(January 30, 2014 at 7:46 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

(January 30, 2014 at 2:21 pm)Chuck Wrote: Yeah, but 12,000 years still leaves a lot of room for many hormonally charged HNS/HSS to see someone from other camp of the approximately correct sex right around the moment he or she has begun to ponder whether hormonal frustration can be alleviated by servicing him or herself.

Sure. As Lenny Bruce once said: "Guys will fuck mud if there is nothing else."

We know that contact was made in the Levant. But there was no overall plan for HSS to "colonize" Europe. Individual groups breaking off and moving on is a slow process. But it is also true that no one crossed the Hellespont or the Straits of Gibraltar without thinking it over first and having the technology to make the journey (boats). Now boats could be used to cross the Danube or the Rhone. They wouldn't be much use crossing the Alps. If they had boats, and they must have, then why walk at all when you could simply sail along the coast until you saw a promising spot or sail up a river?

Equal with the technology is the idea of population density, for both sides. I'm not so sure how I feel about this sort of statistical modeling based on genetics...if only because genetics is a new science and they keep re-defining themselves.

http://www.livescience.com/5570-neandert...ction.html

Quote:In fact, new genetic evidence from the remains of six Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) suggests the population hovered at an average of 1,500 females of reproductive age in Europe between 38,000 and 70,000 years ago, with the maximum estimate of 3,500 such female Neanderthals.

But just for the hell of it let's assume that they are off by a factor of 100%. So there were 7,000 females capable of reproduction, max, spread out from Iberia to the Volga. That's a big area and opportunities for contact, while they must have happened, could not have been an everyday occurrence.

This kind of stuff fascinates me, in case you haven't guessed.

There are some evidence to suggest Neanderthals had substantially different adult developmental patterns from HSS. For example HNS females may have no menopause, and would ovulate and be fertile as long as they live. The pace and pattern of maturation process for juvenile and adolescent HNS may also be different from HSS youth.

In other words the biological differences between HNS and HSS may accentuate the difficulties of successful cross breeding more than simple statistical analysis of DNA differences may imply.

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(January 30, 2014 at 7:46 pm)Minimalist Wrote: We know that contact was made in the Levant. But there was no overall plan for HSS to "colonize" Europe. Individual groups breaking off and moving on is a slow process. But it is also true that no one crossed the Hellespont or the Straits of Gibraltar without thinking it over first and having the technology to make the journey (boats).

I am not sure there was such a thing as hellespont before the end of the last iron age. I am also unclear on whether there is any evidence anyone crossed the straits of gibraltar much before the ancient egyptians.

I always supposed intentionally constructed rafts could have been very old, hundred of thousands of years old, possibly as old as erectus.

But I see no real evidence that vessels that can sail against the wind and current is more ancient than end of last ice age.

There have been multiple ice advances and retreats and, iirc, the last one did not reach so far into the Ukraine but every time the ice melted it had to drain somewhere.

And Robert Bednarik has demonstrated that HE would have needed at least rafts with oarsmen to colonize the outer island of Indonesia on the far side of the Wallace Line. The vegetation mat hypothesis was just a wing and a prayer by HSS defenders who thought that cavemen were ignorant brutes.

No, boats are not that exotic a technology. All you need is someone to notice that a log floats and you are halfway there. That said, the idea that we will ever find an intact boat from 500k ypb is a pipe dream. Boats tend to be used near water and water breaks down organic material eventually. And nature has all the time it needs.

I'm afraid we have to handle this one by deduction. If HE got to the Indonesian islands he either walked, flew or sailed. I think we can rule out "flew." And if the water was never less than 6 feet deep no one walked there.

It's very likely modern humans and the ancestors of modern humans interbreed with other protomodern humans as well throughout their range I don't think our evolution was a clear cut pure line of descent but will be a mix up.

I'll have to raise my opinion of you. At least you aren't one of the ones claiming that god played in the dirt 6,000 years ago and, TA-DA, here we are.

(January 31, 2014 at 7:35 pm)Minimalist Wrote: There have been multiple ice advances and retreats and, iirc, the last one did not reach so far into the Ukraine but every time the ice melted it had to drain somewhere.

And Robert Bednarik has demonstrated that HE would have needed at least rafts with oarsmen to colonize the outer island of Indonesia on the far side of the Wallace Line. The vegetation mat hypothesis was just a wing and a prayer by HSS defenders who thought that cavemen were ignorant brutes.

No, boats are not that exotic a technology. All you need is someone to notice that a log floats and you are halfway there. That said, the idea that we will ever find an intact boat from 500k ypb is a pipe dream. Boats tend to be used near water and water breaks down organic material eventually. And nature has all the time it needs.

I'm afraid we have to handle this one by deduction. If HE got to the Indonesian islands he either walked, flew or sailed. I think we can rule out "flew." And if the water was never less than 6 feet deep no one walked there.

So what are the chances that it is that 2% DNA from HNS that makes us......er.......white?

That would make me laugh like a hyena for hours and I am not even quite sure why.

Easily pleased I guess.

I've been through those discussions. You can go around in circles for hours!

(February 11, 2014 at 12:26 pm)max-greece Wrote: So what are the chances that it is that 2% DNA from HNS that makes us......er.......white?

Genetic evidence does suggest at least some neaderthals were fair skinned and red haired.

Unfortunately recent genetic evidence also suggests Europeans, even those likely to be directly ancesteral to bleached nordic populations of today, were still pretty...ur... dark, 20,000 years after the last potentially fair skinned Neaderthals died out and some of the early cities in the near east were already close to 2,000 years old.