Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape During the Last Glaciation

Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape During the Last Glaciation PDF Author: Leslie Aiello
Publisher: McDonald Institute Monographs
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
What role did Ice Age climate play in the demise of the Neanderthals, and why was it that modern humans alone survived? For the past seven years a team of international experts from a wide range of disciplines have worked together to provide a detailed study of the world occupied by the European Neanderthals between 60,000 and 25,000 years ago: the period known as Oxygen Isotope Stage 3. This collection of papers documents the extensive environmental research conducted by the Stage 3 Project. The new chronological and archaeological database constructed by the Project sets the Neanderthal and modern human sites in a continent-wide framework of space and time. A mammalian data base maps the ecology and fauna of the period, providing fresh insights into the availability of plant and animal foods in different parts of the European landscape as Ice Age climate changed and fluctuated. New high-resolution computer simulations give detailed estimates of temperature and rainfall, and above all of the wind-chill and snow cover that would have such an impact on both humans and on the resources they needed for survival. The results provide revolutionary insights into the glacial climate of Stage 3 and the landscapes and resources that influenced late Palaeolithic life-styles.

Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape During the Last Glaciation

Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape During the Last Glaciation PDF Author: Leslie Aiello
Publisher: McDonald Institute Monographs
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
What role did Ice Age climate play in the demise of the Neanderthals, and why was it that modern humans alone survived? For the past seven years a team of international experts from a wide range of disciplines have worked together to provide a detailed study of the world occupied by the European Neanderthals between 60,000 and 25,000 years ago: the period known as Oxygen Isotope Stage 3. This collection of papers documents the extensive environmental research conducted by the Stage 3 Project. The new chronological and archaeological database constructed by the Project sets the Neanderthal and modern human sites in a continent-wide framework of space and time. A mammalian data base maps the ecology and fauna of the period, providing fresh insights into the availability of plant and animal foods in different parts of the European landscape as Ice Age climate changed and fluctuated. New high-resolution computer simulations give detailed estimates of temperature and rainfall, and above all of the wind-chill and snow cover that would have such an impact on both humans and on the resources they needed for survival. The results provide revolutionary insights into the glacial climate of Stage 3 and the landscapes and resources that influenced late Palaeolithic life-styles.

Neanderthals and Modern Humans

Neanderthals and Modern Humans PDF Author: Clive Finlayson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139449710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Neanderthals and Modern Humans develops the theme of the close relationship between climate change, ecological change and biogeographical patterns in humans during the Pleistocene. In particular, it challenges the view that Modern Human 'superiority' caused the extinction of the Neanderthals between 40 and 30 thousand years ago. Clive Finlayson shows that to understand human evolution, the spread of humankind across the world and the extinction of archaic populations, we must move away from a purely theoretical evolutionary ecology base and realise the importance of wider biogeographic patterns including the role of tropical and temperate refugia. His proposal is that Neanderthals became extinct because their world changed faster than they could cope with, and that their relationship with the arriving Modern Humans, where they met, was subtle.

The Neanderthal Legacy

The Neanderthal Legacy PDF Author: Paul A. Mellars
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691167982
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
The Neanderthals populated western Europe from nearly 250,000 to 30,000 years ago when they disappeared from the archaeological record. In turn, populations of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, came to dominate the area. Seeking to understand the nature of this replacement, which has become a hotly debated issue, Paul Mellars brings together an unprecedented amount of information on the behavior of Neanderthals. His comprehensive overview ranges from the evidence of tool manufacture and related patterns of lithic technology, through the issues of subsistence and settlement patterns, to the more controversial evidence for social organization, cognition, and intelligence. Mellars argues that previous attempts to characterize Neanderthal behavior as either "modern" or "ape-like" are both overstatements. We can better comprehend the replacement of Neanderthals, he maintains, by concentrating on the social and demographic structure of Neanderthal populations and on their specific adaptations to the harsh ecological conditions of the last glaciation. Mellars's approach to these issues is grounded firmly in his archaeological evidence. He illustrates the implications of these findings by drawing from the methods of comparative socioecology, primate studies, and Pleistocene paleoecology. The book provides a detailed review of the climatic and environmental background to Neanderthal occupation in Europe, and of the currently topical issues of the behavioral and biological transition from Neanderthal to fully "modern" populations.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers PDF Author: Vicki Cummings
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191025275
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1361

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Book Description
For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations - all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.

Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution

Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309148383
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.

Cro-Magnon

Cro-Magnon PDF Author: Brian Fagan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608194051
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Cro-Magnons were the first fully modern Europeans--not only the creators of the stunning cave paintings at Lascaux and elsewhere, but the most adaptable and technologically inventive people that had yet lived on earth. The prolonged encounter between theCro-Magnons and the archaic Neanderthals, between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago, was one of the defining moments of history. The Neanderthals survived for some 15,000 years in the face of the newcomers, but were finally pushed aside by the Cro-Magnons' vastly superior intellectual abilities and cutting-edge technologies. What do we know about this remarkable takeover? Who were these first modern Europeans and what were they like? How did they manage to thrive in such an extreme environment? And what legacydid they leave behind them after the cold millennia? This is the story of a little known, yet seminal, chapter of human experience.--From publisher description.

Them and Us

Them and Us PDF Author: Danny Vendramini
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780908244775
Category : Anthropology
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Put aside everything you thought you knew about being human - about how we got here and what it all means. Australian theoretical biologist Danny Vendramini has developed a theory of human origins that is stunning in its simplicity, yet breathtaking in its scope and importance. Them and Us: how Neanderthal predation created modern humans begins with a radical reassessment of Neanderthals. He shows they weren't docile omnivores, but savage, cannibalistic carnivores - top flight predators of the stone age. Neanderthal Predation (NP) theory reveals that Neanderthals were 'apex' predators - who resided at the top of the food chain, and everything else - including humans - was their prey. NP theory is one of those groundbreaking ideas that revolutionizes scientific thinking. It represents a quantum leap in our understanding of human origins.

The Evolution of Hominin Diets

The Evolution of Hominin Diets PDF Author: Jean-Jacques Hublin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402096992
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Michael P. Richards and Jean-Jacques Hublin The study of hominin diets, and especially how they have (primates, modern humans), (2) faunal and plant studies, (3) evolved throughout time, has long been a core research archaeology and paleoanthropology, and (4) isotopic studies. area in archaeology and paleoanthropology, but it is also This volume therefore presents research articles by most of becoming an important research area in other fields such as these participants that are mainly based on their presentations primatology, nutrition science, and evolutionary medicine. at the symposium. As can hopefully be seen in the volume, Although this is a fundamental research topic, much of the these papers provide important reviews of the current research research continues to be undertaken by specialists and there in these areas, as well as often present new research on dietary is, with some notable exceptions (e. g. , Stanford and Bunn, evolution. 2001; Ungar and Teaford, 2002; Ungar, 2007) relatively lit- In the section on modern studies Hohmann provides a tle interaction with other researchers in other fields. This is review of the diets of non-human primates, including an unfortunate, as recently it has appeared that different lines interesting discussion of the role of food-sharing amongst of evidence are causing similar conclusions about the major these primates. Snodgrass, Leonard, and Roberston provide issues of hominid dietary evolution (i. e.

Modern Humans

Modern Humans PDF Author: John F. Hoffecker
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231543743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Modern Humans is a vivid account of the most recent—and perhaps the most important—phase of human evolution: the appearance of anatomically modern people (Homo sapiens) in Africa less than half a million years ago and their later spread throughout the world. Leaving no stone unturned, John F. Hoffecker demonstrates that Homo sapiens represents a “major transition” in the evolution of living systems in terms of fundamental changes in the role of non-genetic information. Modern Humans synthesizes recent findings from genetics (including the rapidly growing body of ancient DNA), the human fossil record, and archaeology relating to the African origin and global dispersal of anatomically modern people. Hoffecker places humans in the broad context of the evolution of life, emphasizing the critical role of genetic and non-genetic forms of information in living systems as well as how changes in the storage, transmission, and translation of information underlie major transitions in evolution. He also draws on information and complexity theory to explain the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa several hundred thousand years ago and the rapid and unprecedented spread of our species into a variety of environments in Australia and Eurasia, including the Arctic and Beringia, beginning between 75,000 and 60,000 years ago. This magisterial work will appeal to all with an interest in the ever-fascinating field of human evolution.

Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1

Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1 PDF Author: Takeru Akazawa
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 4431545115
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This volume presents the first of two proceedings from the International Conference on the Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans, which took place in Tokyo in November 2012. Focussing on a highly innovative working hypothesis called the ‘learning hypothesis’, which attempts to explain the replacement as a result of differences in the learning abilities of these two hominid populations, the conference served as the latest multidisciplinary discussion forum on this intriguing Palaeoanthropological issue. The present volume reports on outcomes of the conference in three major sections. Part 1 provides an archaeological overview of the processes of replacement/assimilation of Neanderthals by modern humans. Part 2 consists of archaeological and ethnographic case studies exploring evidence of learning behaviours in prehistoric and modern hunter-gatherer societies. Part 3 presents a collection of papers that directly contributes to the definition, validation and testing of the learning hypothesis in terms of population biology and evolutionary theory. A total of 18 papers in this volume make available to readers unique cultural perspectives on mechanisms of the replacement/assimilation of Neanderthals by modern humans and suggested relationships between these mechanisms and different learning strategies.