Primus Pilus Posted March 4, 2008 Report Share Posted March 4, 2008 A Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world may have spread a mad cow-like disease that weakened and reduced populations of the large Eurasian human, thereby contributing to its extinction, according to a new theory based on cannibalism that took place in more recent history. Aside from illustrating that consumption of one's own species isn't exactly a healthy way to eat, the new theoretical model could resolve the longstanding mystery as to what caused Neanderthals, which emerged around 250,000 years ago, to disappear off the face of the Earth about 30,000 years ago... Discovery News Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted March 4, 2008 Report Share Posted March 4, 2008 Support cannibalism. Everybody eats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecimusCaesar Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 When Neanderthal skulls were first discovered in Europe many of them had holes in them. The Archaeologists supposed that the holes were caused by cannibals who drilling into the head to get to the brains. Later research showed that the bone had healed and that the Neanderthals were actually performing a type of brain surgery called trepanation. Now we have come full circle again to neanderthal cannibalism. Come to think of it, haven't there been a dozen reports on the possible cause of neanderthal extinction in the last few months? Archaeologists of the Paleolithic period must be working into overdrive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted March 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Come to think of it, haven't there been a dozen reports on the possible cause of neanderthal extinction in the last few months? Archaeologists of the Paleolithic period must be working into overdrive! Indeed... with each theory being so dependent upon a good deal of conjecture and limited fact, it makes for some interesting studies. However, it's come a long way in a relatively short time... it wasn't that many years ago when we were still being taught that modern humans were likely descended directly from Neanderthal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldrail Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Its also a lot of people trying to be clever. The neanderthals died out because they were a species in decline, losing out in competition with cro-magnons and changing climates. Now its entirely possible they were cannibals - there are possibly still some of modern humans that do that today in remote pockets (lets ignore the wierdo's out there) but did that cause the extinction? The rabbit/fox grpah comes into play here and I suspect it didn't, but you might have concede it did the neanderthals no favours if true. But then, if the neanderthals were as settled as I've been educated to believe, then surely cannabalism was infrequent, since otherwise they were eating famiily members and thats a sure sign of human desperation in the face of starvation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klingan Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 now I didn't read the article very carefully but if cannibalism wiped out the Neanderthals, why in Gods name are we still here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldrail Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 Because our ancestors the cro-magnons ate them probably Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornelius_sulla Posted March 11, 2008 Report Share Posted March 11, 2008 Is it not possible that the Neanderthal cannibalism was some religious/symbolic rite? It seems a bit too pat to imagine them so starving that they ate each other out of existence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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