For hunting big game, did Homo sapiens use snares and concealed pits that far back in time? How about the driving-prey-over-a-cliff strategy?
Humans also did that long-distance-running hunting style long before meeting up with Neanderthals, right? That may have been a strategy that Neanderthals couldn’t have adopted as effectively.
No, I’m not talking about agriculture. Modern h/g groups (other than the Eskimos) do not have 90% of the diet consisting of meat, and neither did their ancestors 50k years ago.
I haven’t heard about those. Unfortunately, concealed pits don’t stay around for over 30,000 years and how would you see an over-the-cliff hunting strategy?
What are found with early Homo Sapiens are spear heads, fish hooks, etc. Fish hooks are found in South Africa and date as far back as 50,000 years ago. These aren’t associated with Neanderthals. All Neanderthals had were hand axes.
Running after game probably predates Homo Sapiens. Homo Erectus had long legs and could run. Their body style matched modern man. Neanderthals probably rand down their game too. It’s just that once they ran down their game, they jumped them with hand axes rather than spear them.
The world entered a long dry period about 75,000 years ago and Homo Sapiens apparently were forced to retreat down to the South coast of Africa. This is about the time the first fish hooks are discovered. It is possible that Homo Sapiens had fish nets too, but those don’t preserve very well. Modern man almost became extinct during this time, but apparently by increasing their diet to include fish and hunting more efficiently with spears, they were able to survive.
Once the dry spell was over, Homo Sapiens moved up Africa and where ever they settled, whatever Humanoid species was around disappeared. There were several archaic species of man, and Neanderthal was only one of them. Even Homo Erectus and several species of australopithecus were still around at that time.
Homo Sapiens were very efficient hunters and where ever we spread, large mammalian species quickly disappeared. Some archeologists say it was climate changes, but the coincident of extinction and modern man arrival to a particular area are strong.
It is possible that we simply were able to out hunt the other humanoid populations into extinction. Maybe we needed spears because we simply aren’t big and strong enough to bring down a rhino with our bare hands and Neanderthals were. But, once we got spears, we were able to be more efficient hunters. Then, maybe Jarred Diamond is right and it was probably a pathogen.
Many dead animals found at the foot of cliffs? Especially if they were found there in large numbers.
If they took the animal back to their camp, bones and all, the bones of an animal that died from falling over a cliff might still look different than those of an animal killed with a spear.
Just a couple things-- Australopithecines all died out before modern humans emerged as a species. And while there were populations of Erectus in Asia 75k years ago, there were none in Africa. We really don’t know if modern Humans encountered Erectus in Asia, but it’s possible they did. It’s also possible there was some interbreeding, as with Neanderthals.
It’s amazing to think that even in relatively recent times there were four species of hominids coexisting.
I just wish we knew more about how they/we interacted. How smart they were, and what sort of culture existed. And why we’re the last ones with our closest relative now being chimps. Anyone have any good books or documentaries to recommend on the subject?
We are probably the reason that we’re the only ones left. Whether because of warfare or some sort of outcompeting, we somehow led to the extinction of the rest.
Only the cowardly ones.
Damn. Beat me to it.
As real place names go, it even beats Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat just down the highway a few hours.
Indians had done the stampede-over-a-cliff thing for 5500 years according to the article. I remember as a kid reading about how one guy would dress in a buffalo skin and try to lead the herd in the right direction.
IIRC the Australian aborigines even had a variation where they herded animals into a corral using a bunch of fires as guides.
It makes you wonder whether speech or planning and strategic group action were also additional hunting skills that allowed homos to outcompete the Netherlanders. 
All it takes is for modern humans to be more efficient at hunting. If the neaderthals’ meals are slowly dissapearing, it doesn’t take warfare or cannibalism to get rid of them. They would slowly starve away. Although I’m sure there were plenty of the “I saw it first” vs “I killed it first so it’s mine” disputes when hunting big game, that were settled the hard way.
Judging by this guy Blago and some of my relatives from the old country I would say that this is quite likely. 
[quote=“John_Mace, post:25, topic:550149”]
I was trying to find that Scientific American article. It talked about the fact that multiple species of humanoids existed at the same time and talked about Australopithecines being in Africa at the time as well as H. Erectus. The idea that a single species of human is only very recent. (i.e. only from about 30,000 years ago when Neanderthalds died out).
There is also questions whether Homo Floresiensis might actually be a species of Australopithecine. This was thought impossible because Australopithecines never left Africa, but recent findings Dmanisi, Georgia may show otherwise.
Then there is also X-Woman which may be a fourth species of humanoid living a mere 30,000 years ago.
If you can find the article, I’d like to see it. It’s certainly true that there were several species of the genus Homo extant 30 -50k years ago, but not in Africa and no Australopithecines. That’s what I was responding to in your post.
That’s a lot of conjecture, and not what one would call a consensus in the scientific community. H. floresiensis is a very recent discovery, and its small size creates lots of problems that we simply don’t understand at present. The Georgian finds, too, are problematic as I noted in a post above. But again, no consensus on their being Australopethicines. They are still lumped into the Genus Homo.
If we’re talking about possibilities, yes. But even your own cite says:
So, our present understanding is that we had 4 species of Homo around that time, although the non-sapiens were all living outside Africa. That could certainly change in the future as new fossils are found and analyzed.
Me, too. Not ten days ago I was running around with some grad students (not mine, I was a tourist) at Vore Buffalo Jump in Wyoming. Great fun. But it was clear that, for this location at least, the animals were butchered at the bottom of he jump and the pieces hauled away. The entire carcass was not pulled from the jump.
I’m sorry, but where are you getting this from? Every resource I can find states Neanderthals used a wide range of tools, including spears.
The operative word being the “head” in “spear head”. But you’re still right. Neanderthals had spear heads as part of their toolkit.
Not exactly correct. There are some genes common to Neanderthal and Sapiens, but they have only been found in some non African populations, indicating that some interbreeding took place after the latter had left their African home.
Interestingly enough those genes only come from Neanderthal males, so the question is why? Are they a result of Neanderthals raping Sapiens women or what?
Spears are easily found and fashioned. If you have a hand axe or a rock you can sharpen a stick that you find on the ground. Intelligence will allow you to make a better spear, but the real differences are going to be found in evolved traits such as finer sensorimotor control. Advanced throwing is an evolved trait. Humans, for instance, have direct projections from neurons in hand muscles to motor cortex, allowing us to do things that less evolved species could do in a coarse way, in a much finer and controlled way. This includes throwing a Neanderthal’s crude spear with more force over longer distances and with more accuracy.
