of the claims of a new theory of human evolution to be published next week by Australian author, Danny Vendramini. In his book Them and Us: how Neanderthal predation created modern humans, Vendramini suggests the protracted inter-species conflict that raged between Neanderthals and humans for over 70,000 years was responsible for transforming archaic humans into fully modern humans.
The author has spent five years researching the 50,000 year period that Neanderthal and early humans both occupied the Levant and says the evidence is overwhelming that Neanderthals were not docile hominids. “These forest-dwelling creatures were the most lethal of all the prehistoric predators. They hunted the largest and fiercest prey, including lions, mammoths, rhinos, cave bears – and humans…
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Neanderthals hunted, raped and ate humans
Neanderthals were not the gentle, almost-human creatures portrayed in the media over the last 150 years. New Australian research reveals they were aggressive, powerful and terrifying carnivores—ruthless and efficient apex predators, who hunted, raped and ate early humans for over 50,000 years. The Neanderthal’s daily diet of nearly 2 kg of meat—the equivalent of 16 Quarter Pounders—included human flesh.
Based on the research, Australian independent scholar Danny Vendramini has developed “Neanderthal predation theory”, which argues that the evolution of modern humans— including our unique physiology, sexuality and human nature—is the result of a reaction to this systematic long-term sexual predation and cannibalism by Eurasian Neanderthals.
Read more at author’s website here.
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Neanderthals Were Few and Poised for Extinction
Thursday , July 16, 2009
Neanderthals are of course extinct. But there never were very many of them, new research concludes.
In fact, new genetic evidence from the remains of six Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) suggests the population hovered at an average of 1,500 females of reproductive age in Europe between 38,000 and 70,000 years ago, with the maximum estimate of 3,500 such female Neanderthals.
“It seems they never really took off in Eurasia in the way modern humans did later,” said study researcher Adrian Briggs of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
(more…)
