Big Eyes Doomed Neanderthals

I Know there are many theories on how the Neanderthals became extinct, but this one I found interesting. They claim their eyes were developed more than ours so there brains did not evolve to become social and adapt to the things we could.
Big Eyes Doomed Neanderthals

A new study claims Neanderthals used so much of their brains to process visual information that they never developed the cognitive abilities that would have allowed them to compete with Homo sapiens. Anthropologists have long suspected that Neaderthals needed more acute vision because they evolved in Europe, where nights are long and the days often dim. But our ancestors evolved in Africa, where plentiful sunshine and relatively short nights meant we never had to devote too much brain power to seeing.

This is another link from BBC.
Neanderthals' large eyes 'caused their demise'

A study of Neanderthal skulls suggests that they became extinct because they had larger eyes than our species. As a result, more of their brains were devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing. By contrast, the larger frontal brain regions of Homo sapiens led to the fashioning of warmer clothes and the development of larger social networks.

I would of thought that with better vision they would of had more success than us. Any thoughts?

Red hair is a neanderthal gene and it's in modern humans. They interbred with another tribe of people.

reply to post by d8track


Hi there

Awsome contribution,
May I direct you to a current discussion on that very subject

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Manunnaki


I remember reading something on that. The red hair gene is also on the path of extinction. Not from their eye size but through natural selection. Maybe that's what happened to the Neanderthal. No one wanted to breed with them.

reply to post by punkinworks10


hello. thank you for the link. I started reading that post and it is very informative.

reply to post by d8track


Cut the wheat from the chafe.

reply to post by d8track


what are you talking about? Red head chicks are hot.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by d8track

 

what are you talking about? Red head chicks are hot.

Spoken by a true gentlegorilla. Please, no interspecies breeding (at least in public).

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


You are correct. Red heads are hot. I was just referring to this.redheads going extinct
It is most likely a hoax.

reply to post by d8track


No, i believe it is likely true. Maybe not extinct, but it would make sense to see contraction in a globalized society. In local society systems, you can create genetic bottlenecks where things like red or blond hair survive relatively well. But since they are not dominant traits like dark hair, in a globalized society it is possible it could go extinct. Or not, if local pockets can continue to survive.

On that, we shall see. It would be a shame to lose any of our less dominant traits as a people.

reply to post by d8track
I know it's the Archaeological Institute of America, but even so, the headline is a misnomer. Neanderthal had a different morphological toolkit...and that was not apparently up to the task. 'Big Eyes' is only part of it.

But our ancestors evolved in Africa, where plentiful sunshine and relatively short nights meant we never had to devote too much brain power to seeing.

Really? So according to this logic, people in those sunny regions are dumb or not intelligent?

Originally posted by hp1229

But our ancestors evolved in Africa, where plentiful sunshine and relatively short nights meant we never had to devote too much brain power to seeing.

Really? So according to this logic, people in those sunny regions are dumb or not intelligent?

I do believe the point to be made is that we could then devote more brainpower to being sneaky...another recent postulation.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by hp1229

But our ancestors evolved in Africa, where plentiful sunshine and relatively short nights meant we never had to devote too much brain power to seeing.

Really? So according to this logic, people in those sunny regions are dumb or not intelligent?

I do believe the point to be made is that we could then devote more brainpower to being sneaky...another recent postulation.

Well...can we apply the same logic to the current species of humans living in the above two types of geographical regions?

Originally posted by hp1229

But our ancestors evolved in Africa, where plentiful sunshine and relatively short nights meant we never had to devote too much brain power to seeing.

Really? So according to this logic, people in those sunny regions are dumb or not intelligent?

Mobility is the key that you seem to be missing.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan

Originally posted by hp1229

But our ancestors evolved in Africa, where plentiful sunshine and relatively short nights meant we never had to devote too much brain power to seeing.

Really? So according to this logic, people in those sunny regions are dumb or not intelligent?

Mobility is the key that you seem to be missing.

Are you kidding me. Africa requires a lot of mobility due to scarceness and/or dense vegetation to search and hunt for food not to mention surrounded by diverse species both dangerous and edible. If not anything, they've adopted a lot more flexible survival mechanism including dietary habits (This would certainly include many south east/asian countries too) that are considered 'gross' or 'bizarre' in many parts of the world. Dont believe every single word the scientific community throws it out there. They keep changing their stories and theories every so often.

reply to post by hp1229


People travel to places of opportunity. Africa typically has not met that requirement, sans the northern, Mediterranean areas.

Sure, the Bantu tribe may have wandered from one part of Africa to another. But did other peoples comes from afar to live with them? if not, then the mobility I am discussing bears little resemblance to the mobility you are discussing.

When I say "mobility", i mean "cosmopolitan" in nature. people move in and share some genetic material with a local population, thus changing the genetic habits of that population.

As far as I know, sub-saharan africa was not like that.

People need to get the idea that Neanderthal became extinct because we were skater than them out of there heads.
Neanderthal dissapeared because they were an evolutionary dead end, whose physiology was adapted to an environment that changed drastically, and the evolutionary adaptations, that took several hundred thousand years to develop kept them from being able to exploit new environments as sucessfully a we did.
The fact that a larger portion of the brain was used for visual processing, absolutely does not mean they were less intelligent than homo sapiens.
It's very likely that they were already on the verge of extinction by the time we showed up, and its clear that they had to compete with at least 3 other species in there ranges, denisovans, the red deer cave people and likely with Asian homo erectus.

Originally posted by d8track
I would of thought that with better vision they would of had more success than us. Any thoughts?

That whole "long dark nights in Europe" thing is ridiculous. Who says Neanderthals evolved there, anyway? My bet has always been that they evolved in south central Asia and migrated to Europe. And large eyes are generally associated with nocturnal animals. Is anyone suggesting that Neanderthals were primarily nocturnal? I don't think so.

There are so many wrong or unproven assumptions going on here.

reply to post by punkinworks10


Well, I know that for myself, most neandetals were far more skater than me.

Regardless, what we call "intelligence" is where the real flaw is here. Visual acuity is, in itself, an intelligence.


The word "intelligence" is a loaded word with a definition that is unclear when applied to how it is used popularly.