What Happened to the Neanderthals? (nytimes.com)
27 points by Hooke 2 days ago
cekanoni a minute ago
I've read what happen to Nederlands ...
rao-v 26 minutes ago
These findings always seem to be suggesting that we more or less warred (fought, disputed territory ranges - pick your euphemism) upon them opportunistically over centuries and didn’t lose.
F7F7F7 a day ago
Pluto and the modern day understanding of Neanderthals are probably Top 5 learning corrections in my lifetime.
hardbass 2 minutes ago
What was it about Pluto?
usrnm 2 hours ago
You forgot the "2 = 5" one
modzu 3 hours ago
still to come, the sasquatch in Canada
tonis2 42 minutes ago
They live in Netherlands now
gpvos 28 minutes ago
Yeah I misread that too at first.
rramadass a day ago
One thing that i think should be considered in human archaeology is the narratives/stories/myths from different cultures featuring "different sorts of people". Many were handed down orally from the misty past before being written down and hence may contain some truths to them.
We are often quick to dismiss them as mere fanciful story-telling of primitive cultures but i am not so sure.
gherkinnn 38 minutes ago
I have a soft spot for such folklore. Strictly speaking, much doesn't hold up to scrutiny but I see no wrong with wild conjecture for the fun of it.
For starters, some catastrophes do shine through more recent history:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
Then, Nuclear Evangelism is a fun idea, proposing a religion teaching us to stay away from nuclear waste for 10k years: https://www.nahomatsuda.com/nuclear-evangelism
Or you can poke around linguistics
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_linguistics
- https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/does-your-name-belong-...
The Arthurian legends and Robin Hood are two English-speaking examples of folklore snowballing into what we have today. I bet James Bond will join them in a few hundred year's time.
snthpy a day ago
Agreed. Considering the range from neaderthals to homo florensis etc...
rramadass 16 hours ago
In the Hindu Sanskrit literature of Itihasas and Puranas it is actually made explicit that Humans ("Manusya/Manava" in Sanskrit) are distinct from other beings (eg. "Devas/Asuras/Vanaras/Gandharvas" etc. in Sanskrit), each with their own specific characteristics. And also there are plenty of stories of interbreeding amongst them.
It is fascinating to note that the distinctions are pretty clearcut throughout the vast corpus which implies it was common and wellknown at that time. There seem to be some good parallels to our anthropological knowledge of different Homo species.
In particular, the "Vanaras" were a humanoid ape-like species who have all the human psychological characteristics but with ape-like physiology. This was one source of inspiration (amongst others) for the "Na'vi" in James Cameron's Avatar movies.
aetherson 3 hours ago
usrnm 28 minutes ago
Mistletoe 2 hours ago
Can anyone summarize for us troglodytes without NY Times subscriptions?
rramadass an hour ago
Read it on archive: https://archive.is/jaqsJ
It is fascinating.
insane_dreamer an hour ago
it's not clear to me how they determined that these were in fact different species and not just variation/evolution within the same species
mjh2539 26 minutes ago
rramadass 16 minutes ago
measurablefunc an hour ago
Wiped out by a more violent variant.