We're No Better Than Neandertal Man

According to this article: Human Innovation/Weapons Didn't Bully Neanderthals into Extinction

So what happened to the Neanderthals? That's been a question on a lot of experts' minds ever since it was first determined that the human-like sub-species vanished from the face of the Earth some 40,000 years ago. One popular theory was that near-modern humans simply bullied them into extinction with a superior intellect, ingenuity, and weapon-craft. Now, experts have found strong evidence that strongly disputes that claim.

According to a study recently published in the Journal of Human Evolution, experts with Nagoya University and The University of Tokyo, Japan recently painstakingly analyzed countless stone weapons used by humans between 42,000 and 34,000 years ago.

Yes, but did Neandertal Man ever invent the BAR? Nope, but we did.

They determined that while the design of these tools was often clearer or made more sense to the modern mind, they were actually no more effective than the tools Neanderthals were using around the same time.

"We're not so special, I don't think we survived Neanderthals simply because of technological competence," Seiji Kadowaki, first author of the study from Nagoya University, Japan, said in a recent statement. "Our work is related to the processes behind the global spread of modern humans, and specifically the cultural impact of the modern humans who migrated to Europe."

Well, what did make Anatomically Modern Man supplant Neandertal Man in Europe, where Neandertal had succeeded for thousands of years?

I know, we drove them out with our new fangled music:

Neandertal flute not a flute and not Neandertal

‘Neanderthal bone flutes’: simply products of Ice Age spotted hyena scavenging activities on cave bear cubs in European cave bear dens

Punctured extinct cave bear femora were misidentified in southeastern Europe (Hungary/Slovenia) as ‘Palaeolithic bone flutes’ and the ‘oldest Neanderthal instruments’. These are not instruments, nor human made, but products of the most important cave bear scavengers of Europe, hyenas. Late Middle to Late Pleistocene (Mousterian to Gravettian) Ice Age spotted hyenas of Europe occupied mainly cave entrances as dens (communal/cub raising den types), but went deeper for scavenging into cave bear dens, or used in a few cases branches/diagonal shafts (i.e. prey storage den type). In most of those dens, about 20% of adult to 80% of bear cub remains have large carnivore damage. Hyenas left bones in repeating similar tooth mark and crush damage stages, demonstrating a butchering/bone cracking strategy. The femora of subadult cave bears are intermediate in damage patterns, compared to the adult ones, which were fully crushed to pieces. Hyenas produced round–oval puncture marks in cub femora only by the bone-crushing premolar teeth of both upper and lower jaw. The punctures/tooth impact marks are often present on both sides of the shaft of cave bear cub femora and are simply a result of non-breakage of the slightly calcified shaft compacta. All stages of femur puncturing to crushing are demonstrated herein, especially on a large cave bear population from a German cave bear den.

Wombat-socho is celebrating Rule 5 Sunday with "Rule 5 Monday: Lt. Commander Rand, RIP" at the other McCain.