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Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

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Saturday, March 14, 2015

In her new book, The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction, Pat Shipman, retired adjunct professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, sets out a groundbreaking new argument.--That with the help of dogs, early humans drove Neanderthals to extinction................Shipman postulates that Neanderthals in Europe did not take advantage of wolves in the same way that humans migrating out of Africa north into Europe did.............Her premise is that while early humans hunted with wolves, their Neanderthal rivals in Europe continued using primitive tools without any help................My question about this is that Wolves must have come into camps of both humans and Neanderthals...........It is somewhat of a stretch(unless you label Neanderthals as truly without common sense) to think that both groups of humanoids would not have ended up "hanging out" with the most docile of the wolves that hung around for scraps of food ...............Were the humans that much smarter in their use of wolves than their Neanderthal neighbors?.....After all, it recently was revealed that it is likely that there was some interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals................If the two Groups were creating intermingled family units, it would seem that a seemingly simple and without-too-much-effort use of wolves would have been common to all alive in this era................Your thoughts???


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2974168/Always-man-s-best-friend-Dogs-bred-wolves-helped-humans-Neanderthal-rivals-Europe-40-000-years-ago.html
14 March 2015

Always a man's best friend: Dogs bred from wolves helped humans take over from Neanderthal rivals in Europe 40,000 years ago


  • Neanderthals were wiped out after ancient humans arrived from Africa
  • Scientists disagree on why - but top anthropologist may have the answer
  • Dr Pat Shipman said we paired up with wolves in symbiotic partnership
  • Wolves cornered prey and humans made the kill, sharing meat afterwards
  • Neanderthals were then 'no match' for humans' superior hunting tactics

It's thousands of years since mankind won dominance over nature, and we're still pretty proud.
But a top researcher says we've been giving ourselves too much credit - because we were helped by our oldest friends.
Humans paired up with dogs as early as 40,000 BC, it is claimed, giving us such an advantage in hunting that it prompted the wipeout of our Neanderthal rivals.
Man's best friend: An early cave painting in Libya of dogs chasing a deer in the Akakus Mountains. A new theory claims humans teamed up with the ancestors of domestic dogs far earlier than was first thought
Man's best friend: An early cave painting in Libya of dogs chasing a deer in the Akakus Mountains. A new theory claims humans teamed up with the ancestors of domestic dogs far earlier than was first thought
Left behind: While early humans hunted with wolves, their Neanderthal rivals in Europe continued using primitive tools without any help, according to anthropologist Dr Pat Shipman (artist's impression)
Left behind: While early humans hunted with wolves, their Neanderthal rivals in Europe continued using primitive tools without any help, according to anthropologist Dr Pat Shipman (artist's impression)
The controversial theory has been put forward in a new book by leading anthropologist Pat Shipman of Pennsylvania State University.
She has challenged the common scientific view that wolves were only domesticated just over 10,000 years ago, after early humans had already asserted a strong foothold in Europe.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2974168/Always-man-s-best-friend-Dogs-bred-wolves-helped-humans-Neanderthal-rivals-Europe-40-000-years-ago.html#ixzz3UMqvc0Yd
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150304-neanderthal-shipman-predmosti-wolf-dog-lionfish-jagger-pogo-ngbooktalk#.VQO9zEE150Y.email

Modern humans with wolf-dogs ousting Neanderthals(2nd picture)







5 comments:

Duane Nash said...

I agree that there is no reason to preclude both groups from using "more docile" wolves. What I have noticed is that as the list of things that separates humans from neanderthals keeps getting winnowed down there is always some effort to ascribe some "specialness" that separated us from them. FIre, artistry, spoken language, abstract thought and now wolf domestication?

In all actuality I think the neanderthal genome just basically got sunk into modern humans. There was not grand difference or huge clash of cultures. Just wave after wave of outward migrating humans absorbing a smaller relictual Neanderthal group.

Dave Messineo said...

All of us that have European origins have Neanderthal DNA



https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal


"A team of scientists comparing the full genomes of the two species concluded that most Europeans and Asians have between 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA. Indigenous sub-Saharan Africans have no Neanderthal DNA because their ancestors did not migrate through Eurasia."

"Some scientists have suggested modern humans outcompeted or outright killed the Neanderthals. But the new genetic evidence provides support for another theory: Perhaps our ancestors made love, not war, with their European cousins, and the Neanderthal lineage disappeared because it was absorbed into the much larger human population."

Coyotes, Wolves and Cougars forever said...

Diane and Dave..............I concur with both of your "takes" on the merging of humans an neanderthals..............nice to hear from both of you this morning!

Anonymous said...

I must admit, I have always really liked this theory, and the same value and survival advantages of those of us modern "dog people" are still very much in evidence to this day! Very few people keeping dogs get snuck up on and murdered, if you check out crime statistics.....But I also agree that eventual Neanderthal "disappearance" was most likely a combination of many things--cultural differences, direct competition and genocide in some instances, gradual interbreeding in others. We see this with more modern human cultures/races throughout history--the gradual disappearance of the 'San/Bushmen types over the whole of Africa by other races and cultures included both interbreeding and persecution/extermination. But perhaps Neanderthals had some cultural taboo that kept them from adopting/raising wolf cubs? I think that wolves certainly scavenged from both groups(a good point, by the way!), and I DO NOT subscribe, AT ALL to the notion that wolves/dogs "domesticated themselves"--though they certainly helped start the process simply by being more readily available, and SLIGHTLY tamer by association, and maybe the Cros(Cro-Magnons) developed the tradition of raising and bonding with wolves that the Neanderthals never quite grasped. Maybe. Anyway, I have already ordered a copy of the book! Can't wait to read it!.....L.B.

Coyotes, Wolves and Cougars forever said...

L.B. , Duane and Dave............we all seem to instinctively come out similarly on this one,,,,,,,,,interbreeding, larger versus smaller Group absorbtion, some war and strife,...........I will pick up a copy of THE INVADERS as well---thanks guys for your thoughts