I find this interesting that our Ancestors could be so stupid, we assume myth is myth and the facts are unobtainum. Science is Science and refutation of such that there is nothing to pin down so therefor didn't exist, yet we see ourselves humans as the human animal and evidence of things that don't fit in a timeline is shot in the bum of history.

Neanderthals lived and having a Cranial Mass larger than our own, and how long did they live before modern humans its so difficult to not leap to a conclusion when modern science says cranial mass is the determine factor, yet we know nothing of the sort in the fossil record. No discovery yet will conclude they were capable of processing information like modern humans or did they simply choose a different path, like the Hopi Indians who descended from the Clovis or possibly Solutrean in France did not choose to ascend to form cultures because it was not in their nature to do so or they knew something we did not, they possessed the intellectual ability so why not then rather than taking a leap with Neandertals let just go back to 20 thousand years ago?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis

If we say maybe? You can take the misfit info abstracting pieces that don't fit and add them where you want to make a different picture, but now it's not scientific? The Sun rises and is Morning and it sets evening and we sleep to wake to a second day by a calendar that is set by the equinox and 2 moons which can be tracked even back then. Many in the science community still say we didn't start cultivation until 5 thousand years ago or the art of animal husbandry prior to that humans were only hunter gathers. Ancient Indians, Aztecs, Chinese, English, who possibly did more than we give them credit.

Like this evidence ( http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-evidence-supports-solutrean.html ) it just doesn't fit the Academic inner view, I've seen it hear on the campus every year. What happens is a someone in the science community writes books still published and or Teach another who Teaches Paleontology or Archeology supported by money from sales that exchanges hands among the Science community and like a bunch of Musk Ox they protect each others profits and interest and egos until they die like Neanderthals, even then many knew Professors will still support a previous view rather than that of a fresh perspective simply because they don't have enough support in the Fossil record or support by other scientist unwilling to Teach something they need base their current PhD degrees on which means they would have to go back to school or do something outside the limit of their energy to accomplish.

kv

Edit: My apologies for the hyperbole now

A lot of it comes down to the persons involved in the study and speculations of anything, and to what capacities and limitation they have, and thusly can not accurately relate to in others that may not have the same limitations in play in themselves.

Each one of us is in a state of being as smart, strong or whatever as we can be right now but that does not make us the smartest, strongest or whatever person that ever lived or is living even if that's how we perceive ourselves in the world.

That's a problem I have come to see in too much of academia these days. Too many think that because they went to school and learned what ever the school was teaching that makes them smarter and better than everyone else even if the cold hard statically provable fact of reality is they got taught a bunch of outdated, incomplete, irrelevant or fully made up nonsense which doesn't actually make them more informed in anything. It just make them another indoctrinated fool with a papermill diploma in nothing of intellectual substance or value.

As with your Neanderthal cranial capacity reference, their brains may have been physically larger than our own but that does not mean they were smarter than we are since it's entirely possible that they had a lower neural density than we do.
Many currently living species of animals have physically larger brains than we do but they are nowhere near our intelligence level simply because their brains have substantially less neural connection density and or other such key features that make our brains so much more cognitively powerful for their relative size.

Same but reverse comparison of us against most of the primates who share ~95 - 99% DNA and physical similarities with us. We both have very similar muscle size and shapes throughout our bodies yet most primates of comparable size to any human possess hugely superior physical strength over us just the same.

To me those two factors play heavily in our human world on every level. Self perceived feelings of being superior does not make someone superior no matter how many excuses they come up with to self justify their beliefs.

Especially so if they are incapable of recognizing someone else's superior capacities in the same field that are clearly above and beyond their own and thusly when confronted with that reality default to actions that show them to be everything but the superior intelligent informed human they think they are and wish others to perceive them to be.

 

She got them from my Ex...

Which means they are both smarter than you.

 

Which means they are both smarter than you.

As with your Neanderthal cranial capacity reference, their brains may have been physically larger than our own but that does not mean they were smarter than we are since it's entirely possible that they had a lower neural density than we do. Many currently living species of animals have physically larger brains than we do but they are nowhere near our intelligence level simply because their brains have substantially less neural connection density and or other such key features that make our brains so much more cognitively powerful for their relative size.

Well put.

Neuroplasticity

The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment.

I've always found the brain interesting in and of itself, formation of new dendrites.

I read an Article in American Scientific this year about Modern Humans species possibly living among Neanderthals who also died out playing a role in the development of Modern Humans today. They claim their could have been many separated Ancestors that just haven't been discovered to add the mix of unknown reasons.

But, what puzzles me the most Hopi Indian legend say's the earth has been destroyed twice already one by Ice the other by water and the third will be by fire. That is if we continue on our current path.

Maybe civilizations have been destroyed by a reboot like we do our devices that stop functioning properly.

kv

 

Neuroplasticity

that's the term I was looking for!

(Brains not all awake today.)

I read an Article in American Scientific this year about Modern Humans species possibly living among Neanderthals who also died out playing a role in the development of Modern Humans today. They claim their could have been many separated Ancestors that just haven't been discovered to add the mix of unknown reasons.

I've watched and read a number of documentaries and theory reports on how we came to be who we are now and I find the overall consensus has a considerable range of speculation as to why.
We now know that most of us of European descent have at least trace amounts of Neanderthal DNA in us now. Something that 20 years ago was deemed impossible and to which now has some plausible merit in the theory that we simply inter/outbred them while being more adaptable to a changing environment than they were.

We're pretty sure they weren't stupid by any standards of the time or now either. Just less able to adapt, multiply and spread out over a far wider geographic area as effectively as we did at the time.

As I understand it our Homosapien bodies are far better built for long endurance tracking and running which would have allowed our ancestors to literally chase our prey to death when all other hunting options failed. A body design that is not suggested as being a primary adaptive hunting and survival feature in Neanderthals given they were shorter, stockier, likely far stronger and better adapted to cold than our ancestors were.

https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/nature/what-made-neanderthals-look-different-humans

We were on average taller, leaner and thus far more heat tolerant, plus could use a wider range of foodstuffs than what the typical Neanderthal of the day but not likely hugely smarter. Just differently abled, faster to adapt and able to work with a more diverse range of food sources (just more efficient on every major evolutionary/survival point that mattered at the time) and those abilities favored us in the long run.

 

We are missing the real issue with becoming too old.

 

We are missing the real issue with becoming too old.
View attachment 138065

Issues with playing with legos at 100:

• You might break a nail while pressing them together
• You might confuse them with one of your thyroid pills
• You might step on one of them while looking for your metamucil
• They're extremely hard to pick up if you accidentally drop one on the floor
• Your grand children will never leave you in peace

Anyone like to add more items to that list?

 

Issues with playing with legos at 100:You might confuse them with one of your thyroid pills

Funny story? My little brother's boss and a friend for a long time(not even 30 years old yet yet) accidentally gave his 8 year old kid his own medicine yesterday.

Don't worry the doctors said to let him sleep it off and only give him halve of his dose of ritalin the next day...

Oddly enough true story.

 

Oddly enough true story.

Dangerous situation... it's good to hear that nothing came of it... Although the reverse could've been worse. My dad was a pediatrician, and he warned us that some medicines for children could be extremely harmful for adults.

 

Dangerous situation... it's good to hear that nothing came of it... Although the reverse could've been worse. My dad was a pediatrician, and he warned us that some medicines for children could be extremely harmful for adults.

Thankfully the child was rushed to the hospital and fortunately it wasn't more serious than this.

There was a panic understandably.

 

Issues with playing with legos at 100:

• You might break a nail or finger while pressing them together
• You might confuse them with one of your thyroid pills
• You might step on one of them while looking for your metamucil
• They're extremely hard to pick up if you accidentally drop one on the floor
• Your grand children will never leave you in peace

Anyone like to add more items to that list?

Age and size, Shanon ex-coworker at a youth facility, a Counselor 6'10 1/2" 400 pounds big boned ex-football player at a party one night I began saying it would be interesting to be as big he was with all the cool things I could do, but he replied no you wouldn't its the reason my knees gave out and why men in my family die at an early age, as I think of that my Dads Aunt Mimi was little, standing about 4' 9" and 100 pounds, lived to a ripe 105 completely lucid a very sharp mind till the end.

kv

 

Age and size, Shanon ex-coworker at a youth facility, a Counselor 6'10 1/2" 400 pounds big boned ex-football player at a party one night I began saying it would be interesting to be as big he was with all the cool things I could do, but he replied no you wouldn't its the reason my knees gave out and why men in my family die at an early age, as I think of that my Dads Aunt Mimi was little, standing about 4' 9" and 100 pounds, lived to a ripe 105 completely lucid a very sharp mind till the end.

kv

Better small and fit than big and ailing...

 

Better small and fit than big and ailing...

Better to have loved a short than never to have loved a tall.

 

Better to have loved a short than never to have loved a tall.

Funny you should say that, my wife's friend is only 5' they dated for a long time the almost 3 foot difference made her disappear if she was standing in front of him with his back to me, I said where's Lori suddenly her head popped out to his side with no body

kv

 

Age and size, Shanon ex-coworker at a youth facility, a Counselor 6'10 1/2" 400 pounds big boned ex-football player at a party one night I began saying it would be interesting to be as big he was with all the cool things I could do, but he replied no you wouldn't its the reason my knees gave out and why men in my family die at an early age, as I think of that my Dads Aunt Mimi was little, standing about 4' 9" and 100 pounds, lived to a ripe 105 completely lucid a very sharp mind till the end.

kv

Unfortunately he reveals the harder less known truth of being someone who represents a point in the upper end of the statistical bell curve of most any attributes.

Being in the top <5% statistical bracket for something is not always as fun and empowering as it may outwardly appear.

When your the big guy in the room at a bar too often you have some scrawny dumb drunk (or several) picking a fight with you because he/they has something stupid they want to to prove. Not fun at bars when you have to back down from a fight even though you know you can rip some dumb 100# drunks arms off like wings on a fly but don't want to look like the bad guy for ending his fight for him in the worst possible way.

Same effect for people of above average intelligence. Not much fun getting into debates with anyone who's too stupid to even realize just how badly they are being beaten.

 

As I understand it our Homosapien bodies are far better built for long endurance tracking and running which would have allowed our ancestors to literally chase our prey to death when all other hunting options failed. A body design that is not suggested as being a primary adaptive hunting and survival feature in Neanderthals given they were shorter, stockier, likely far stronger and better adapted to cold than our ancestors were.

We were on average taller, leaner and thus far more heat tolerant, plus could use a wider range of foodstuffs than what the typical Neanderthal of the day but not likely hugely smarter. Just differently abled, faster to adapt and able to work with a more diverse range of food sources (just more efficient on every major evolutionary/survival point that mattered at the time) and those abilities favored us in the long run.

Bingo. Neanderthals were effective in their niche but we were able to out-compete them by being able to run when hot. Humans in current form can out-run and out-endure any other land animal on the planet. The most effective strategy to avoid us is herd behavior, and that's one reason animals that herd are still around. The big, slow, meaty ones fed our ancestors.

 

Bingo. Neanderthals were effective in their niche but we were able to out-compete them by being able to run when hot. Humans in current form can out-run and out-endure any other land animal on the planet.

Well, maybe except horses. But we dominate them and make their legs our own, so I guess yeah, way to go "us." We win, by hook or crook.

Now if I could just saddle break a cheetah...

 

Bingo. Neanderthals were effective in their niche but we were able to out-compete them by being able to run when hot. Humans in current form can out-run and out-endure any other land animal on the planet. The most effective strategy to avoid us is herd behavior, and that's one reason animals that herd are still around. The big, slow, meaty ones fed our ancestors.

Like in Siberia 21,000 years ago........... http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Russia/Russian_history.htm Woolly Mammoths. Neanderthals needed more Calories to maintain life style, and those hairless females sure looked good in warm summer light but preferred Neanderthal women on a cold winter night.

kv

 

Well, maybe except horses.

Surprisingly, we can out run them too.

They, as many animals, have superior short distance speed over ours but for long distance and duration pace setting we humans can out do anything else on legs. Very few horses can go for more than 2 - 3 miles at a high rate and even then they are dead tired and take considerable time to recover if pushed to do so.
Whereas a young fit human can easily work their way up to being able to run flat out for at least several miles or set a brisk pace for 10's miles of which no other unconditioned animal can do that.

https://www.quora.com/How-long-can-a-trained-human-run-without-stopping 80+ hours and 350+ miles!

https://www.quora.com/Horseback-Riding-How-long-can-a-horse-be-ridden-without-rest ~ 35 miles or less and not at a high rate.

Then add in group effort and strategic maneuvering tactics and we humans can run down anything that we may not be able to individually. You chase it until you're tired, then I do, then KV does and by the time he's tired you're rested enough to run again and whatever we are after is too exhausted to fight any of us. Simple relentless pursuit tactics.

My understanding is that for pack or herd animals our ancestors took the Neanderthals approach and went with sharp pointy things we could toss at the weakest member then running off the rest of the pack or herd that may try to defend it once it was down. Initially we didn't have to be all that much smarter than anything else. We just had to be good at running and not giving up.

Personally I think that tenacity to relentlessly pursue is what is the basis for our inherent drive to get what we want in whatever we do whether it's work, play, inventing or whatever. We are purpose built mentally to not want to stop until we have gotten what we set our minds to and since we no longer have to use that drive to get food and survive we have learned to focus that instinct on other more cognitive-pursuit aspects of life.

 

Surprisingly, we can out run them too.

They, as many animals, have superior short distance speed over ours but for long distance and duration pace setting we humans can out do anything else on legs. Very few horses can go for more than 2 - 3 miles at a high rate and even then they are dead tired and take considerable time to recover if pushed to do so.
Whereas a young fit human can easily work their way up to being able to run flat out for at least several miles or set a brisk pace for 10's miles of which no other unconditioned animal can do that.

https://www.quora.com/How-long-can-a-trained-human-run-without-stopping 80+ hours and 350+ miles!

https://www.quora.com/Horseback-Riding-How-long-can-a-horse-be-ridden-without-rest ~ 35 miles or less and not at a high rate.

Then add in group effort and strategic maneuvering tactics and we humans can run down anything that we may not be able to individually. You chase it until you're tired, then I do, then KV does and by the time he's tired you're rested enough to run again and whatever we are after is too exhausted to fight any of us. Simple relentless pursuit tactics.

My understanding is that for pack or herd animals our ancestors took the Neanderthals approach and went with sharp pointy things we could toss at the weakest member then running off the rest of the pack or herd that may try to defend it once it was down. Initially we didn't have to be all that much smarter than anything else. We just had to be good at running and not giving up.

Personally I think that tenacity to relentlessly pursue is what is the basis for our inherent drive to get what we want in whatever we do whether it's work, play, inventing or whatever. We are purpose built mentally to not want to stop until we have gotten what we set our minds to and since we no longer have to use that drive to get food and survive we have learned to focus that instinct on other more cognitive-pursuit aspects of life.

Good heck, your ancestors hunted with mine I was thinking the same thing, but glad you posted instead. If you take a lead animal in a herd then stampede them to a cliff you lose every member, but if you cleve one animal then chase it in the direction you intend (Knowing their patterns of movement) with enough people placed at locations the animal will not suspect you off the trail when someone can take up the rear, then you begin the chase again, I take it from there and so on, if necessary the animal dies of a heart attack or lays down and say's just kill me I'm done. Less lose of Calories and a quick meal.

Neanderthals are thought to place themselves in a tree and jump the animal with a sharp instrument. But, that wouldn't be a good plan of attack with a Woolly Mammoth I'm sure the tactics were very different for that prey, but you couldn't prove it.

kv

Edit: Wolf pack display the same pattern of behavior.

 

I wouldn't put too much in that running down theory. I saw a show on Nova about that many years ago.
I tried for over three hours to run down some antelope once. In the grass flats with an old mercury. They led me in circles at 35-40 MPH for hours and never broke a wind.

I'm not kidding you...for hours and they did not tire. Tried with deer and elk too......but they always went for rough ground.......while the antelope thought it was play.

Besides....we're much too lazy.....I'll bet we had throwing rocks, boomerangs, spears and traps within the first week of hunger.