1.0   Disease

    Tattersall proposes that Neanderthal was a distinct species from cradle to grave. He suggests that instead
    of sperm, Man passed on disease to his cousin. [1] Diamond is another one who speculates that this may
    have been a cause of the Neanderthal's demise. [2]  The experts have not yet discarded disease,
    presumably imported by the unwitting  invaders. [3] (Perhaps they watched Flintstone reruns before
    writing their opinions.) We've seen this movie before. The Conquistador coughs and hundreds of Aztecs
    drop like flies.

    However, we cannot extrapolate what happened a few hundred years ago to Neanderthal because Mother
    Nature had not yet invented crowd diseases. [4] Not a single large-bodied predator in the history of life on
    Earth ever managed to attain the densities of Man, and certainly Neanderthal never discovered
    domestication, a breeding ground for contagious diseases. Crowd and contagious diseases are non-
    starters in this  context. Conversely, a virulent bug had little to no chance of wiping out an entire
    population of widely distributed nomads. And if it did, why were Mastodons and Woollies spared? Even
    sheep and horses died during the 14th Century Black Death.
I.  Tattersall, J. Schwartz, Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution,
PNAS 96  (Jun. 1999) 7117–7119.

    ________________________________________________________________________________________


     Home                    Book WGDE                    Glossary                    Extinction   

    Last modified 04/05/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
The Great
Neanderthal-
Cromagnon War

(40,000 - 30,000 B.C.)
Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist

    3.0   Civil war

    Another possibility entertained by both Tattersall and Diamond is that we annihilated the Neanderthals
    militarily, crowded them out economically, or both. Tattersall and Diamond propose that the more
    technologically advanced Cro-Magnon outgunned the Neanderthals. If we factor in that our forefathers
    lived longer and procreated more often, this would tend to work against the survival of our unfit cousins.
    These mechanisms hinge on the assumption that the two cavemen interfaced, an issue the jury is still out
    there debating.

    There is substantial evidence of infighting among Neanderthals to tentatively support the opinion that
    they were or could be violent. [5]  There are even documented instances of cannibalism. [6]  [7]  It is also a
    fact that contemporary sedentary or semi-nomadic clans and tribes engage in warfare amongst
    themselves. [8] [9] Whether this hostility is exclusively a modern phenomenon rooted perhaps in religion
    and sectarianism is a matter of speculation. Of course, this offends the defenders of the theory of love
    because it destroys their entire argument.

    I tend to think that the balance of power between Neanderthal clans was maintained by the force of arms.
    It is unlikely that the clans developed into tribes because this requires a much more advanced level of
    social organization. The primitive Neanderthals were more like a pride of lions or a pack of wolves than
    like 19th Century Sioux and Cheyenne. Their alleged conquerors were no better off. The worst enemy of a
    Cro-Magnon was another Cro-Magnon, and the worst enemy of a Neanderthal was another Neanderthal.
    These predators marked their territories like other animals do today. Every small group of Neanderthals
    and Cro-Magnons was a country -- the fatherland -- and everyone else was an enemy... especially the guy
    across the street!

    We would do ourselves a favor if we face the facts. The last two hominids living in the Middle and Late
    Paleolithic were not 'human', by which I mean that they were not civilized. These two hominids were wild
    animals. They were the top predators of their respective regions, the lion and the tiger so to speak of the
    Eurasian continent. They marked their territories like predators do today and this served as a warning to
    anyone, especially those of the same species. A lion has nothing to fear from a jackal. A lion fears another
    lion. A chance encounter between a band of Neanderthals and a gang of Cro-Magnon can in the best of
    cases be described as a cold war: irrespective of who wins, they are both assured mutual destruction. If I
    had to place my bet, I would bet that perhaps Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon rarely met, but if they did, it
    was quite by accident. I would also bet that Cro-Magnon kept his distance from territory marked by
    Neanderthal. Certainly the Neanderthals had little to fear from the Cro-Magnons. If Cro-Magnon ever
    ventured into Neanderthal territory, it was probably after the Neanderthals had had their fill or were
    already extinct.

    But if they met occasionally by sheer chance, your money should be squarely on the Neanderthal. The
    Neanderthals foraged and hunted in groups of perhaps 10 or more, were man for man stronger than     
    Cro-Magnon, and developed short range fighting skills that would have been the envy of the generals of
    civilization. What decisive technological advantages do the idiots who propose ludicrous 'war' theories
    suggest that Cro-Magnon had over Neanderthal? Did the Cro-Magnon centurions mow the Neanderthal
    phalanxes from afar with missiles? Perhaps these two species never met, but if they did, it is more than
    likely that the Neanderthal bagged the Cro-Magnon.

    More fundamentally, the proponents of conquest should learn the basics: there is no such thing as all out
    war between primitive, subsistence-level predators. At best there is an occasional skirmish between a few
    individuals. Hunter-gatherers cannot afford to engage in sustained reprisals especially at the individual
    level. They are keen on avoiding crippling injuries and have the more pressing task of finding their next
    meal. When a cheetah sees a large hyena approaching to steal the gazelle she just caught, she doesn't
    call on the confederation to come to her aid and demand reparations. She bugles a tactical retreat.
    Hopefully the experts are not suggesting that there was a master plan of conquest. The Cro-Magnon of
    the Middle Paleolithic who expanded into Europe lived in clans. Their worst enemies and competitors
    were other clans, both of Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that the
    primitive Cro-Magnon left aside their natural hostilities towards each other and planned the conquest of
    Europe.

    But still, even a group of lions avoids attacking a group of wildebeest that present battle. Animals are not
    that stupid. They will always go for the easy prey. They're not out for revenge or to become heroes. They
    are simply trying to feed themselves. Under these conditions, in this context, it is difficult to believe that
    Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons of the late paleolithic thought in terms of conquest, or had the ability to
    plan a grand strategy. Theirs was a simple world, one exclusively of tactics. If there was an encounter the
    matter was resolved on the run (i.e., improvised as opposed to planned).

    Nevertheless, technology without more is insufficient to carry out such an enormous task. We are keenly
    aware of what happens when a technologically disadvantaged hominid is pitted against a superior one:
    technology makes all the difference. Alexander’s phalanxes plowed over Darius’s cavalry, the Roman
    legions swept the floor with the Celts, Cortez and Pizzaro destroyed two American empires with a few
    hundred men, the U.S. cavalry corralled dozens of tribes into reservations, and tiny Victorian England
    enslaved populous India all the way up to the middle of the 20th Century. However, in every case, the few
    expeditionaries who performed such feats were directed from a distant command center. These actions
    involved advanced knowledge of the task at hand, premeditation, and logistics. Those who suggest such
    mechanisms are implying that Cro-Magnon enjoyed such capabilities as communication and information.

    Another suggestion is that the Cro-Magnon enjoyed tactical advantages over a lengthy period of time.
    This allowed them to displace the Neanderthal gradually and in an unplanned way. The empire of the Cro-
    Magnon's expanded while that of the Neanderthals contracted.

    But again, this indicates an internal collapse and not one of external conquest. Why would the Neander-
    thals cede ground if they were at least as mighty? Are the numskulls who propose such nonsense
    suggesting that the Neanderthals at the fringes of the empire could not compete against the formidable
    newcomers and gradually retreated until none were left? If the CroMagnons entered where the
    Neanderthals had defaulted, the encroachment was not an invasion, but a concession. Forfeiture is not
    equivalent to military defeat.

    So why didn't the Neanderthal Empire expand instead of contract? Why didn't the population explosion
    overwhelm the invaders?

    The answer is that the Neanderthal population was already imploding. These hominids were at the end of
    their natural lifespan as a species. They had lived anywhere from 500 to 300,000 years and now was the
    time to exit. Prior to them, other species of hominids had been around and they had disappeared as well.  
    H. heidelbergensis had departed shortly after Neanderthal was being born and before him we had
    Australopithecus, a species which ruled for hundreds of thousands of years. The anthropologist who
    even insinuates that Australopithecus or Heidelberg would have lived forever had Neanderthal not
    displaced them needs to take a refresher course on the basics.
      
    The other thought -- that humans expanded and gradually crowded out the Neanderthal -- is also
    ridiculous.  The Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons carved out different niches. The Neanderthals were
    masters of the big game. They used rodeo clown tactics to bring down game, [10] and their diet consisted
    almost exclusively of meat. [11] Humans had a lower meat intake and specialized in smaller game. Of
    course, there necessarily were some conflicts of interests, but the overall relation was probably like the
    one we see on the Serengeti today. Despite overwhelming military superiority and the reality of scarce
    resources, lions have yet to evict jackals, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, and buzzards from their lands.

    So let’s spell it out loud and clear: Neanderthal was neither outgunned nor did he die of starvation, cold,
    or disease. Cro-Magnon did not crowd out Neanderthal either militarily or economically, and professionals
    who make such ridiculous claims need to retake Ecology 101. The experts have to face the facts. The
    population of Neanderthals was already in decline for reasons that have nothing to do with interaction
    with other species. The Neanderthals collapsed in a background extinction like countless species before
    them that never had the good fortune of meeting Man. What we need to do is discover the cookie cutter,
    the mechanism behind a background extinction that applies to all species irrespective of habitat or epoch.
    This timeless mechanism has to work on land as well as in the air and in the sea.  The anthropologists
    and paleontologists cannot continue to offer different explanations for every extinction they analyze as
    they've been doing up until now.

Fig. 2
Aaaah! These
Neanderthal toes are
finger-licking good! You
should try them, Joe!
Anyone want to trade a
hairy leg for a hairy head?
Aaawwh, man! I
hate ribs! Here,
John! You eat
the rest of it!
D-Day (40,000 B.C.)   
The invasion begins
Superior technology and military strategy
did away with the Neanderthals


The spoils of war
Taking good care of Neanderthal