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Them and Us; The Discussion of the Neandertal Predation Theory
Topic Started: Feb 18 2016, 08:00 PM (712 Views)
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LittleLazyLass
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Feb 19 2016, 04:39 PM
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Interbreeding between different species can't produce enough fertile offspring to leave that much of a notable footprint on the gene pool.

Species is an arbitrary group, they can play by any rules they want. Many brown bear populations had polar bear breed into it at some point, and the same with some species in Panthera apparently. This gets even worse with other groups other than mammals. Red factor canaries are the result of hybrids between the domestic canary (Serinus canaria) and the red siskin (Spinus cucullata), animals of different genera.

Hybrids are weird.

I don't think it particularly matters, but I don't think neanderthals are universally considered subspecies of H. sapiens and there's more evidence against that position. We're still pretty closely related to them no matter what we call them.
That's the thing people don't want to accept: Species are no better than any other Linnean rank. It works all fine and dandy when you're only looking at what's alive at a given time, but over millions of years the whole thing makes no sense, because there can't be any transitions.

So the conversation becomes the same as any conversation about what is and is not a genus.
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Feb 19 2016, 05:34 PM
I will become my own great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather
You may need to add a few thousand more "greats" to that.

LittleIslander
 
That's the thing people don't want to accept: Species are no better than any other Linnean rank. It works all fine and dandy when you're only looking at what's alive at a given time, but over millions of years the whole thing makes no sense, because there can't be any transitions.


While it is true that species lines can be blurred in some aspects such as, for example, in how we can never say at what exact date when one can say that species A became species B, that doesn't mean we should be completely arbitrary about what is and isn't the same species. Seeing as the Neanderthals were still close enough to us to interbreed and produce consistently fertile offspring, I'd say it makes a helluva lot more sense to consider them a subspecies of Homo sapiens rather than claiming they were some separate species that just happened to have no reproductive barriers with us.

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Flisch
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Feb 18 2016, 09:09 PM
Neadnerthals are humans, numbnuts. They can't 'eat human flesh' or 'rape humans' because they are humans.

How can they be humans if they rape people. Humans would never do that. :Sam:

LittleIslander
Feb 19 2016, 05:45 PM
Hybrid
Feb 19 2016, 04:39 PM
Quote:
 
Interbreeding between different species can't produce enough fertile offspring to leave that much of a notable footprint on the gene pool.

Species is an arbitrary group, they can play by any rules they want. Many brown bear populations had polar bear breed into it at some point, and the same with some species in Panthera apparently. This gets even worse with other groups other than mammals. Red factor canaries are the result of hybrids between the domestic canary (Serinus canaria) and the red siskin (Spinus cucullata), animals of different genera.

Hybrids are weird.

I don't think it particularly matters, but I don't think neanderthals are universally considered subspecies of H. sapiens and there's more evidence against that position. We're still pretty closely related to them no matter what we call them.
That's the thing people don't want to accept: Species are no better than any other Linnean rank. It works all fine and dandy when you're only looking at what's alive at a given time, but over millions of years the whole thing makes no sense, because there can't be any transitions.

So the conversation becomes the same as any conversation about what is and is not a genus.

It's only arbitrary insofar as nature doesn't do absolute distinctions ever. There's always a blurry line for everything. Species are meant to represent groups of individuals that can interbreed and create fertile offspring. If it weren't for nature's tendency to always ignore our perfectly fine definitions, it'd be all good. >:(
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Flisch
Feb 20 2016, 08:43 PM
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Feb 18 2016, 09:09 PM
Neadnerthals are humans, numbnuts. They can't 'eat human flesh' or 'rape humans' because they are humans.

How can they be humans if they rape people. Humans would never do that. :Sam:


Way to ignore my second sentence where I call it 'regular cannibalism and rape'. Stay classy.
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Flisch
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Kamineigh
Feb 20 2016, 08:49 PM
Flisch
Feb 20 2016, 08:43 PM
Kamineigh
Feb 18 2016, 09:09 PM
Neadnerthals are humans, numbnuts. They can't 'eat human flesh' or 'rape humans' because they are humans.

How can they be humans if they rape people. Humans would never do that. :Sam:


Way to ignore my second sentence where I call it 'regular cannibalism and rape'. Stay classy.

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Edited by Flisch, Feb 20 2016, 09:19 PM.
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I've been thinking on something with the book-the "fact" that Neandertals regularly hunted and ate humans may have came from the fact that chimpanzees (the one primate that the author seems to base Neandertals off of, for some stupid reason) eat more primates than other kinds of animals-although they will eat wild pigs, gamefowl, and small antelopes. Most of the meat that chimpanzees seem to eat are the various monkeys that live with chimps-and they seem to kill the monkeys in various (and shall I say disturbingly gruesome) ways.

So I'm saying that it wouldn't be so surprising if the author found out about chimp carnivory, and decided "If chimps eat more monkeys than other animals, I bet Neandertals would eat humans more than any other animal". And even this has its faults-from what I remember reading, most of the camp sights of Neanertals contained the bones of whooly mammoths and whooly rhinos than any other animal (though I think it depends on the environment that the Neandertal tribe lived in).
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lamna
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Nope, Neanderthals primarily hunted smaller prey. While it's not as exciting and mammoths and rhinoceros, most of the time they would be hunting reindeer or red deer, depending on the climate, along with horses, roe deer, ibex, chamois, etc.

It makes a lot of sense really. Deer have a lot of meat on them, and while not defenceless are much less dangerous than rhinoceros.

As far as I know, there isn't any evidence of predation (or cannibalism, if you think they are a subspecies) by Neanderthals on humans or humans on Neanderthals. It probably happened, humans have eaten each other throughout history. But at the moment, it doesn't look like either of us was regular prey. Which also makes sense. Rhinoceros are dangerous, but they are nothing compared to people.
Edited by lamna, Feb 21 2016, 06:35 PM.
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All this "Neanderthals hunted humans for sport" stuff is no different from movies having tyrannosaurs just do a lot of stomping and roaring while they mercilessly attack humans for no real reason. People love to imagine prehistoric things as being ancient, bygone monsters, even when they really weren't. It makes humans evolving sound more like an underdog story that way, and people love a good underdog story.
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Kamineigh
Feb 19 2016, 04:14 PM
LittleIslander
Feb 19 2016, 03:32 PM
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Feb 18 2016, 09:16 PM
Not even a species; they were a subspecies.
Last I checked wasn't that considered highly unlikely? I thought they were solidly considered a distinct species, not under Homo sapiens.
Considering there is a portion of the population that has Neanderthal DNA, I'd say they're a subspecies.

Interbreeding between different species can't produce enough fertile offspring to leave that much of a notable footprint on the gene pool.
we don't have any DNA samples from the species that gave rise to humans and neandertals, so using the "we has neandertal dna" claim isn't saying much.

though you may enjoy the book _Neandertal_ by, I think, Darton.
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Feb 20 2016, 09:18 PM

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that looks familiar. if only I could think of why and where.
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