Neanderthal Genome Study...

[Anomalocaris]

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

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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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.