Comment by shakna

13 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...

5 comments

shakna

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rhelz  9 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.

  • shakna  8 days ago

    All I've done is speak where the evidence leads. They didn't live light and leave hardly a trace - they lived a very long time ago. Few weapons are designed to last millenia.

    Dismissing half of academia's findings with a wave of your hand and an alternate speculation is... Leaning on speculation.

    You said specifically "We have no evidence of warfare between the species."

    I showed that to be incorrect. I followed the evidence, where you followed your gut.

    > The vast majority of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals would go their whole lives, generations, without even seeing a member of the other species.

    This is an absolutely ridiculous assertion, and entirely speculative. We have Neanderthal DNA intermixed with our own. For it to be possible, then the numbers intermixing cannot be some one in a lifetime event - its a global phenomena.

    We have evidence of war, trade, and sex. There is no great division that these people rarely met.

    That's akin to saying the Chinese never meet the Americans.

    But to go further than just genetic history, Tinshemet Cave and Nesher Ramla show that we traded and lived together. (Which incidentally are neither in Europe nor Asia). We built societies together. We were not nearly as isolated as you speculate.

    > 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...

    No. Flatly no. It speaks to the consistency of human history. Our ability to trace genetic legacy, is not because of a psychological hangup.

    The Rape of Nanjing was not a one time moment. And machine guns are hardly spears. The Crusades through the Middle East did not leave behind no legacy. Kidnapping prizes was the norm for so very long, it was a norm of our mythology. Who was Helen of Troy? How did the Chu marry his wife?

    Why did the Assyrians put record of these spoils into stone? Anyone who disregards the massive historical evidence that mankind has always raped its way through war, is one who is utterly blind to all evidence before them.

    Saying homo sapiens kidnapped Neanderthal woman, and vice versa, is not a claim of intelligence. It is an understanding of historical behaviour.

    ... All of our evidence points towards not homo sapiens and Neanderthals doing things. Rather, it points towards people acting as people. Tribal boundaries, but not species. They made war, crime, love and trade. They were people.

    • rhelz  2 days ago

      // I showed that to be incorrect. I followed the evidence, where you followed your gut. //

      Even the authors of the original article didn't claim this was evidence of conflict between the species. They only claimed that it was evidence consistent with conflict between the species.

      You are extrapolating far, far, beyond what the evidence would support.

      There's one bone which is fractured in a way which is *consistent* with its being caused by a homo sapiens-style rock hitting it.

      And nobody is claiming that we never got into the pleistocene version of a bar fight. Of course we did. Perhaps the bone mentioned in the article you cited was the result of such a fight. Perhaps not.

      We have no evidence whatsoever of war between the species. None. Zero. A bar fight is not a war. And we have absolutely no evidence of any kind of genocidal berzerking. Any attempt to recruit the Assyrians or the rapists of Nanjing is anachronistic. That kind of warfare requires social coordination on the a scale which we wouldn't even invent until the Assyrians.

      sigh it is an easy mistake to make---the evidence is consistent with what you want to believe. Therefore, it must support what you believe. :-( You have to resist the temptation. The more you want something to be true, the more suspicious you should be that it isn't true.