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Forget global warming for a moment (but just a moment); if you were a Neanderthal, it was global cooling you would’ve been more concerned about. In fact, scientists now think that it was a massive global cold snap that killed off the last of the ‘thals, about 25,000 years ago. Neanderthals appear in the fossil record about 350,000 years ago and, at their peak, these squat, physically powerful hunters dominated a wide range, spanning Britain and Iberia in the west to Israel in the south and Uzbekistan in the east. Our own species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa, and displaced the Neanderthals after entering Europe about 40,000 years ago.
What finally did them in, however, was the most recent ice age. Neanderthals had survived previous ice ages, taking refuge in warm pockets of southern Europe, but the cool weather of 22,000 BCE was too much even for those Iberian holdouts. The cause of this chill may have been cyclical changes in the Earth’s position relative to the Sun — so-called Milankovitch cycles — and the temperature change was brief enough that flora like oak and olive trees survived, but our ancestors did not. We can assume, methinks, that Mother Nature would be no more forgiving with us when the time comes.
On a (sort of) related note, would you consider a Neanderthal to be a person? Ever since I saw that Geiko ad that said, “Cavemen are people, too,” I have wondered. Are they technically people or not?
posted by Molly on 2-21-2007 at 10:40 am
There was another major difference with the last ice age.
The unimaginably massive volcanic eruption of Toba in Sumatra blotted out the sun, covered southern Asia with feet of ash and might have knocked the populations of each human-like species (there were three at the time…homo sapiens, Neanderthals and homo erectus) below 10,000.
That event was followed immediately by a volcanic winter that quickly turned into the last ice age before today.
So not only did the Neanderthals have to deal with the usual nightmare of ice age survival, they had to do it after withstanding the most epic disaster in human history.
The Neanderthals survived all that, but homo sapiens used their intellect and adaptability to leap ahead of the Neanderthals and homo erectus. Basically, this disaster-turned-ice-age was exactly what our species needed to supplant the other hominids — who had a big head start on us since we had stayed in Africa until 100,000 years ago.
OK, sorry for the rant. This is just a fascinating topic that’s always made me curious.
posted by Griner on 2-21-2007 at 11:25 am
In response to Molly:
Why not call them people. They had family’s, were capable of communication and could plan for future events. I’m not sure if they ever suffered from an existential crisis or could count their fingers but they did have art (sculpture and cave painting) and entertainment (sex and music-percussion only).
posted by Jared Probst on 1-28-2008 at 2:04 pm