Comment by JumpCrisscross

11 days ago

> sounds all very unsubstantiated. Speculation it seems to me

What part of the study strikes you as unsubstantiated?

10 comments

JumpCrisscross

Reply
rhelz  11 days ago

Every part is unsubstantiated. For starters, for the vast majority of H. Sapiens existence on earth--from 300,000 years ago to about 45,000 years ago, we shared the world with 4 or 5 other hominids that we know about. (Neanderthal, Denisoven, H. Luzonensis, H. Floresiensis, and still perhaps a few H. Erectus, and no doubt even more we haven't found yet.)

That's 250,000 years of coexistence. We know that we sheboinked with at least two other species, probably more, because we still carry their genes to this day. So much so that it couldn't have been just a sheboink or two; we sheboinked over extended periods of time, i.e. we formed families with Neanderthals and Denisovens.

We have no evidence of warfare between the species. I.E. We have found no Neanderthal skull with an arrowhead in it, for example. Besides the fact that we are the only ones left, I don't see any substantiation at all.

It is a mystery why they are not still here. But the last 50,000 years, since the end of the last Ice Age, has been very hard on human species, for some reason. We are the only humans left, what every got them might get us too if we let it.

  • shakna  11 days ago

    > We have no evidence of warfare between the species.

    Thats not correct.

    We have a neanderthal slain by spear, at a time and place where it was only carried by modern humans. [0]

    This isn't a singular event. We have a history on injuries consistent with war, on both sides.

    Yes, we "sheboinked". We also took women as prizes of war and raped them. As humanity has continued to do for most of their history.

    Sure, the story is probably more complex. Some tribes at war, others at trade. Some who intermingle, and others who raged. That's... Just history of a people. That's normal.

    But we absolutely have a history of war between the species.

    [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

    • rhelz  7 days ago

      Thanks for the reference, and I don't want to overstate my case. I'm certainly not claiming that there was no conflict between varieties of humans, after all, Homo Sapiens has plenty of conflict with itself. Oetzi, for example, died of arrow wounds.

      The cited article certainly is evidence of conflict. The Neanderthal's bone lesion was consistent with the kinds of bone lesions on pig carcases from projectile weapons, so perhaps even interspecies conflict. Maybe.

      But the original claim, that Homo Sapiens conducted some kind of uncanny valley-fueled genocide of every other variety of human, is not supported by the article. "Injuries consistent with war" are also injuries consistent with with not-war. I mean, if we had a single example of a neanderthal bone with an arrowhead in it....but we don't.

      // We also took women as prizes of war and raped them //

      There is absolutely no evidence of this. You've got to remember, every single Neanderthal fossil we've ever found could fit on a large dining room table. They lived light on the land, and left hardly a trace.

      There probably was only on the order of 10k Neanderthals alive at any one point, and that population was spread over all of Europe and half of Asia. The vast majority of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals would go their whole lives, generations, without even seeing a member of the other species.

      We can speculate, but that's all it is, speculation. Theories of the "uncanny valley" and raids by women-raping, spear-throwing humans are fanciful, and say a lot more about what our psychological hang ups are. Cf. with historical speculations about Neanderthals as brutish and stupid. Any theory which gets too far ahead of the evidence has a very short shelf life.

      1 reply →

jama211  10 days ago

Not the study specifically, the rather huge leaps of logic and faith required to get from the study’s findings to the speculations mentioned in your comment.