NEANDERTHALS

Neanderthals

Neanderthals

Discuss the colonization of Europe by Homo sapiens, and how the new technologies they developed might have given them an advantage over Neanderthals (Mallegni, 1987).

Introduction

The origin of Neanderthals is closely linked to the first colonization by humans in Europe. It is known that at first the human race was confined to tropical Africa. It further advanced when Homo sapiens entered 1.8 million years ago. East Africa's biggest and strongest constitution gradually spread through the Sahara desert to tropical Asia (Mallegni, 1987). Research suggests that these roots of population adaptations can be studied from the past times as with time, distinctive modern human remains and artifacts in Southern Africa (Mallegni, 1987).

History of Neanderthals

Through the past century, the Neanderthal populations of Western Africa and Europe have faced many scientific changes. These changes have emerged from the past century. After almost 200000 years, different adaptations have taken place since that time. The glacial climates of North Western Eurasia have disappeared from past 30, 000 to 40,000 years. These adaptations have been replaced by the human population identical to the modern ones.

However, no fossils of Homo sapiens have been found in Europe. Is it true that this species spread throughout Europe as well as for Asia, scientists think. Extremely cold climate of northern latitudes and the presence of large predators such as saber-toothed tiger precluded human existence in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. (Mallegni, 1987).

A large number of experts believe that the first Europeans arrived in Africa through a roundabout route through southwestern Asia and the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. Another sector supports the theory that there was an entry in Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar, or Italy via Sicily. The sea level was much lower than 900,000 years ago, but for water crossing would take a canoe or raft, a technology that may be beyond the capacity of primitive human.

The first Europeans, of which we have received only a few fossil fragments, represent an enigma. The classic anthropological school argues, on a rather flimsy, that Homo erectus groups considered the first Europeans evolved into archaic forms of Homo sapiens, which in turn led to Neanderthals.

In its golden age some 75,000 years ago, the Neanderthals occupied a vast region that included Europe and southwest Asia, from the Atlantic coast to central Asia and eastern Mediterranean world. Despite of the simple technology use, they adjusted with considerable success to climatic extremes. On the other hand, much of Europe was covered in ice, and the great European plain was tundra and treeless (Arsuaga, 1989).

Neanderthals and modern humans

One of the most curious enigmas facing scientists today is the fate of the Neanderthals. Were they direct ancestors of modern human? Or it was a side branch in the evolutionary line of a great man, displaced by the most seasoned Homo sapiens? There are two theories regarding the fate of Neanderthals and their relationship to modern humans (Arsuaga, 1989).

One, called the "multiregional hypothesis" argues that modern humans evolved from primitive peoples from Africa, ...