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Similarities between humans and apes
Similarities between humans and apes
Similarities between humans and apes
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It was the extinction that puzzled many anthropologists across the globe. How is it possible that living humans now outlived a subspecies of a hominid with a larger brain than our own? The first Neandertals, otherwise known as the Homo Neandertalensis, appeared in the Eurasian region approximately 150,000 years ago and are believed to roam the planet until just about 30,000 years ago. With their strong and muscular bodies, it was no surprise that they were a likely candidate of survival. The Neandertals endured treacherous weather conditions, shrugged off many broken bones, and barely escaped the clutches of death that came with their risky hunting techniques. What we may deem as extraneously harsh living conditions was a quotidian part of their lives. Neandertals were considered the most advanced of their species in the icy tundra of Europe and they lived longer than modern humans despite those conditions; but, somehow they began to die out as we first arrived. There are many reasons that are believed to have caused the declination of such a sophisticated hominid. We begin to explore the probable theories anthropologists provide to explain the phenomenon that we cannot even begin to understand.
There are many reasons that are believed to cause the extinction of the Neandertals. First and foremost, we will discuss the anatomical differences between the modern human and the Neandertal. The Homo Neandertalensis is actually considered to be the closest fossil relatives with abundant evidence of their life ways and skeletal remains spread at many sites across Europe and western Asia (Glover, 2014). Despite the common stereotype that Neandertals are apelike cavemen with the mental capacity the size of a peanut, their brain size is ac...
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Glover, G. (2014, February 24). Neanderthals may have faced extinction long before modern humans emerged. Neanderthals may have faced extinction long before modern humans emerged. Retrieved May 10, 2014, from http://phys.org/news/2014-02-neanderthals-extinction-modern-humans-emerged.html#jCp
Rana, F. (2013, April 1). Reasons To Believe : Neanderthal Brains Make Them Unlikely Social Networkers. Reasons To Believe : Neanderthal Brains Make Them Unlikely Social Networkers. Retrieved May 10, 2014, from http://www.reasons.org/articles/neanderthal-brains-make-them-unlikely-social-networkers
Stanford, C. B., Allen, J. S., & Anton, S. (2013). Biological Anthropology: the natural history of mankind (3 ed.). Boston, Mass: Pearson Education.
Sorensen, B. (2011). Demography and the Extinction of European Neanderthals. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 30(1), 17-29.
Over the last few hundred years, more and more has been added to the world’s fossil collection, fossils from all over the world. New theories have been created and old theories have almost been proven about the evolution of man. For example, we have proof that different species of man existed with certain types of DNA sequences and instincts, some we may not have anymore, or some that other species did not have back then. Even though it is subjected to much debate, one of the most widely accepted theories however, is that Homo sapiens interbred with the slightly more primitive species of man, the Neanderthal.
Around 1.8 million years ago, two hominids were born, first the Homo Erectus and then the Neanderthals. Although the two very different humans. However, were they that different? Our ancestors were very versatile hominids. They lived in various places and lived in a variety of ways. The Homo Erectus and Neanderthals were all special in their ways. They had similarities and differences that set them apart. They had similarities, but in the same way, their differences helped them survive if they had not adapted to how they lived they would have lasted the same time that their ancestors have lived. The Neanderthals lived for an average lifespan 30 years. They had to have some mistake that decreased their lifespan because if the Homo Erectus had done the same, there’s a chance that we might not be here now. Their differences set the future that we live in today. These
Allen, John S., and Susan C. Anton. "Chapter 13 The Emergence, Dispersal, and Bioarchaeology of H. sapiens." Pearson Custom Anthropology. By Craig Stanford. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. 200+. Print.
As archeological discoveries of bone fragments and fossils continue to support the existence of homo-sapiens
The first Neanderthal fossils found in Europe, a fragmented child’s cranium in Belgium in 1830, and an adult cranium in Gibraltar, were not immediately recognized as a divergent kind of human. Only in 1856 after a partial skeleton was found in a cave in the Neander Valley in Germany it became clear that these fossils belonged to an extinct human and our closest evolutionary relative (Hublin and Pääbo, 2006). Since then, questions about their relationship with modern humans have been fiercely debated between anthropologists. But what attracts most interest from scientists and popular media is the possibility of hybridization between Neanderthals and modern humans if, in other words, they were a genetically different specie or a single specie capable of producing offspring.
Robbins Burling, David F. Armstrong, Ben G. Blount, Catherine A. Callaghan, Mary Lecron Foster, Barbara J. King, Sue Taylor Parker, Osamu Sakura, William C. Stokoe, Ron Wallace, Joel Wallman, A. Whiten, Sherman Wilcox and Thomas Wynn. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 25-53
This paper has shown how Homo sapiens had several advantages over the Neanderthals including better diets, better tools and just better luck. The Neanderthals could not survive the harsh climates they were thrust into and eventually died out. In this paper I looked at how Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis had co-existed but the disappearance of the Neanderthal ius due in some part to the appearance of the more culturally advanced and genetically superior Homo sapiens. Although the How and Why of how Neanderthals went extinct, it is clear that Homo sapiens had a part in their demise. In the last one hundred and fifty years that we have been studying humans we have seen them come from savage brutes, to Homo sapiens respectable contemporary. If we had not gotten lucky in the past, Neanderthals could be studying us today.
Most of their evidence comes from the fossilized bones of Neanderthals and Cro- Magnons, or modern man’s ancestors (Shreeve, 150). There is a definite difference between their bone structures, and it may be a significant enough difference to divide them into species. There is a set of traits that distinguishes Neanderthals. Their general proportions are short, robust, and strong. Males and females of all ages have thick bones, and very pronounced muscle and ligament attachment sites. They also have distinct facial and cranial features. They have a large skull with no chin, a significant brow-ridge, and a large nasal opening (Shreeve, 49-150). They have large brains, around 1400cc, that protrude in the back, causing an occipital bun in the skull (Lecture, 4/19). Cro-Magnons on the other hand look more like humans do today. They are more slender and not as muscular, with chins and rounder skulls with slightly smaller brains among other traits.
Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted for well over 100,000 years. Then suddenly Homo neandertalensis began to die out and surrender the earth to Homo sapiens. Paleontologists and anthropologists have entertained several possibilities to the causes of this event: interbreeding among Neanderthals and humans, competition for natural resources, and Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.” What the real cause has been has plagued scientists for years. Now, due to an international research team from Germany, those possibilities have been even further deduced, making it easier to pinpoint the exact reason Homo neandertalensis became extinct.
Paleoanthropology: Pliocene and Pleistocene Human Evolution. Paleobiology, 7:3:298-305. Frayer, David W. and Milford Walpoff 1985 Sexual Dimorphism. Annual Review of Anthropology, 14:429-473 Key, Catherine A. 2000 The Evolution of Human Life History.
William Haviland, Harald Prins, Dana Walrath, Bunny McBride, Anthropology: The Human Challenge (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011), 58.
Trinkaus, E. (2007). European early modern humans and the fate of the Neandertals. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America, 104(18), 7367-7372. doi:10.1073/pnas.0702214104
“The scientific study of how humans developed did not begin until the 1800s in Europe. Until that time, people relied on religious explanations of how humans came into existence. Starting in the 1500s a scientific revolution began to sweep Europe. Thinkers started using scientific methods and experiments to try to better understand the world and the creatures living in it. Eventually these methods were turned to the question of human origins” (The Nature Of Human Origins, 1). Earth made it possible for species to change over time because Ancient Earth provides ability to plenty of time.The Homo Sapien a is very complex creature. The species started off very simple by living in caves and surviving with little food and then later evolved into a species that were able to do many more complex things. The first species was Sahelanthropus tchadensis They were one of the most simple humans in that time period and on. They had very small skulls compared to Homo Sapiens today and their motor skills were just the same. We have evolved and changed for the better both mentally and physically. The Evolution of Homo Sapiens started off simple, such as the Neanderthals, and now we are the most advanced species to ever walk the planet so far.
The increase in brain size may be related to changes in hominine behavior (See figure 3). The third major trend in hominine development is the gradual decrease in the size of the face and teeth. According to the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia ’98, the fossil evidence for direct ancestors of modern humans is divided into the category Australopithecus and Homo, and begins about 5 million years ago (See figure 1). Between 7 and 20 million years ago, primitive apelike animals were widely distributed on the African and, later, on the Eurasian continents (See figure 2). Although many fossil bones and teeth have been found, the way of life of these creatures, and their evolutionary relationships to the living apes and humans, remain matters of active discussion among scientists.
Boas, F. (1930). Anthropology. In, Seligman, E. R. A. ed., Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. Macmillan: New York.