Neanderthals Were Likely Able To Hunt Over Significant Distances With Spears, Study Finds (nature.com) 150
dryriver writes: In the past, Neanderthal humans were believed to be largely close-distance hunters. A new paper in the journal Nature, based on actual outdoor tests with multiple test subjects throwing two wooden spears closely mimicking ancient spears found in various places at a target, surmises that spear throwing Neanderthals may in fact have been able to kill animals at distances of 60 feet or even greater. The authors found that targeting a wooden spear accurately at that distance takes skill, and even worked out the impact velocity of Neanderthal spears at such a distance. Nevertheless, Neanderthals with sufficient practice in spear throwing may very well have been capable of killing at distances far greater than previously thought. This changes the assumption that Neanderthals needed to get very close to animals in order to have a chance of killing them.
Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that we interbred with them means they were the same species as us whatever others may say, just a different race who happened to be somewhat stronger and just as intelligent.
Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that we interbred with them means they were the same species as us
That might be the sort of thing they taught you in high school decades ago when we were kids, but the definition of species has had to be revised considerably since then. It is a murky concept. See Ring Species [wikipedia.org] for an example of how complex it can get.
Mostly, homo sapiens and neanderthals did not interbreed, just sometimes.
Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a murky concept.
So his definition is as good as yours. Species are a matter of perception (like planets, dwarf planets, satellites, quasi-satellites).
Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
And it would not cover quite common species like the ordinary dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), which has a surprisingly complex way to create offspring. There are three different genetic make-ups of dandelion: diploid, triploid and tetraploid, which can't easily crossbreed. From the outside, they all look identical, just the number of chromosomes they have in their nuclei changes. Two diploid parents create tetraploid offspring. A diploid and a tetraploid dandelion create triploid offspring. Triploid dandelions are infertile, but can create clones of themselves. Tetraploid dandelion can't fertilize another tetraploid dandelion, only diploids. So the normal way is that diploids create tetraploids, and then the diploids and the tetraploids create triploids, which are infertile, but create clones. And how does the circle close? The cloning is not perfect, and often, after cloning, one chromosome is missing, so with time, the triploid chromosome set becomes more and more diploid. With a chromosome set mainly but not necessarily completely diploid, dandelion starts to behave like a perfect diploid, crossfertilizing other diploid and tetraploid dandelion again.
If you look at the "fertile offspring" definition of species, common dandelion wouldn't be a single species, but rather each individual plant would be a species of its own, as it is either infertile (triploids), can't create any offspring with individuals of the same genetic make-up (tetraploids), can't create fertile offspring (diploid x tetraploid) or can't create offspring of similar genetic make-up (diploid x diploid).
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If you take the view that it's based on interbreeding ability, there is no such thing as a geographical species, just varieties. Ring species are sufficiently rare as to be an exception. But obviously, no simple definition can exist. It's amazing to me that people can have such attachment to the concept of race when even species isn't well-defined no matter which definition you use, but there you go.
Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
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And li-liger are fertile, both males and females, and can interbreed. Are tiger and lion the same species, as you can create hybrids that are fertile?
Great question. Here's another one: Is the concept of "species" really going to be useful going forwards, or are we going to have to track DNA? That does tend to get cheaper over time...
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Notable exceptions are the mule/hinny (horse/donkey hybrids) and wog - which is any cross between wolf and dog.
Worth noting that it is easier to crossbreed a hybrid when the male is the one with the lo
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Nope. Mules can breed. It's just not tried frequently, and probably not all that successful. Interestingly, I once read about a project that used "hand" fertilization that produced a complete chromosome set horse from a mule and horse crossbreed. (I may be misremembering, it may have been a hinny.)
https://articles.extension.org... [extension.org]
Genes are weird.
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Re: Why is this a surprise? (Score:2)
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It's amazing how many arguments are merely arguments over definitions.
This depends on your definition of "argument".
Re: Why is this a surprise? (Score:2)
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It's amazing to me that people can have such attachment to the concept of race when even species isn't well-defined no matter which definition you use, but there you go.
Attached how? It is a useful concept with predictive value, in medicine or public policy for example.
But you get people who say things like "race does not exist" or "race is a social construct" just because a race has no clear boundaries. By that logic, species do not exist, and we are all just animals. (Unless kingdom of life is a social construct too and we are all just eukaryotes. )
Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that we interbred with them means they were the same species as us
That might be the sort of thing they taught you in high school decades ago when we were kids, but the definition of species has had to be revised considerably since then. It is a murky concept. See Ring Species [wikipedia.org] for an example of how complex it can get.
Mostly, homo sapiens and neanderthals did not interbreed, just sometimes.
Last time I checked there was no consistent universally accepted definition of what constitutes a 'species'. Many Geneticists for example are even of the opinion that there is no genetic evidence for concept of 'races' in humans, which is another categorisation that has never been clearly defined. From the point of view of genetics, 'race' is little more than an artificial construct that humans have created to make each others lives more complicated and generally more miserable than they have to be.
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Species are just a useful but largely arbitrary label for groups of animals with similar characteristics. Evolution is a continuous process, and there are no clear lines where one species ends and another starts.
Race is something invented long ago to give a pseudo-scientific explanation of why white people are superior. Europeans viewed everyone else as inferior and wanted a scientific explanation of why that was, so made up some races along largely arbitrary lines and started looking for reasons why they w
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Race is something invented long ago to give a pseudo-scientific explanation of why white people are superior.
Bullshit. The title of the founding text of evolutionary biology is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". The concept of race was right there, since the beginning.
Species are just a useful but largely arbitrary label for groups of animals with similar characteristics. Evolution is a continuous process, and there are no clear lines where one species ends and another starts.
Stop there, please. Race is basically the same: an arbitrary label with no clear lines. Like subspecies, which is basically the same concept as race, by a different name. Or family. It is all arbitrary. And it has nothing to do with Europeans (were/are only Europea
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Race is arbitrary, that's what I said.
The concept of race existed before of course, but was not really something Europeans thought about much until the scientific revolution of the 1800s, which coincided with colonialism. The various empires were in full swing by then, as was slavery and the development of moral philosophy, and Europeans looked to justify their position as the literal master race.
To that end they started measuring skulls and coming up with all kinds of dubious reasons, which at the time see
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The concept of race existed before of course, but was not really something Europeans thought about much until the scientific revolution of the 1800s, which coincided with colonialism. The various empires were in full swing by then, as was slavery[...]
Not really. In 1794 slavery was abolished in all the territories of the French Republic. The British Empire had abolished slave trade in 1807 [wikipedia.org], and actively forced the end of the slave trade, alongside other colonial powers, through military intervention [wikipedia.org]. In 1809 Charles Darwin was born. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna condemned the slave trade [wikipedia.org], Darwin was a little kid. Free "brown" people continued to practice slavery well into the 20th centuries (and practically even today, if you look at Saudi Arabia and
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Species are just a useful but largely arbitrary label for groups of animals with similar characteristics.
You could just as easily say the same thing about race.
I'm guessing you are American, where over generations it has become a bit more cultural and less genetic. The problem is when a population is mixed and you try to label everyone as black or white. Worse, Americans label people as black even if they have only fractional black ancestry.
Clearly trying to allocate race to individuals is problematic - see the mess from affirmative action and targeted rights programs.
But at the population leve
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You could just as easily say the same thing about race.
That's what I am saying. And I'm not American.
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From the point of view of genetics, 'race' is little more than an artificial construct that humans have created to make each others lives more complicated and generally more miserable than they have to be.
Race of humans, yes.
Races of horses, sheep, cows, dogs, cats ... etc. not so much.
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I don't know where you have gotten this information, but down at the genetics department we would ask you to go back to the humanities department.
Did you know, for instance, that the cell lines GM18505, GM19099, and GM19238, are of the Yoruban origin, and therefor contain approximately 3-5 times as many rare SNPs as GM18951, which is Japanese in origin? That makes it pretty clear the two aren't the same race.
Did you know that Yorubans have an immune system that is genetically well-adapted to fight off bacte
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I'm really surprised you know that much about categorized cell lines without understanding what makes them, well them.
Cell lines are categorized by the geolocation of the population they originated from. The word race does not show up there.
I'm forced to conclude that you're a twat.
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Ahh, now I get it. You want to avoid the word, because it has a sociopolitical meaning you don't like. Okay, you're right. We don't have "races". We have "geographical origination profiles" that happen to correspond statistically to certain phenotypes. But concurrently we're also all the same, and any differences are purely social constructs.
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As an example, Japanese, as a "race" refers to a small set of diagnostic characteristics that are really completely irrelevant to the genetic characteristics of those cell lines.
An individual considered Caucasian can carry attributes of a cell line that originated in Japan, and a Japanese individual can lack them.
What makes one Caucasian? A lack of melanin in their skin. That's all.
The fact that you don't want to avoid the
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It has a solid scientific meaning, you just don't like the particular emotional values that you have attached to it. And that's pretty much what one would expect from an anti-intellectual.
As for "Japanese" having a small set of irrelevant characteristics, that is profoundly wrong, and I do wonder how you came up with that. You see, it turns out that statistics are rather important in genetics, which seems like something you should know before making uneducated claims. I am also somewhat disappointed that yo
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It has a solid scientific meaning
Citation needed. Your opinion does not count.
you just don't like the particular emotional values that you have attached to it.
This is a common claim among morons who like to paint the vast majority of scientists that consider racist tirades masqueraded as science as some kind of conspiratorial cabal suppressing the truth. Your colors are showing.
And that's pretty much what one would expect from an anti-intellectual.
Yes, I must be that. In all likelihood, my intellectual work has impacted your life at some point. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.
As for "Japanese" having a small set of irrelevant characteristics, that is profoundly wrong, and I do wonder how you came up with that.
Again, citation needed. I'm also curious how you can wonder how I came up with it when it is the scientific consens
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Citation needed. Your opinion does not count.
Actually, since I'm a scientist, my opinion does count, funnily enough; I do after all get to publish findings on such topics.
This is a common claim among morons who like to paint the vast majority of scientists that consider racist tirades masqueraded as science as some kind of conspiratorial cabal suppressing the truth. Your colors are showing.
Ah, and here comes the brown smearing; quite expected. I would say the word 'emotional' was highly accurate.
Yes, I must be that. In all likelihood, my intellectual work has impacted your life at some point. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.
Yes, that's why I said it. You are deferring objective for emotional because it makes you feel better. That is indeed anti-intellectual.
It is fully possible that your work has impacted my life at some point; sometimes I do want fries with that.
Again, citation needed. I'm also curious how you can wonder how I came up with it when it is the scientific consensus.
I'll note that I said irrelevant to the said cell lines, which it is.
It is absolutely not the scientifi
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Actually, since I'm a scientist, my opinion does count, funnily enough; I do after all get to publish findings on such topics.
I wait with bated breath to read one of these papers.
Being it will consist of your opinion dressed up as fact, it'll likely be laughed right out of the journal like most work done on such topics by your type. You seem to think that it's ok to construct evidence to fit your opinion. So no, your opinion does not count. What you can back up counts.
Your view is a minority view. "Race" has no place in biology, except as a very imprecise proxy for certain phenotypes. And you've shown that with your own words,
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I wait with bated breath to read one of these papers.
Being it will consist of your opinion dressed up as fact, it'll likely be laughed right out of the journal like most work done on such topics by your type. You seem to think that it's ok to construct evidence to fit your opinion. So no, your opinion does not count. What you can back up counts.
You are woefully uneducated on how publishing in academia works. Something that would be "laughed out of the journal" would only get published in a predatory journal to begin with, at which point no one would bother reading it. Otherwise, it would never make it past the review stage. Second, opinion still counts for a lot since the author is free to interpret results in any way that doesn't contradict the results. I have read more papers than I can count which use the results as a starting point for the con
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Still waiting.
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I did conclude that you were qualified to ask if I wanted fries with that. Are you saying that you're not?
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Do you consider yourself clever?
When you honestly answer that question, I suspect you will understand why you fall prey to your own defeasible arguments.
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You're all over the place, so it's hard to tell. You have after all accused me of being racist while using sweeping categorizations and claimed to speak for a community that you clearly aren't a part of nor understand. Expecting rational or consistent behavior from you would make me a fool.
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claimed to speak for a community that you clearly aren't a part of nor understand
And you claim to speak for a community that by a vast majority doesn't agree with your viewpoints on the scientific applicability of race.
Which makes us more credible? Your defeasible argument from an authority that your own peers don't recognize, or mine from a standpoint of basic logic and the determinations of your community as a whole?
I vote me. So do most people. Carry on. I still await your paper on the scientific applicability of race as a proxy for genetic phenotypes.
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And you claim to speak for a community that by a vast majority doesn't agree with your viewpoints on the scientific applicability of race.
Which makes us more credible? Your defeasible argument from an authority that your own peers don't recognize, or mine from a standpoint of basic logic and the determinations of your community as a whole?
If you're wondering whom is more credible when it comes to genetics, the geneticist or the angry peasant cursing at the clouds, then I'm afraid the answer is the geneticist. Your "logic" is nothing but a rant based on morality, something that has no value when it comes to the natural sciences. And generally the civilized world dismisses the rantings of those that do not believe in evolution.
I vote me. So do most people. Carry on. I still await your paper on the scientific applicability of race as a proxy for genetic phenotypes.
Now you're speaking for most people on the planet as well? An impressive feat, well done.
Re: Why is this a surprise? (Score:1)
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It is a murky concept. ...
Mostly, homo sapiens and neanderthals did not interbreed, just sometimes.
Did you just assume my species?
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Mostly, homo sapiens and neanderthals did not interbreed, just sometimes.
You mix up "sometimes" with "someplace".
Interbreeding as we know today happened in Europe. ... go figure.
The genes for red hair is an Neanderthal gene
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Interbreeding as we know today happened in Europe.
It happened where they coexisted. Duh!
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How did you measure this?
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From their art and tools, how do you think you muppet?
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We are all the same, humans, gorillas, and neanderthals. Intelligence, body hair, cranial shape; these are all just social constructs.
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So while you can get crossbreds, you can't further bred the crossbreds to have generations of hybrids.
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Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Why is this a surprise? (Score:1)
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So when the slave master interbred with the slaves, did that mean they created a different race that was somewhat stronger and just as intelligent?
Just saying. Take your human privilege and stick it up your ass you homosapien.
As a Neanderthal, you have no idea of the discrimination i go through every day by privileged humanoids who mock and deride my hairy back, poor table manner, and lack of effective communication skills. I demand reparations from the human race for what you did to my people 30000 years
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It seems to me that it's most correct to say that they are we, not that we inbred with them. Or more technically, Neanderthals are some of our ancestors.
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The species doesn't matter. The point of the article is that we've discovered that the spears used during that period were more accurate than we previously believed. That is a function of physics, not genetics.
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The point of the article is that we've discovered that the spears used during that period were more accurate than we previously believed.
Well a few days/weeks ago we had an article about "why are scientists surprised" or something.
Sorry, the article, the "research" and the "discovery" is just bullshit.
We find 300,000 year old relics of wooden spears made by Neanderthals ...
Some couch potato pseudo scientist can not imagine (yes imagine) that such a spear was useful to hunt unless you are as close as 10 ya
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This is not entirely clear. They were pretty darn intelligent, one of the world leaders. But to say they were as smart as anatomically-modern humans would require evidence that, AFAIK, nobody has found. That's merely a reasonable guess.
And I'm not not even completely sure that older "anatomically-modern" humans were as smart as the current humans. The negative space of the hardware (i.e. the skull) looks about the same, but thoughts don't fossilize, so we're just making best guesses f
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People back then sure as hell took their sweet time getting technology and an industrial base going. (Yes, I understand that it's hard to do that when you're pre-occupied with mere survival, and nobody has the leisure time to geek out.) Why no farming until about 12k ago? Why no cave are until about 40k-50k ago?
Population. It's relevant in a lot of ways. For example only so many people are creative enough to think of new technologies, and only a subset of those people are driven enough to develop them. Or labor, of course. You need a certain number of hands. And then there's specialization. Hunter-gatherers are generalists. Doing complicated things well requires specialists.
If it all comes down to people getting and spreading some software upgrade (i.e. culture as opposed to brains) and if that had an effect on what people were able to intellectually accomplish, I call that intelligence.
Probably both software and wetware. The more you use your brain, the more it can do. If you grow up using your brain more, you'll be able to u
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Why no farming until about 12k ago?
If you were thrown onto an island as an toddler, with a semi-abundant food source that doesn't require preparation, decent weather and zero education, would you have learned to farm?
The vast majority of what we call intelligence, is a couple hundred thousand years of passed on cultural knowledge.
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and just as intelligent.
And with brains bigger than those of modern humans. [phys.org]
Curious, huh?
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Get with the program. White supremacists are claiming that Neanderthal ancestry is what makes the white "race" superior these days.
Re: Why is this a surprise? (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. They called black people unevolved primitives until it came out that only black people hadn't fucked Neanderthals. Then they had to do a quick 180, proving that the only thing they believe in is their own superiority, which is trivially disproven. What a bunch of cowards. If they had two balls between 'em they'd be able to go out in public without a ghost costume.
Re: Why is this a surprise? (Score:1)
White supremacists are really in a catch twenty two. Other kinds of supremacists can survive and thrive and be symbiotic. Only white supremacists can destroy humanity if left unchecked
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"Only white supremacists can destroy humanity if left unchecked"
Bullshit. Any color of people can destroy the biosphere just by continuing to make shit we don't need. Speaking of which, noticed how desperate Apple is getting lately? They have pounded YouTube full of commercials for their garbage. All this crap nobody wants is destroying our home, I can't even enjoy Apple's failing because I know it's built on destruction.
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Speaking of which, noticed how desperate Apple is getting lately? They have pounded YouTube full of commercials for their garbage. All this crap nobody wants is destroying our home, I can't even enjoy Apple's failing because I know it's built on destruction.
Well, at least we know now that everything is Apple's fault.
Fucking hipsters anyhow!
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Well, at least we know now that everything is Apple's fault.
Nah, they're just one of many culprits, but they exemplify everything that is wrong with the world today. Faster shittier cheaper BUY IT YOU MORONS etc etc. It makes the world burn.
60 feet hey... (Score:1)
This is probably why very few wild animals will come within 60 feet of a person...
(excluding urban, pet, farm, and zoo animals obviously)
Neanderthals Are People Too (Score:5, Interesting)
The more we learn about Neanderthals, the less inferior they seem compared to other hominids.
Re:Neanderthals Are People Too (Score:4, Funny)
You call them Neanderthals.
I call them my relatives.
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You call them Neanderthals.
I call them my relatives.
I think that they were all absorbed. My wife tells me that I am a Neanderthal. She's kidding, sorta - but aside from my facial features, which would be considered Italianesque, I'm built like what you see in the museums. I might be pursuaded to get a DNA test if that could be verified.
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The Neanderthal was named for the famous German church hymn writer Joachim Neander (Neumann) [wikipedia.org], who translated his family name (Neumann, literally new man) into Greek: Neandros or Neander.
Quite interesting, the name of the place, where the Homo neanderthalensis was found, is "valley of the New Man".
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It all came from those views we were taught lining up hominids from the most primitive on the left to us on the right. Evolution isn't linear.
Given what we know of Neanderthals now, it's kind of hard to imagine them standing just out of reach of an animal, spear in hand, and thinking, "Well, that's that. I guess I'll just have to starve."
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Reading the article, they had javelin throwers throw spears made to mimic the ones they found, because they reasoned that Neanderthals would be practiced spear throwers, and javelin throwers are the closest modern analogy to that. But that made me realize that yeah, to stay alive, Neanderthals probably practiced throwing spears, and taught the kids how to do it. Did they have spear racks near where they slept? Stand them up in the corner?
It fascinates me for some reason that a given Neanderthal probably had
No big anatomy advantage for human throving (Score:5, Interesting)
Proposals that features of the upper limbs of different species of Homo indicate that throwing only comes into play with H. sapiens are hampered by multiple issues. These include small sample sizes, human variation in populations, evidence that humeral robusticity and shape may not correlate with strains in weapon use, and a lack of clarity whether any single activity contributes to or offsets bone remodeling or robusticity. Others argue for an earlier emergence of throwing, showing that features necessary for accurate and powerful throwing are evidenced in H. erectus fossils. A recent find of an early Neanderthal dating to MIS 7 from Tourville-la-Rivière shows skeletal trauma consistent with repeated throwing, supporting the hypothesis that they were capable and frequent throwers.
I'm curious what the result of the debate will be.
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go visit zoo with monkeys in it... they even know how to use rags as slingshots and throw rocks much farther than average human..
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If a Neanderthal would walk thorough NYC, or Paris, no one would turn around and look at him, as no one would find anything bizzare or odd looking about him.
He is more or less white skinned, has mostly red hair or is blonde, is relatively tall and obviously because of his work habits muscular. Thats it. Put him a suit on a couch and don't let him run around to hunt, he just looks like you.
I would go so far to claim that the idea that they did not wash and where dirty and filthy is absurd. They had music, so
Re: No big anatomy advantage for human throving (Score:2)
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Plenty in Europe.
https://www.seeker.com/cave-ar... [seeker.com]
Many pictures ... some cro magnon some neanderthals.
But google is your friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I can attest to this (Score:4, Interesting)
I can attest to this. In high school, we got a couple of lessons in throwing javelins. The protocol was not well established, because a girl threw a javelin when someone else went to pick up theirs. Although the javelins were blunted, it got stuck in the calve muscles of their left leg. The wound was cleaned and the "victim" appeared in class again after a couple of days. This was over a distance of, say, ten meters (32 feet).
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A friend of mine told me about a training accident in Aikido. ... again just one of the first h
She attacked with a wooden dagger, like in tis picture: https://www.karatemart.com/red... [karatemart.com] (ustthe first hi ton google search)
While she got disarmed the "dagger" flew somewhere and she was thrown same way.
For unfortunate bad luck, the dagger ended on the ground with its hilt just as he slammed there with her leg.
The dagger went through her _trousers_ and through the covering Hakama https://www.qualitymartialarts... [qualitymartialarts.com]
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Wow, fascinating! Would not have expected that.
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Neither did I ... accidents happen. Freak accidents, too.
Spears ... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the past, Neanderthal humans were believed to be largely close-distance hunters. A new paper in the journal Nature, based on actual outdoor tests with multiple test subjects throwing two wooden spears closely mimicking ancient spears found in various places at a target, surmises that spear throwing Neanderthals may in fact have been able to kill animals at distances of 60 feet or even greater. The authors found that targeting a wooden spear accurately at that distance takes skill, and even worked out the impact velocity of Neanderthal spears at such a distance. Nevertheless, Neanderthals with sufficient practice in spear throwing may very well have been capable of killing at distances far greater than previously thought. This changes the assumption that Neanderthals needed to get very close to animals in order to have a chance of killing them.
I've always wondered where this myth came from that Neanderthals were unable to throw their spears any significant distance and needed to get up close and personal to get a kill. There was even this crazy hypothesis for a while that Neanderthals simply couldn't throw spears because of the structure of their shoulder bones. During tests with the Schöningens spears [wikipedia.org] that German archaeologists conducted 20 years ago they found that modern athletes could throw replicas of the Schöningen spears up to 70 meters. A skilled spear man can hit something the size of the heart/lung area of a deer for example at a third and up to half that range. Modern day javelin throwers can hit a coconut at 20 meters, I'd expect palaeolithic hunters to be far more skilled. The Shöningen spears are over 300.000 years old and were already quite cleverly optimised for throwing and would have been made by proto-Neanderthals. The Schöningen find pretty much destroyed the idea that humans were basically carrion eaters until very recently in their history and only used spears along with fire to chase predators off their kills. They probably did that as well but they mostly seem to have been active hunters from very early on. Nevertheless there are still people sticking to the carrion eater theory.
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Nevertheless there are still people sticking to the carrion eater theory.
It is crucially important not to encourage or inspire any degree of "hunter" mentality; it is akin to warlike behavior and inherently masculine. Through several generations of careful narrative shaping we have managed to successfully inculcate the benign scavenger view into the mind of the contemporary snowflake and research such as this is not welcome. So please continue adhering to the orthodox view of vegan primitives, supplementing their diets only irregularly with the barest minimum quantities of mea
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One of the biggest mysteries in human ancestry is not "how smart or skilled" ancient humans were, but:
How dumb modern scientists are
Apes hunt. Chimpanzee e.g.
Apes use tools.
Apes scare away leopards etc.
Apes gang up for hunting, they make hunting parties, they hug each other before they depart into "chasers" and "distractors" and "killers".
How dumb scientists are to believe old humans could not hunt, made spears as toys etc. is beyond me.
The first thing in my mind if I see a tool is: oh, this is a tool for A
Re: Spears ... (Score:2)
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Yeah, that is the problem. Ignorant scientists.
If one would be used to have a basket close to the door and throw his used paper into it, Basketball style, he would not have the misconception a spear only flies 10 or 20 yards.
Re: (Score:2)
What's bewildering me is the assumption that a single neanderthal has to accurately throw a spear to kill an animal.
8 neanderthals throwing their spears at the same group of four animals are going to eat well that night, no matter how shit a throw they are.
But... (Score:1)
Re:But... (Score:4, Interesting)
As the 1999 article Die Recken von Schöningen – 400 000 Jahre Jagd mit dem Speer [academia.edu] discusses, throwing spears matters, animals will flee at a certain distance of a perceived threat. For most animals this is less than 30 m. The Schöningen spears make practical hunting weapons up to about 30 m distance.
The 1999 article also argues that in some situations throwing spears is more effective than using a bow: Animals learn to associate the characteristic noise from firing an arrow from a bow with danger; triggering a flight reflex that makes them start to move while the arrow is still in flight. This can be a problem when hunting with bows. On the other hand, there is no such noise when throwing spears
Re: (Score:2)
Animals learn to associate the characteristic noise from firing an arrow from a bow with danger
Yes, but they also associate the throwing movement with danger. Even if hey never got hit or anyone of their pack got hit.
And ... you only hear an arrow when it is to late. Either more or less hitting you or passing besides you. From the perspective of the shooter an arrow makes nearly no noise at all, however the bow does.
Re: (Score:2)
from firing an arrow from a bow
The GP did not say it was the arrow that made the noise.
Re: (Score:1)
.... animals will flee at a certain distance of a perceived threat. For most animals this is less than 30 m.
.... Animals learn to associate the characteristic noise from firing an arrow from a bow with danger....
The neanderthal population peak for Eurasia was a couple hundred thousand; unlike today, they weren't so ubiquitous. Animals don't posses some supernatural ability to identify predators when they first encounter them (as a species).... see what happened to the dodo when it first met humans. It takes time and constant reinforcement for that to ha
Re: (Score:1)
Try placing yourself back in time 100,000 years when the neanderthal population may have been 100,000 (total for everywhere). Do you think animals then had the same conditioning to fear us as they do now? You work with what you have; they had spears. If they couldn't throw far enough to take down their prey, i'm sure they'd come up with a different way of doing things..
No surprise here (Score:3)
I wonder why this study is considered big news now. It confirms the findings of German scientists from the late 90s (see e.g. Die Recken von Schöningen – 400 000 Jahre Jagd mit dem Speer [academia.edu], more publications referenced in the German Wikipedia and the new article in Nature). The design of the experiments seems similar. They even chose the very same spear (Schöningen 2) to base their replicas on.
Replicating earlier results is important and useful. Still I don't get why the results are reported by the media as if they were a surprise.
(stares at people who never heard of atlatl) (Score:2)
Um, spear throwing sticks have existed for a very very long time, and precede humans leaving Africa, so I don't see why Neanderthals couldn't have them too.
With those you get a very long range.
Re: (stares at people who never heard of atlatl) (Score:1)
I was wondering if someone would mention an atlatl too. The informal studies I've seen with an atlatl give 2-3.5x range over a traditional spear. I have a few atlatls but the arrows I made myself from bamboo aren't as best as they could be. There is still a hole in my front door because I never thought one would go that far.
There is also an amentum which is basically just a small loop of rope tied around a spear that causes the spear to twist fast when thrown, like a bullet. They say this also increases dis
Throwing Spears (Score:1)
Re: Who cares? (Score:1)
Right on. I mean, Neandies are so 1990s.