significant negative evidence that hides were not used by the Neanderthals to produce tailored clothing comparable to that of modern hunter-gatherers of arctic regionsâ¦Even more important is the complete absence of bone needles in Mousterian sites, despite preservation and recovery of small bone fragments from many localities. By contrast, eyed bone needles appear in the earliest modern human sites in Eastern Europe and Siberiaâ (p. 107). He adds: âThe predominance of meat in the diet is indicated by stable isotope analyses of bone collagen from Neanderthal skeletal remains in Western and Central Europe. Heavy reliance on meat may also be inferred from evidence for the hunting of large mammals from Neanderthal sites in Europe and the Near Eastâ(p. 133). And: âBoth in terms of the number of types and component parts of individual implements, the complexity of Neanderthal tools and weapons is significantly lower than that of hunter-gatherers in northern latitudes (and more typical of modern groups in temperate or equatorial regions)â¦Equally important is the apparent lack of technologyâfound among modern humansâfor cold protection and heat conservation. Although microwear analyses of stone tools indicate that the Neanderthals often scraped hides (especially in Eastern European sites), which were presumably used as blankets and simple clothing, there is no compelling evidence for tailored fur clothing or insulated shelters. Perhaps the critical function of the latter is that they provide protection from extreme low temperatures in a form that permits humans to forage and perform other important economic tasks (e.g., tool manufacture)â (p. 135). Stringer (2003) writes, referring to recently discovered fossils in Ethiopia: âThe new finds from Herto represent early Homo sapiens. This reflects the view that both Neanderthals and modern humans derived from a widespread ancestral species called H. heidelbergensis. However, evidence is growing that Neanderthal features have deep roots in Europe, so H. Neanderthalensis might extend back over 400,000 years. The roots of H. sapiens might be similarly deep in Africaâ(p. 693).
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P. 78: SPECIES DISAPPEARED WITH THE ARRIVAL OF HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS
Ridley (1996) writes: âThe guilt of the human species is not in doubt. Take Madagascar, where at least seventeen species of lemurs (all the diurnal ones larger than ten kilograms in weight, one as big as a gorilla), and the remarkable elephant birdsâthe biggest of which weighed 1,000 poundsâwere dead within a few centuries of the islandâs first colonization by people in about 500 A.D. It was a process repeated throughout the Pacific by the Polynesians and most spectacularly of all just six hundred years ago on New Zealand, where the first Maoris sat down and ate their way through all twelve species of the giant moa birds (the biggest weighing a quarter of a ton)â¦On Hawaii, we now know that there were about 100 species of unique Hawaiian birds, many of them large and flightless. Then, about 300 A.D., a large mammal called humankind arrived. Within a short time no fewer than half of the Hawaiian birds were extinctâ¦: It took a little longer to wipe out Australiaâs large mammals. Yet soon after the arrival of the first people in Australia, possibly 60,000 years ago, a whole guild of large beasts vanishedâmarsupial rhinos, giant diprotodons, tree fellers, marsupial lions, five kinds of giant wombat, seven kinds of short-faced kangaroos, eight kinds of giant kangaroo, a two-hundred-kilogram flightless bird. Even the kangaroo species that survived shrank dramatically in size, a classic evolutionary response to heavy predationâ (pp. 218â19).
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P. 79: âNATUREâ
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines nature as âthe phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, and the landscape, as opposed to humans or human creations.â Disengaging from ânatureâ allows one to have a concept of it. Ingold (1997) writes: âWhat I can do, that the animal supposedly cannot, is to take a step back from the physical dimension of existence, and