Essays on Neanderthals

Abrigo do Lagar Velho is a rock-shelter in the Portuguese valley that is famous for the stratigraphic range of the Upper Paleolithic human occupations within that area.

Absolute dating technique (chronometric dating) refers to the process of revealing the age on a certain time scale.

Acclimatization is the response of an organism to a gradual change in environmental conditions by adjusting and sustaining within these changes. Acheulian (Acheulean) is a tool made of stone that had round cutting edges and was used during the Lower Palaeolithic era.

Adolescent growth spurt refers to the sharp growth in height and weight rates t during adolescence.

Aegyptopithecus refers to the extinct primate of the Oligocene Period, resembling a modern-day lemur, whose fossils were found in Egypt. Afar Triangle is the region that is part of the ...

Human beings all belong to the species Homo sapiens. However, both Neanderthals and modern humans are most likely the homo heidelbergensis descendants. Homo sapiens are believed to have evolved in Africa nearly 200,000 years ago and gradually migrated north, through the Middle East, to Europe and Asia. A skull 160,000 years old was discovered at the Herto site area of Ethiopia (Anthro.palomar.edu, 2010). Other more advanced transitional forms have been discovered at Laetoli in Tanzania and are 120,000 years old. About 115,000 years ago, some early modern humans (Homo sapiens) ago widened their range to ...

What archaeological evidence shows that modern human behavior during the Upper Paleolithic was significantly different from that of earlier hominins? Do you think that early modern H. sapiens populations were behaviorally superior to the Neanderthals? Be careful to define what you mean by “superior.” The Upper Paleolithic period can be characterized as a period of cultural changes and technological advancements for the hominins. A warming trend led to the melting of the glacial ice and uncovering of the vast territories covered by grass. The amount of herbivores increased and allowed early humans hunt more. It can be said that ...

Cannibalism was quite common among the early man. The suggested reasons for cannibalism may be to survive starvation especially during the winter seasons or rituals performed by the early man when one of them died. This paper will shed light on prehistoric cannibalism and the disease, which can spread from one person to another because of cannibalism. Evidence that cannibalism prevailed in early man exists in the modern literature. According to the article written by John Roach, modern man contains genetic markers, which are an indicator that early humans were cannibals. Scientist attributes their discovery of genes protecting against ...

Floresiensis, Denisovans, Neanderthals, and modern Homo sapiens are the four types of hominins. However, modern Homo sapiens are the only species left. There are many contributing factors that lead to the extinction of the three other species 20,000 years ago however I believe the most important aspect that lead to Homo sapiens survival over the others to be diet. There are slight diet differences between the species that I believe correlate to survival. I think that diet plays a role in the survival of the fittest idea as well. Homo sapiens were the fittest species and survived because ...

Cannibals are in a class of their own since even most serial killers only kill their victims but do not feed on their flesh. In the past human beings have been feeding on other persons mostly in war in a belief of gaining the power of their enemy or sometimes to just scare their opponents. Cannibalism didn’t start the other day; it’s a thing of the past, but various human beings do for different reasons. Some do it because they are psychopaths, it is a mental disorder, which could be paranoid schizophrenia as in the case of ...

Question 1

Cultural leveling describes how people from different cultures approach each other and try to reach common grounds regarding communication and interaction. This process is evident in Lee’s ethnographic fieldwork. Coming from white society, the researcher exhibited arrogance and considered himself superior, both intellectually and culturally, to the !Kung bushmen. He did this by extending to or cutting off the supply of tobacco from the Bushmen since he was the only source of the commodity in 1000 square miles (Lee). Besides, he neither shared his food with the Bushmen nor participated in their food-gathering activities. For this reason, the ...

Despite the orthopedic similarities between human and Neanderthals. Like humans Neanderthals also had arched heels and a large to that was in line with the foot. This physiology among other physical traits makes it possible for humans and Neanderthals to walk bipedal. (meet the relatives). Of course this does not mean that Neanderthals had the same foot shape as humans. What would these differences, if any, mean for the Neanderthals endurance while walking or running? According to “Early humans won at running; Neanderthals won at walking” by Lin Edwards the heels of Neanderthals were taller than modern humans. This ...

Late last year an important discovery about Neanderthal was presented to the public. A 130,000-year-old Neanderthal toe fossil discovered in a cave in Siberia, Russia, allowed scientists to sequence a complete Neanderthal genome. This information is important both in terms of studying Neanderthals, and also understanding of what makes the lineage of humans unique. It will allow scientists to how Neanderthals and Humans interacted and the breeding habits between both species.

Nature was the journal that broke finding to the public in their peer-reviewed journal in an article titled, The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains. ...

Most researchers agree that modern humans have been around for 100,000 years. However our ancestors ‘primates’ who walked upright in African plains, banded together for warmth and shelter might have lived much longer than us, estimated at around 3.2 million years. The predictions made are based on 42-inch fossil that was found in Ethiopia in 1974 by anthropologist Donald C. Johanson. This skeleton is probably the most popular fossil in the entire world and is named ‘Lucy’ after the Beatles song playing in the tape deck of researchers when it was found.

The discovery story and impact ...

Mutations are unavoidable in human reproduction. In human development, only a few mutations are beneficial. Mutation is determined by the conditions in which a given human is living. In most instances, mutations are believed to improve human survival rates. Environment plays a major role in the elimination of deleterious mutations in the human sphere. The next mutation in human may be an aquatic man or the ‘superion.' The 'aquatic' man will replace the normal man and will be specifically designed to live in the waters. The main difference between the 'aquatic' man and normal human being is that ...

Human organism represents a complex structure consisting of organs that interact in such a way that humans can live, breathe and perform all the functions that they need. But the organs as we can see them now (see Figure 1) haven’t always been the way they are now. In order to create such a system, thousands of years of evolution were required, which allowed people to have such a system of organs that would perfectly suit the environment and respond to its main factors in optimal way.

In order to clearly see the evolution of human body, it is convenient to analyze ...

In archeology, DNA analysis has been used as an investigatory tool since it became available to scientists. DNA analysis, which is a constantly developing and expanding field, has allowed archaeologists to precisely and decisively obtain results that solve archaeological, historical, and evolutionary questions. Unfortunately, the methods for using ancient DNA analysis tend to destroy the samples from which the DNA is extracted. The results can easily be affected by external contamination as well, which requires the research to be conducted within specialized laboratories by trained laboratory personnel (Arandjelovic, Guschanski, Schubert, Harris, Thalmann, Siedel, & Vigilant, 2009). DNA analysis has been ...

Movie Review of The Croods

The movie, The Croods (2013), is about a family of Neanderthals who met one Homo sapiens, and they all traveled together to find a better place to live after earthquakes and comet showers destroyed the family’s former abode. Ten things about Neanderthals presented in the movie are enumerated and discussed below. - In the movie, Neanderthals run very fast over long distances. The opening scene in the movie showed them running very fast in search for food. When they were attacked by a wild animal, all members of the family ran fast. I learned in class that Neanderthals cannot run ...

Question 1

Hominid refers to humans and their closer relatives that existed. The hominid evolution relates mostly to origin of and evolution of human beings. Evolution takes a lengthy process that led to the origin of human from their apelike ancestors. The scientific evidence portrays behavioral traits that indicate the origin of human beings from the apelike ancestors evolving over a long duration of time. Among the major behavioral traits relate to the bipedal nature that human beings developed over a long duration of time approximated as four million years. Grouping of the known hominine, therefore, falls under the same class. Scientists and ...

Neanderthals are the members of the genus Homo and are known extinct relatives of Homo sapiens. A large amount of fossils and other archives have been collected that has substantiated the presence of these mysterious beings. The first skeletal fossils of Neanderthals were discovered in Germany in 1856, in the Neander Valley, where a group of quarrymen found 16 bone pieces including a skull, which they thought to be a bear. The bones were analyzed to determine that the fossils belonged to ancient relatives of humans. It has been close to 150 years since the accidental discovery of Neanderthals, however, scientists are ...

In their article, A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo, David Lordkipanidze et al explain a point that disapproves many unsubstantiated beliefs that have gone down in the books of history for quite a long time. The article is basically about the best preserved hominid from Dmanisi, southern Georgia. The article prominently focuses on the cranium, the face, the braincase and the cranial base to rule out the presumption that the tree of human ancestry has many branches. The study disapproves this belief explaining that the different species of Homo erectus as explained by previous ...

The Neanderthals were one of the brightest and the most alluring of earlier hominids. Throughout time and in the future, there will always be a strong debate regarding how Neanderthals are related to modern Homo sapiens. There are different debates about their origins, yet the two strongest are ones that stir the pot. The Neanderthals were found in Europe. They were countless questions on how they arrived there. The general location of previous hominids was Africa. The works of Richard Leakey have brought light to this information and discoveries. Some anthropologist argues that it was due to ice age and ...

Introduction

The term human evolution refers to the gradual process through which human beings developed from simple to complex humans a process which took millions of years. The question on how we came to be is one of the compelling and mysterious questions which have been disturbing the minds of different scientist and even the normal beings. In order to come up with a comprehensive answer regarding human evolution, many pertinent questions have to be answered. For instance, what lead human being to evolve their marvellous intellect? Why are we somehow different with our closest relatives? These questions among others are some ...

Neanderthals interbred with human beings according to scientific studies. However, the Neanderthals became extinct. It is believed that the Neanderthals had the same brain like that of human being. However, Neanderthals were stronger as compared to human beings. Therefore they needed a lot of energy to survive. As competition with human beings for food increased, it is possible that the Neanderthals failed to get access to enough food as required by their bodies. This could have caused the death of the Neanderthals. Therefore even after interbreeding, the characteristics of the Neanderthals could not survive due to the fact that the ...

Evolution of Warfare

Since existence, human beings have always waged war. It is claimed that the first action the Homo sapiens engaged in on the global stage was genocide with the complete obliteration of the Neanderthals even though there is no implication of a prearranged war endeavor. The Neanderthals where physically stronger than the Homo sapiens. However, the Homo sapiens could commune and unite to push the Neathadals to areas that were not very favorable for continued existence hence dominating better settlements.

Though many people would think of war as a morally and ethically unacceptably action, it is still a very important form of human ...

Background

In a recent documentary published by National Geographic about the trails of the DNA, particularly in Africa, a lot of facts and correlations between races were discovered. The documentary focused on three races: the Africans, Europeans and the Asians. The researchers theorized that majority of humans in this planet have African origins, at least by looking at their mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome structures. This paper will focus on the different aspects of DNA; what is a DNA and why its journey is such a good one to follow.

Basic Information about DNAs

DNA is a type of nucleic acid located inside cells of living organisms. It is a ...

Background

Neanderthal Man was the name given to bones found in 1856 in Germany’s Neander valley (‘tal’, or ‘thal’ in old German spelling). The name Neander was a pseudonym of the 17th-century minister Joachim Neumann, the Greek translation of his name (‘new man’).

Deception

A recent major PBS-TV series on evolution depicted Neanderthal Man as only half human and not very intelligent, one who lived a very inferior life compared to the alleged first humans, the Cro-Magnon people. Some scientists today believe he was ‘lacking the language skills, foresight, creativity, and other cognitive abilities of modern humans’.

Neanderthal Man is considered to ...