Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

2 comments

• Glyptodon1 hour ago
  I know even with humans pre-modern populations were drastically smaller, but it's still just astounding to me how small of a population size it seems like Neanderthals had.
  • conductr29 minutes ago
    I didn’t see it mentioned in the article, but I think it’s hard to fully appreciate how at risk they were to predators and that they were certainly not the top of the food chain yet. Humans and similar aren’t naturally adept for survival in the wilderness. We developed coping mechanisms but it took some time. Had to extinct a few big cats, bears, wolfs, etc along the way.
• lobf35 minutes ago
  I spent a year of high school in the Basque Country, and it always stuck out to me that a common feature of the Basques, especially the beefy ones, was incredibly caveman-like.<p>I know this is not unique to this population, but I also always wondered if it correlated to the fact that it is one of the historic Neanderthal populations. I have a photo of a dude I used to play soccer with that looks like I put a Neanderthal model from the natural history museum in a jersey, and I have met very few people like that in the states. The Basque Country is a very small population.
  • tren8 minutes ago
    My Dad wrote an article about this 25 years ago or so: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;aoi.com.au&#x2F;LB&#x2F;LB705&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;aoi.com.au&#x2F;LB&#x2F;LB705&#x2F;</a> (How the Neanderthals became the Basques). He would really get a kick out of people reading it (he&#x27;s 90 now). His website goes back to 96&#x27; and it shows.
  • boxedemp30 minutes ago
    Basque Country also has an interesting language which doesn&#x27;t seem related to other European languages. Basque language (or Euskara).<p>Seems as though it could have been an enclave of neanderthals who eventually integrated with humans.