Comments on: Controversial Study Suggests Early Humans Feasted on Neanderthals

By: kate sisco

kate sisco — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:33:38 +0000

As an interesting aside, consider why cave art was practiced deep inside caves requiring much planning for lighting, pigments, etc which has led to almost any theory being considered. Here I offer mine: the practice of representational ’seeing’ painting was a forbidden practice and why? Because it was deviant. It was not normal. What was normal was ’seeing’ as an out of body experience. Thirty years ago history/natural art books included strange depictions of what seemed to be the scene as seen from above. One assumes since the Neanders possessed this quality, the ability in the CroMagnons was seen as evidence that some crossover occurred, perhaps in cannibalism. In as much as this out of body art was made long after civilization started, one can consider that the out of body ’seeing’ became a ‘talent’ defining a shaman or wizard, etc., slowly disappearing from the remaining homo species, us. The new normal, representational painting from a standing on the ground point no longer had to be hidden, it was as everyone saw.

By: john

john — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:13:02 +0000

Hi, Rolf,
No doubt, there is a lot of cannibalism among d’Errico’s relatives, as every archaeologist on this period knows…

By: johnn costello

johnn costello — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:07:36 +0000

Has anyone considered the fact that when a neanderthal won the fight they may have had us for dindin ?

By: Rolf

Rolf — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:40:49 +0000

Maybe your relatives were cannibals but not mine.

By: yrag

yrag — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:44:17 +0000

The article states: “Early humans and Neanderthals may have clashed violently during their brief coexistence in Europe”

If I understand correctly, our human forebears entered Europe about 45 thousand years ago. Neanderthals remains at Gibraltar indicate that they may have survived until 24,000 years ago. That’s an approximately 20 thousand year overlap—hardly what I would consider a “brief coexistence”! No?

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:23:55 +0000

Well, considering modern-day humans still practice cannibalism (i don’t care how much our societies have differentiated, they’re still human even if they live naked and eat each other), I’d say there’s a good possibility that at 30 to 50 thousand years less civilized than we are now we did eat any and every thing we could get in our mouths that didn’t kill us. Especially since the threat of starvation to a hunter/gatherer society is always just around the corner.

Considering how many species humans have driven beyond the brink of extinction, there is a very large chance that we too drove Neanderthals beyond the brink. After all, back then they would have just been another tribe, and point me to a period in history where tribes (or nations) haven’t been killing one another.