The Neanderthal Legacy by Paul Mellars

Hildegarda said:
brainwave said:
The survival of neanderthal genes including those that makes one prone to violence, aggression and lack of empathy would then require an infusion of genes from a more evolutionary stable population- one with traits of higher intelligence and adaptability in its genetic pool. This is what would seem more conducive to essential psychopathy as we understand it, hence it begins-with mixing. Before that it was just a seed comprising aggression and lack of empathy but that is not all that makes an essential psychopath, right? The intelligence to do something with those traits i.e., ability to manipulate in various social situations is more like it. So the cro-magnon population with just a little or no neanderthal genes would also be more or less stable for a long period of time even in a changing environment, while neanderthals could be stable as long as the environment was relatively stable. As this population of cro-magnons grew, the regionally scattered small bands of neanderthals were stably declining. So the cro-magnons that were not essential psychopaths neither were neanderthals, though the latter were to some degree psychopath like.

this is exactly how I understood it as well, thank you very much for the summary

Me too. It was only the mixing that created a problem. It was a hybrid, not necessarily a mutation. Though, certainly, there can also be mutations across the spectrum of types.

In "Prehistory of the Mind," there is a good bit of space devoted to analyzing the societies of other primates such as chimps, large apes, etc, in order to compare the workings of the mind. He then goes on to discuss the Neanderthal question and it seems obvious that the Neanderthal society was rather similar to that of chimps - sometimes disturbingly so. Reading that, of course, stimulated me to want to read the data on which those opinions were based which is why I ended up with Mellars' textbook.

After reading Mellars, I have to agree with Steven Mithen about Neanderthals, though his theory about how Cro-Magnon came to be falls really flat. At least Tattersall and Mellars have the grace to admit that the appearance of Cro-Magnon is inexplicable and they are at a loss to explain it.
 
Quote from Mrs. Knight-Jadczyk

It may be significant to note that the mtDNA does not show mixing, so whatever infusion of Neanderthal genetics into modern human lines was probably a Neanderthal raping a homo sapiens woman.

Not necessarily.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/neandertals/neandertal_dna/neandertals-live-genome-sequencing-2010.html


But wait a minute. I thought the mitochondrial DNA proved that Neandertals are extinct!

Selection. Selection. Selection.

I've been saying it for years. I've published it. Will you learn to listen to me, already?

The mtDNA of Neandertals is gone because it conferred some disadvantage. There are many reasons to suspect this -- the Neandertal variation is itself apparently recently derived; the human variation is clearly in disequilibrium, especially outside Africa; the mtDNA genes affect functions that differ greatly in Neandertal and recent populations, including energetics, longevity, and brain; there are clear signs of mtDNA selection in many recent human populations.

Mitochondrial DNA is useful for a lot of reasons, but nobody should ever have relied on it alone as evidence of Neandertal population dynamics.

In other words, it is possible that gene flow was a two-way street, but for whatever reason, Neanderthal mtDNA was not adaptive in the long run. So the "Daughter lines" of any putative male Homo sapiens sapiens-female Homo sapiens neandertalensis are long extinct. However, that does not rule out the "Son lines" of such unions, who would only contribute nuclear DNA and a few other proteins.

This other section of the article is _VERY_ interesting.

What about recent selection?

One of the really exciting aspects of this work is that both Green and colleagues and Burbano and colleagues look for things that all humans today share but Neandertals lack.

You might call these "the genes that make us modern," although functionally we have little idea what any of them do.

Both papers show one thing that is extremely interesting: There aren't very many such genetic changes.

Burbano and colleagues put together a microarray including all the amino acid changes inferred to have happened on the human lineage. They used this to genotype the Neandertal DNA, and show that out of more than 10,000 amino acid changes that happened in human evolution, only 88 of them are shared by humans today but not present in the Neandertals.

That's amazingly few.

Green and colleagues did a similar exercise, except they went looking for "selective sweeps" in the ancestors of today's' humans. These are regions of the genome that have an unusually low amount of incomplete lineage sorting with Neandertals, and therefore represent shallow genealogies for all living people. They identify 212 regions that seem to be new selected genes present in humans and not in Neandertals. This number is probably fairly close to the real number of selected changes in the ancestry of modern humans, because it includes non-coding changes that might have been selected.

Again, that's really a small number. We have roughly 200,000-300,000 years for these to have occurred on the human lineage -- after the inferred population divergence with Neandertals, but early enough that one of these selected genes could reach fixation in the expanding and dispersing human population. That makes roughly one selected substitution per 1000 years.

Which is more or less the rate that we infer by comparing humans and chimpanzees. What this means is simple: The origin of modern humans was nothing special, in adaptive terms. To the extent that we can see adaptive genetic changes, they happened at the basic long-term rate that they happened during the rest of our evolution.

Now from my perspective, this means something even more interesting. In our earlier work, we inferred a recent acceleration of human evolution from living human populations. That is a measure of the number of new selected mutations that have arisen very recently, within the last 40,000 years. And most of those happened within the past 10,000 years.

In that short time period, more than a couple thousand selected changes arose in the different human populations we surveyed. We demonstrated that this was a genuine acceleration, because it is much higher than the rate that could have occurred across human evolution, from the human-chimpanzee ancestor.

What we now know is that this is a genuine acceleration compared to the evolution of modern humans, within the last couple hundred thousand years.

Our recent evolution, after the dispersal of human populations across the world, was much faster than the evolution of Late Pleistocene populations. In adaptive terms, it is really true -- we're more different from early "modern" humans today, than they were from Neandertals. Possibly many times more different.
 
Arctodus said:
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/neandertals/neandertal_dna/neandertals-live-genome-sequencing-2010.html


But wait a minute. I thought the mitochondrial DNA proved that Neandertals are extinct!

Selection. Selection. Selection.

I've been saying it for years. I've published it. Will you learn to listen to me, already?

The mtDNA of Neandertals is gone because it conferred some disadvantage. There are many reasons to suspect this -- the Neandertal variation is itself apparently recently derived; the human variation is clearly in disequilibrium, especially outside Africa; the mtDNA genes affect functions that differ greatly in Neandertal and recent populations, including energetics, longevity, and brain; there are clear signs of mtDNA selection in many recent human populations.

Mitochondrial DNA is useful for a lot of reasons, but nobody should ever have relied on it alone as evidence of Neandertal population dynamics.

Arctodus said:
In other words, it is possible that gene flow was a two-way street, but for whatever reason, Neanderthal mtDNA was not adaptive in the long run. So the "Daughter lines" of any putative male Homo sapiens sapiens-female Homo sapiens neandertalensis are long extinct. However, that does not rule out the "Son lines" of such unions, who would only contribute nuclear DNA and a few other proteins.

Very interesting.
That means, then, that the mtDNA research that established the "bottleneck" at about 300KYA - the "out of Africa Eve" ain't necessarily definitive.
 
After Cro-Magnon man arrived in Europe, Europe apparently achieved a sort of nirvana civilization that was apparently peaceful for over 25,000 years. (That may not be the case amongst all tribes, but we know that they were not imperialistic because they were almost unknown to the rest of the world, at least as far as modern history is concerned. They stayed there, were satisfied and stable and were, in fact, the last bastion of the hunter-gatherer way of life in the regions now known as "western society."

From "The Origins of Wars: Violence in Prehistory" we read:

Briefly, the long succession of wars, invasions, and destruction which
characterized the Eastern Mediterranean region during the second millennium
bce include: the destruction of the Babylonian empire by the Kassites and
Hittites; raids carried out by the Kingdom of Hatti across the whole of the
Anatolian periphery; nomad invasions which shook the Assyrian empire;
successful invasions by the pharaohs as far afield as Nubia and Syria; and
wars directed by the Ramessides against the Hittites and Sea Peoples.
Greek history seems to have been equally violent. In the third millennium
bce, eyries were built in the Cyclades islands and in Kastri (Syros) and concealed
behind fortified walls in order to prevent piracy in the surrounding
area. In Asia Minor, the second city of Troy erected fortified walls, flanked by
towers, on a hilltop; other cities in Anatolia, Syria, and Palestine had similar
defenses in place. In the second millennium bce, the Mycenean cities of
Mycenae, Tiryns, and Pylos barricaded themselves in behind heavily fortified
city walls and set about going to war.

Homer, the earliest of the Greek poets, set the tone in praising the virtues
of warfare. In the Iliad, he describes how the Greeks and Trojans became
enraged, thirsting for blood. Even the gods took sides, supporting their
heroes. Homer refers repeatedly to the heroes’ relentless efforts and describes
scenes of horrific fatal injuries and decapitated bodies as the war continued
to rage. Such sickeningly morbid details frequently form the focus of his
descriptions. The Odyssey is just as violent: upon his return to Ithaca, Ulysses
massacres Penelope’s suitors in cold blood, leading to all-out carnage. So it
seems that the Greeks, experts in the writings of Homer, were also schooled
in violence and severity.

The works of the three great ancient Greek historians – Herodotus,
Thucydides, and Xenophon – are largely devoted to warfare. Herodotus, the
“father of history” renowned for having documented many well-known events,
describes the battles that took place in the Aegean, Persia, Egypt, and the
land of the Scythians. Thucydides devoted himself entirely to his one work,
The History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the bloody confrontations
that occurred between Sparta and Athens during the fifth century bce.
Xenophon picks up where this narrative left off in 411 bce, describing the
final stages of this encounter. Later, in Anabasis, he describes the fate of those
Greek mercenaries who were in the pay of Cyrus, king of Persia, in the battle
which brought Cyrus head to head with his brother and tells of their retreat
through Anatolia back toward their motherland.

The Tragedians (Aeschylus, Euripides) alternate between accounts of war
and family dispute. The works of the Sophists (Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus)
all refer to the advantages and disadvantages of war, some references being
more obvious than others. Philosophers often discuss combat in an attempt
to assign an ethical and existential value to the individual, enabling him
to fight against fate. Even Plato’s philosophical writings are scattered with
accounts of warfare as, for example, in the Symposium in which the troublemaker,
Alcibiades (himself a defeated war leader), describes Socrates’s exploits
at the battle of Potidaea.

The sacred texts of the great monotheistic religions are no more peaceoriented.
The Bible is a collection of military exploits: its exegesis reveals that
retaliation, war, revenge, deportations, and the capturing of prisoners were
common events. If we recognize that a large proportion of the verses are
derived from even older legends, as in the case of the Epic of Gilgamesh, then
the same glorification of violence can also be identified. Established in the
seventh century of the common era (ce), the Qur’an makes no attempts to
conceal its tendencies toward holy war or jihad as a way of subjugating or
destroying infidels, although the majority of its suras do preach tolerance.
Violent warfare also forms an integral part of India’s oldest religions.
The most ancient sacred texts, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, declare war to be
essential for any would-be hero. The Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic of more
than 200,000 verses, is devoted entirely to the never-ending confrontations
between the Kaurava and the Pandava.

But what of ancient China, home of Confucianism and Taoism? Even
here, it is said that the king of Qin (from which the European name for
China is derived) had 240,000 people decapitated in 293 bce in an attempt to
end the war between Han and Wei. The reign of Huang Di, who brought
unity to China in the third century bce, followed a period of extensive
bloodshed.4 In around 500 bce, Chinese polemics expert Sun Tzu wrote The
Art of War, which was apparently considered to be an authoritative work
by Japanese military institutions right up to the attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941.

In Central America, Cortez’s conquistadors were appalled by the human
sacrifices made during Aztec religious ceremonies, in which thousands of
people were put to death in just one day. However, under the protection of
the Cross, these very same Catholic conquistadors in turn slaughtered the
Mexican populations.

How should we interpret this global barbarity which has infiltrated history
from the very beginning? Has violent behavior been glorified and exaggerated
over time in the interests of a few omnipotent leaders? Was history written
primarily by the victorious and then manipulated for their own gain? Although
exaggerations may have been made at times, war is nevertheless present
throughout the earliest written works, both literary and religious. However,
rather than looking at such written evidence, this study will focus primarily
upon prehistoric archeology, exploring civilization before the advent of
writing systems. The main objective is to define the behavior of humans
before the emergence of the first states – this is essentially an archeological
enterprise. ...


Among predatory animals (carnivores such as felines and canines), confrontations
between individuals within the same social group frequently
erupt when prey is being shared out, particularly when such food is scarce.
Squabbles and fights break out as individuals chase each other around the
prey, awaiting their share. Intimidation tactics often result in biting and
serious injuries.

It has been known for aggressiveness to be taken one step further among
the big cats, most notably lions; females, sometimes accompanied by a dominant
male, have been observed killing and devouring the cubs of another
female. This behavior is far from common and seems to occur most notably
during severe food shortages. Chimpanzees have also been observed exhibiting
this extreme behavior, though again very rarely. In this case, however,
there is no evidence of omophagy, i.e., animal cannibalism, occurring.
Another level of violence (if one can apply the term to animal behavior)
can arise as a result of confrontation between two social groups, usually
carnivores such as felines, lycaons, and hyenas. Such confrontations are
almost always prompted by attempts to seize or defend territories valued for
hunting or predation. Anthropoid apes (chimpanzees and gorillas) also carry
out such attacks. Identifying the reasons for such behavior in predatory
carnivores and apes is far from easy. Whilst the instinctive urge to gain
control over territories rich in prey may well lead to fighting, other less
specific reasons have also been suggested by ethologists following research
carried out by Morris. It is claimed, for example, that modifications of an
ecological niche and specific pathological traits can trigger abnormal behavior.

The problem becomes all the more complex in the case of apes, which are
known to throw projectiles and even use branches as clubs when carrying out
assaults on other groups. Could this be how the use of weapons in prehuman
species first came about?

New research has also revealed a tendency to expel certain members of a
social group among certain species of ape. Whilst this generally prevents a
female from mating with her offspring, it also leads to aggressive behavior
within the group. This “biological” attempt to prevent incest (which the
authors in question claim to be Darwinian behavior) is highly significant: it
indicates that more complex social relations may have evolved in pre-human
primates, a complexity which is not exhibited by the other species of carnivorous
mammal discussed here. This behavior is accompanied by changes in the
cerebral capabilities of these apes which may have been responsible for the
emergence of new behavioral patterns in early humans and their descendants
with violence becoming a kind of “cerebral” behavior, at the center of new
urges and desires.11

Aggressiveness between different species, on the other hand, is related
primarily to predation. Whereas felines and canines hunt for prey, prehominid
apes were omnivorous. The Australopithecines, by contrast, are
often compared to vultures since they frequently devoured the remains of
herbivorous mammals left behind by predators. It is even possible that
Australopithecines may have exhibited a kind of “proto-fighting” behavior
prior to actual hunting, a behavior that would have continued to evolve
throughout the Paleolithic.

It is likely that predatory strategies and techniques became more complex
and “human-like” as cerebral capabilities evolved, as outlined above. As well
as leading to the development of hunting, this evolutionary process may also
have triggered more violent behavior with the same weapons being used both
in hunting and in fighting.

Thus it seems that a certain amount of biologically driven aggressive
behavior is directed at animals of the same species and becomes particularly
fierce when motivated by competition for sexual partners or food, though it
is very rare for any individual to be killed during such conflicts. By contrast,
playful interaction, rest, and “civility” all play an important part in feline
behavior.

When confrontation between different social groups within the same
species does occur, intimidation seems to be preferable to inflicting injury;
violent behavior is reserved for crisis situations when competition for hunting
territories is rife. Deaths often occur when individuals become isolated from
the group (due to immaturity, old age, or illness), thus losing the protection
offered by the group setting.

Murder is particularly rare among the apes and most notably among our
closest relatives, the anthropoid apes. Confrontations tend to involve the use
of projectiles. Incest is also prevented by aggressive, though not fatal, moves
to exclude certain individuals from the group.

If carrying out such research into our closest ancestors does indeed play an
essential part in identifying the beginnings of human violence, both on an
individual and a group level, then it seems that, as human beings, we cannot
resort to the excuse that our violence is a product of our pre-hominid evolution;
it is the human brain alone which has made us the most dangerous of
all animals. ....

Violence and conflict are frequently discussed as though they are specific
to the period from the Neolithic onwards. This perspective is based upon a
more “materialistic” view of human behavior – it is only since the emergence
of the first agricultural civilizations that humans have accumulated wealth
and surpluses which have, in turn, led to greed and competition. Capitalization
and signs of prosperity are certain to trigger feelings of greed in the less
well off.

It is, however, of greater interest to turn our attention to hunter-gatherer
populations which tend not to amass supplies long term (except perhaps for
the more civilized hunter-gatherer societies) and thus envy is less common.
In view of this, it is useful to investigate whether or not they, too, are faced
with conflict in times of crisis and suffer from this apparent necessity to
initiate confrontation at regular intervals. Two different perspectives may be
adopted here, one based upon archeological evidence and the other upon
anthropological fact. Although material evidence relating to battle is often
lacking, many prehistorians consider it likely that violent clashes have taken
place between different groups since the Paleolithic.
 
-Quote from Mrs, Knight-Jadczyk

Very interesting.
That means, then, that the mtDNA research that established the "bottleneck" at about 300KYA - the "out of Africa Eve" ain't necessarily definitive.

Exactly! That was yet another case of dressing up our history in simple, "romantic" terms. The truth is, as most anthropologists studying genetics would say, is probably MUCH more complex. We already know that it is, thanks to the Planck institute's work on neandertal genetics. Now what of the other archaic human populations? Work has been done on Y-chromosomes, but unlike mtDNA, that does not exclude other possibilities, it simply gives a look at the predominant male contributions. There may be quite a few extinct "mtDNA lines", but "Nuclear DNA lines", now that is the conundrum.
 
It has been known for aggressiveness to be taken one step further among
the big cats, most notably lions; females, sometimes accompanied by a dominant
male, have been observed killing and devouring the cubs of another
female. This behavior is far from common and seems to occur most notably
during severe food shortages. Chimpanzees have also been observed exhibiting
this extreme behavior, though again very rarely. In this case, however,
there is no evidence of omophagy, i.e., animal cannibalism, occurring.

This is untrue, chimpanzees both male and female have been recorded eating and killing the offspring of other females many times in many different study groups. Bonobos on the other hand, have very rarely been observed doing such behavior. Adult chimpanzees are very aggressive apes, both within their groups and far more so to non-group members. Adult males that patrol their territories treat outsiders in a manner similar to prey animals. I won't describe how graphic and horrifying death is at the hands and jaws of territorial male chimpanzees. Death by cats, sharks, crocodiles or even bears, dogs and hyenas is merciful in comparison. The one difference is that the chimpanzees do not usually regard outsider adult chimpanzees or rarely,humans as prey (i.e., they don't really attempt to eat them.) After the attacks, which can last for several hours, the outsider is left to bleed to death.
 
on the subject of cannibalism didn't Zeus and his father only survive because their respective mothers hid them from the father that was going to devour them ?

now I know the GODS were stars or other heavenly bodies but maybe the concept of mothers hiding babies from fathers so they won't get eaten is a racial memory

I was also pondering the strong right arm thing in Neandertals we just read about , and it came to me,hey,armwrestling must have been their ''rutting'' display :D :D :D

The hunting theory ,where the males get bigger right arms from stabbing with a spear doesnt hold water with me,the females used digging sticks and would ave profited from bigger arms too and wasn't the preferred hunting method to chase the whole herd off a cliff anyway using fire
 
rrraven said:
on the subject of cannibalism didn't Zeus and his father only survive because their respective mothers hid them from the father that was going to devour them ?

now I know the GODS were stars or other heavenly bodies but maybe the concept of mothers hiding babies from fathers so they won't get eaten is a racial memory

Actually, I think Victor Clube discusses this in Cosmic Winter. His conclusion was that these stories were allusions to the visible action of comets. It's possible that there were several layers of meaning to the stories though.
 
-quote from rraven

The hunting theory ,where the males get bigger right arms from stabbing with a spear doesn't hold water with me,the females used digging sticks and would ave profited from bigger arms too and wasn't the preferred hunting method to chase the whole herd off a cliff anyway using fire

"Stabbing" in neandertals has long been disproven. There is absolutely no difference between neandertal skeletal wounds and North American Paleo-Indian skeletal wounds. This indicates that both neandertals and atlotl (spear-thrower) cultures both threw spears at prey. 400,000 year old spears found in bog deposits in Europe; long before the typical neandertal, are lean, lithe instruments. Parsimoniously, this shows that the neandertal/homo-line hominids were throwing spears as opposed to stabbing with them; for a very long period of time.
 
I am not sure if this is helpful since we are looking for published data not fiction....but I think I go and
re-read ''the clan of the cave bear'' by J.M Auel =http://www.amazon.com/Clan-Cave-Bear-Earths-Children/dp/0553250426

from facebookpage;Jean Auel's books have been commended for their anthropological authenticity and their ethnobotanical accuracy. Auel has been a member of Mensa since 1964

the author did quite a bit of research in writing this book ,I see if I can find a copy and check if there is a bibliography
I vaguely remember her mentioning that the character of ''Creb'',the old, half blind and disabled Neandertal shaman, was based on finds of bones with those disabilities...showing that that individual had not only survived the initial injuries but lived long after that and must have been cared/supported for by his ''people''

the first book in the series is the one that gives,IMHO,a good insight into ,as interpreted by the author of course,the mindset of Neandertals and we even learn the fictitious name of our first cromagnon/neander hybrid....mind you he is only a baby at the end of the book and we don't hear from him again....but wait I just found out she is writing a sixth book so maybe we will

The Land of Painted Caves, Jean M. Auel’s Sixth and Final Book in theEarth’s Children® Series, to Be Published Worldwide on March 29, 2011— Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc., and Crown PublishersAnnounce Major International Laydown
 
That series of novels was actually mentioned by Mellars as being highly fanciful and tending to give the wrong impression of Neanderthals.
 
Mellars devotes considerable attention to the work of Binford. Rather than transcribe out lengthy sections of the book, I looked to see if there was anything already on the net. Here's a nice article that pretty much lays out Binford's model though the author is not in favor of it. Mellars criticizes it a bit also, though in the end of his book, he writes: "Binford's model for the Combe Grenal occupations - and by implication for the social organization of Neanderthal groups in general - has all the classic Binfordian hallmarks of originality, ingenuity and radical creativity, and in the final analysis of course he could be right."

Did he whack her Over the Head? And other Questions about the "Cave Men"

by Gina Matthiesen

The Neanderthal man is out looking for his mate. He spots a woman, whacks her over the head with his club and then drags her back to his cave. His time will be spent hunting, making tools, and protecting his family. While he may not be very smart, Neanderthal man is very strong and active. She on the other hand has babies and tends to the cave. If she's lucky, she may get a little credit for gathering some plants for a prehistoric salad. This scenario is widely seen as the story of Neanderthal and our other early ancestors. But is it accurate? And why should we care?

Many people are under the impression that gender roles have been fixed since the dawn of time. It still shocks me when I hear about women who wash dishes after Thanksgiving dinner while the men watch football - in fact, I have experienced this. Women clean and provide care while men protect and provide money, and this is the way it has been forever (according to some of my elderly aunts anyway!). Of course this is not true - we know that women have functioned well in many roles throughout history. Most women have their personal favorite female historical figure - mine is Simone de Beauvier - who's yours? But what about women in prehistory, or even women in further prehistory? Neanderthal women for instance?

What is a Neanderthal Anyway?


Neanderthals were a group of hominids who lived in Europe and Central Asia from about 200,000 to 30,000 years ago during the Ice Ages. Hominids are members of the family Hominidae, bipedal primates which include the genus Homo (modern day humans are Homo sapiens) and the Australopithecines like "Lucy". In other words, hominids are humans and all of our two-footed, upright-walking cousins and ancestors.

Neanderthals are certainly not the hunched-over, stupid brutes of our popular imagination. Their posture was upright like ours and their brains were on average a little larger. They made sophisticated tools (commonly referred to as the Mousterian tradition), constructed simple shelters, cared for their sick, buried their dead, and most likely used language. In many ways, Neanderthals were similar to anatomically modern human beings (Homo sapiens). In fact, some researchers see Neanderthals as an ancient physical (the problematic idea "racial" in popular terms) variation of Homo sapiens. Others believe that Neanderthals were a very closely related cousin (Homo neanderthalensis). Still others hypothesize that Neanderthal and modern human anatomy emerged around the same time, yet occurred in drastically different environments. While these two forms could interbreed (and seemingly did so in Eastern Europe), for the most part they stayed geographically distinct. Basically, Neanderthal evolution is still hotly debated.

What did they look like?

Neanderthal bodies were much more robust ("big-boned" or "muscle-bound" in popular terms) than ours and their lower legs and arms were proportionally shorter, both of which are adaptations to cold climates. Males were on average about 5'6" and females were about 5'3", comparable to many modern populations (modern European males and females are 5'7" and 5'3" respectively). Neanderthal skulls were long and low (ours are high and round) and housed a large brain. Both sexes had prominent brow ridges and large muscle attachments of the jaw and neck. Their faces projected forward with a long, large protruding nose, "swept-back" cheeks, and a "weak" chin. Males and females had large teeth that show a lot of wear caused by using the mouth as a vice to hold hides, meat, and plant materials for processing. Both sexes had robust skeletons with large muscle attachments and powerful yet flexible hands. Their legs, ankles, and feet were designed to withstand heavy muscular stress, implying that their lifestyle was quite vigorous. The best word to describe Neanderthal anatomy is "powerful".

While we may wonder about Neanderthal eye, skin, and hair color, such traits are not preserved in the archaeological record. Most archaeologists believe that Neanderthals probably had pale skin since they (like modern Swedes for instance) lived in conditions of low sunlight. Cartoonists draw Neanderthals with a lot of body hair, but there is no archaeological evidence to support such a view. Other than on mummies (Neanderthals did not use this burial practice), hair is generally not preserved in the archaeological record.

So how did they live?

What was daily life like for Neanderthals? Early on anthropologists argued that they exclusively hunted the large herd animals of the Ice Ages, such as wooly mammoths or aurochs (giant wild cows). Elaborate hunting rituals, "bear cults" and cannibalism have all been proposed as Neanderthal religious beliefs. Some of these ideas were based (oh so) loosely on the belief systems of modern hunter-gatherers, but much of it was pure 'manly' fancy. These ideas have been reworked and debunked. Newer models of Neanderthal behavior focus on subsistence (getting food and resources) and settlement patterns. Neanderthals are proposed to have been "foragers" rather than "collectors."

The main difference between "foraging" and "collecting" is the amount of forward planning involved. Foraging is an "opportunistic process" in which people make use of any resources encountered. Foragers need to plan routes that will maximize their chances of finding resources, but generally do not store food or other items, leaving buffers against lean times.

Collecting, associated with modern hunter/gatherer populations, involves a lot of forward planning. Collectors often store food and other goods and will carefully monitor their resources.

This distinction is one that made me think of psychopathy: no concepts of space/time, consequences, etc. What this article does not mention is that Neanderthals also did not travel very far from their home base for over 200KY. Thinking of such a thing and executing it seems to have been beyond their capacities for all that time. They also did not eat fish. For 200KY, they did not eat fish!!! And they often lived by the banks of rivers!

Anyway, now she gets to Binford:

The work of Lewis Binford is interesting since he has worked gender into his research. In fact he proposes that Neanderthals lived mostly separate social and economic lives.

Binford was part of a team that excavated the Combe Grenal cave shelter in France in the 1960's. He reports to have found two separate zones of activity, the "nest" in the center of the cave and an outlying area located nearer to the entrance. The "nest" is characterized by ashy (low-heat) fire deposits, simple and expediently made tools of local stone materials, and splintered animal long bones and cranial fragments. Marrow extraction was probably the main activity in the "nest". The outlying areas contained high-temperature fires, more finely made stone tools of non-local materials, and the very ends of animal long bones. Animal butchery was probably the main activity of the outlying area (it doesn't have a simple or catchy name). The long bones and crania fragments in both areas were often part of the same individual animal, which shows that these areas were in use at the same time.

This last is important and deals a heavy blow to certain objections or other explanations, even Mellars' (see below). It suggests strongly that the men were eating the good meat and tossing bones and skulls to the women. Skulls and bones that have to be broken open are the parts of the animal you eat if you are not getting enough food and are very hungry. It's like the refuse. If you read about how chimpanzees share out food (which they do in a certain way), you get the same model.

Neanderthal women were processing marrow and plant resources in the "nest" according to Binford's model. They foraged locally for plants, small animals, and other resources such as stone for their processing tools. Men on the other hand foraged for larger animals and other resources such as stone farther away from the rock shelters. They probably ate the fleshy parts of their animal food while away from the "nest" and periodically returned to the rock shelter with marrow bones and crania for the women to eat. This model is a direct contrast to modern hunter/gatherers, where food is collected and shared by all. Binford argues that Neanderthal men and women probably interacted mostly to mate. He notes that there is no evidence of family units, such as a common sleeping or food preparation area. Since men were not regular inhabitants of the "nest", they were not competing with each other for female attention very often. Binford states that in this type of social system, mating choices would be dominated by women. His ultimate goal is to get people to understand that modern humans and Neanderthals may have entirely different sensibilities about the world. There is no reason to assume that they are inferior versions of us, as has been the unspoken view in much earlier research.

I would suggest that this is not entirely correct either; that Neanderthal men DID compete for sex the same way chimpanzees do. Yes, the mating choices are made by the woman, but there is fierce competition to be chosen.

Criticisms of the Binford Model

This somewhat strange model has been criticized on several fronts. First of all, Binford's model and data have yet to be published in a peer reviewed format - this model appears in an article titled "Hard Evidence"! One Neanderthal expert (Paul Mellars) argues that the distribution of tool use could rather simply be based on function rather than social roles. For example, butchery tools would naturally be found in areas where animals were butchered. These areas would most likely be located away from centers of social activity (such as the "nest") since butchery is messy. The "nest" is probably a common social area for all members of the group since it is located in the middle of the living area. Function separates these areas rather than sex roles.

This really doesn't fly since, as noted above, often the parts of the same animal were found, though the parts with the flesh were in the outer butchery area where they were clearly consumed, and the skulls, pelvises and long bones that were crushed for the marrow (which one does if they haven't eaten the meat that was once attached to the bone!) were around the other fire(s).

Further criticism comes from the discipline of socioecology. Socioecologists argue that men, women, and children have to share food in order to ensure the long-term survival of the group.

This is a weak argument if one knows what other primates do.

Nor does Binford's suggestion that women collected and ate mostly small mammals and plant materials reflect the archaeological record very well. Binford himself states that "there are no small mammal bones in the shelters". However, he does suggest that small mammals were eaten "on the spot" when caught, so their remains would be deposited elsewhere. Nor do plant foods make up more than a minor component at any Neanderthal site. Chemical analyses conducted on Neanderthal bones prove that their diets consisted mostly of meat. Only Binford proposes such a radical separation of the sexes. Mary Stiner and Stephen Kuhn, for example, propose a similar strategy of local and non-local foraging that in no way implies Neanderthal men and women lived separate social and economic lives.

Evidence collected from Neanderthal bodies, such as injury patterns and muscle attachments, also contradict Binford's hypothesis. Stress fractures on Neanderthal skeletons suggest that they were killing animals at close quarters. In fact, Neanderthal injuries were similar to those of modern day rodeo riders (falling or getting kicked by animals).

Actually, this fact does not contradict Binford's model because the injuries could all be part of the mating/competition for females fighting rituals. The evidence of what types of animals that Neanderthals ate does not support the image of them as "mighty hunters" either.

I found no mention in my research of differences in injuries to male and female skeletons. Furthermore, any discussion of Neanderthal bodies mentions that men, women, and children all had large muscle attachments and were all powerfully built. If there are no differences in morphology or injury patterns, we can probably assume that men and women had similar lives.

Which suggests violent natures, regular and repeated violence among them, and an existence that was socially little different from that of chimpanzees or apes. They just had more cerebral equipment and this gave them certain advantages.

Research on femurs and muscle attachments in anatomically modern human populations reinforce this assumption. Female and male femurs of hunter/gatherer populations are similar in robusticity (strength and shape) since women and men in these societies have similar roles. Women's femurs became smaller and less robust than men's with the introduction of agriculture. In these societies, women stayed closer to home and the crops while men remained mobile hunters. Mens femurs became smaller and less robust too as they gradually became more sedentary (less mobile) themselves.

Actually, this last paragraph is not very accurate. Recent studies have shown horrible wear and tear on human skeletons after the introduction of agriculture. That's because agriculture brought wage slavery with it.

So Why Should We Care?

The criticism that I have not seen of Binford's model would point out how similar his proposed Neanderthal sex roles are to our present-day American stereotypes of ideal male and female behavior. He is proposing that men literally 'brought home the bacon' while women occupied themselves at home.

Actually, that's not really what Binford is proposing at all.

Our American ideal is similar - men should go to work and women should stay at home. Lewis Binford is an American archaeologist and (like us all - lets not single him out) has to have been influenced by this stereotype. There are some rather unfair criticisms of Binford and his model of Neanderthal behavior on the Internet (type "Binford," Neanderthal," and "women" into a search engine to see some examples). He certainly does not imply that women did not provide for themselves or make their own tools as such personal, non-peer reviewed Internet sites suggest. I have no doubts that he is attempting to make people understand that they cannot just assume that Neanderthals lived like modern hunter/gatherers. He has strongly criticized earlier anthropological research for portraying Neanderthals as 'inferior' versions of modern hunter/gatherers. However, Binford's model, while widely praised for its boldness, strikes me as rather conservative.

The good news is that no matter which model proves to be correct, we know that Neanderthal women were strong and self-sufficient. She made her own tools, processed her own hides, and collected a lot of resources. She was not whacked over the head and dragged to the cave. Maybe these women can become some of our historical favorites?!


Some References

Fischman, Joshua. "Hard Evidence." Discover (Feb. 1992): 44-51.

Gero, Joan. "Genderlithics: Women's Roles in Stone Tool Production," 163-193. In Gero, Joan M., and Margaret Conkey, eds. Engendering

Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1991.

Gore, Rick. "Neanderthals." National Geographic 189 (Jan. 1996): 2-35.

Mellars, Paul. The Neanderthal Legacy: an Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Page, Jake. "Seeing Fingers Decipher Bones." Smithsonian 32 (May 2001): 94-102.

Stringer, Christopher, and Clive Gamble. In Search of the Neanderthals. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
Tattersall, Ian. The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives. New York: Macmillan, 1995.

Trinkaus, Erik, and Pat Shipman. The Neanderthals: Changing the Image of Mankind. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Obviously a feminist strongly influenced by pathological thinking.
 

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