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Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of Modern Human Superiority Complex

Summary:

The disappearance in the fossil record constitutes the biological part of a process

of change that occurred in Europe and in the near east between 45 and 35 thousand

years ago. Homo sapiens started to replace the archaic population (neanderthals) in

Eurasia. In the 1980 paleoanthropologists thought that neanderthals evolved into

modern humans.

The opposite view was there was another origin of modern humans and they

replaced the archaic population including the neanderthals by immigration. The second

view was more accepted due to genetic studies and evidence supported by fossils.

These studies showed that Africans were more modern looking than the neanderthals.

This suggested that modern humans originated from Africa. The disappearance of the

archaic population including the neanderthals is due to the superiority of modern

humans. The modern human were able to evolve cultural tradition and have cognitive

capacities which allowed them to travel and replace other hominids.

Critical Thinking:

This article does use the scientific method in order to discuss the question, what

happened to the neandertals? There were two hypotheses developed. The first

hypothesis that was discussed in the 1980s is that neandertals evolved. The second

hypothesis assumed a single origin of modern humans replaced the neanderthals and

higher population. They were able to experiment with fossils showing evidence of
distinct physical appearance from hominins from Africa showing more modern features.

With this study paleoanthropologists believe that with the migration of modern

humans from Africa to Europe and Eurasia overtook the land and slowly started to

diminish the archaic population including the neanderthals.

After reading this, I decided to do additional research and see what more

opinions side would have to say. I found a website named livescience.com that had a

article titled: Humans Did Not Wipe Out the Neanderthals, New Research Suggests by

Charles Q. Choi. In this article he suggested that there has been studies suggesting that

neanderthals went extinct a long time after the migration of the modern humans from

Africa. This evidence is supported scientists studying bone, charcoal, and shell

materials from Russia and Spain. The study found that Neanderthals disappeared from

Europe about 41,000 and 39,000 years ago. This gives the Neanderthals another

thousand years or so into extinction. So it is believed that Neanderthals did not die off

so quickly but eventually evolved with the modern humans over time. This article does

still does support the first article on how Neanderthals went extinct due to the migration

of modern humans from Africa but this article just went into more depth regarding the

reason.

These articles gave me a new insight on exactly what happened to our earlier

ancestors the neanderthals. I never really gave a thought to their extinction, I knew they

came a long time after the dinosaurs but didn't fully understand exactly what happened

to them. I assumed the physical appearances and mental capacity of neandertal just

evolved overtime to what we now consider the modern human so in that retrospect I
was correct. If I was to study this more in depth I do not think I would approach this any

differently. Looking at fossils, bones ,and the area where they lived is probably the best

approach to determine how they lived and how they evolved.

References:

Choi CQ. Humans Did Not Wipe Out the Neanderthals, New Research Suggests. Live Science. Live

Science; 2014. Available: http://www.livescience.com/47460-neanderthal-extinction-revealed.html

Villa P, Roebroeks W. Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of the Modern Human

Superiority Complex. PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science; 2014. Available:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0096424