The Continuity From Ancient Extinctions To Current Genocides

[Judi Lynn]

Tuesday, 4 June 2024, 10:41 am
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Did you know that at one time (not that long ago even as human evolution goes), there were perhaps half a dozen human species on earth?


For example, besides Neanderthals in Ice Age Europe, there were Denisovans in Tibet and Siberia, plus two dwarf species – Homo heidelbergensis and Homo luzonensis on Flores and Luzon respectively – living in close or distant proximity with “fully modern humans” about 100,000 years ago.

For many years the thinking in paleo-anthropology was that modern humans – Homo sapiens sapiens – wiped out and/or outcompeted Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, as well as other so-called primitive human species. But the current trend is to whitewash human rapaciousness, and blur the mammoth difference between the human adaptive pattern, which removed us from an ecological niche, and the rest of nature, which operates in terms of ecological niches.

Theorists are now saying things like, “the ancient DNA discovery of 50,000-year-old viruses points to an alternative explanation for Neanderthals’ demise: deadly infectious diseases carried by Homo sapiens.” How convenient.

Previous conventional thinking went to the other extreme: “The late 19th century German zoologist Ernst Haeckel proposed calling Neanderthals Homo stupidus to distinguish them from Homo sapiens (wise humans).

More:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2406/S00004/the-continuity-from-ancient-extinctions-to-current-genocides.htm

[Pinback]

1. Excellent piece. Much food for contemplation and expanded understanding

of this current era and where we fit in the sweep of history. Recommended.

[wnylib]

2. Still hypothetical since we don't know for certain

what made Neanderthals go extinct.

The comparison to Europeans arriving in the Americas doesn't mention a few things that I think are worth considering.

European weapons were more technologically powerful than the weapons of the Native populations of the Americas. Was that true of early Homo Sapiens who encountered Neanderthals? If not, then something besides warfare would account for Neanderthal extinction.

Huge numbers of Europeans flooded into the Americas, with conquest and control of natural resources as intentional goals. Was that true of early Sapiens when they entered Neanderthal territory?

After the encounters of Sapiens and Neanderthals, only people with a mix of the two human species left descendants into the future. "Pure" Neanderthals did not continue to exist. Also, "pure" Sapiens no longer existed, except in sub-Saharan Africa where Sapiens did not encounter Neanderthals.

The same is not true of Native Americans and non Native people (Europeans, Asians, Africans) in the Americas today. So it looks like there was more interbreeding between Sapiens and Neanderthals than between Native Americans and non Native people.

There was probably some fighting between Sapiens and Neanderthals over territory and resources. Even chimp troops fight other chimp troops for territory. But, despite the fighting, there must have been a lot of interbreeding to produce only mixed descendants. Did Sapiens men kill off Neanderthal men and take Neanderthal women as captives? Maybe, IF they had weapons and war strategies that were superior to the ones that Neanderthal had.

Or maybe the interbreeding produced a stronger genetic mix to survive environmental changes in climate and habitat.

Maybe the number of Sapiens entering Neanderthal territories was just larger than the Neanderthal population so that interbreeding caused "pure" Neanderthals to go extinct as as a separate species.