The History Room
Skulls reveal Neanderthals, humans had similarly harsh lives
It makes sense that Neanderthals faced similar hardships as humans, however, Neanderthals tended to live in smaller groups which did not work together.
Life as a Neanderthal was no picnic, but a new analysis says it was no more dangerous than what our own species faced in ancient times.That challenges what the authors call the prevailing view of our evolutionary cousins, that they lived risky, stressful lives. Some studies have suggested they had high injury rates, which have been blamed on things like social violence, attacks by carnivores, a hunting style that required getting close to large prey, and the hazards of extensive travel in environments full of snow and ice.
While it's true that their lives were probably riskier than those of people in today's industrial societies, the vastly different living conditions of those two groups mean comparing them isn't really appropriate, said Katerina Harvati of the University of Tuebingen in Germany.
A better question is whether Neanderthals faced more danger than our species did when we shared similar environments and comparable lifestyles of mobile hunter-gatherers, she and study co-authors say in a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature.
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Originally Posted by Common
