Neanderthals v Humans

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Littlestone L
Littlestone Nov 7, 2012 09:30:03
Replying to thesweetcheat

thesweetcheat wrote:
One thing that occurs to me is that Homo Sapiens Sapiens didn't start building ceremonial monuments (as far as we know) until the Mesolithic, and on a larger scale until the Neolithic. I've always thought this was due largely to a change from a migratory/seasonal hunter/gatherer way of life to a more settled life where being in one place for most of the time was critical (i.e. farming).

If so, this would suggest that only a settled population would be likely to build ceremonial monuments that would require a big investment of time and manpower. As yet, there is no evidence that Homo Sapiens Sapiens adopted an agrarian lifestyle that would lend itself to such "permanent" monument-building until much later than the periods we would need to be talking about for the Neanderthals to have done something similar.

This suggests (although obviously it doesn't prove or disprove) that megalithic monuments are associated with a settled community, which itself requires a non-migratory means of sustaining itself, i.e. farming. If so, unless evidence comes to light that the Neanderthals adopted farming techniques millenia before HSS did, it seems unlikely that they would have spent their energies on building permanent megalithic structures, even if they had the capacity or technology to do so, as it would be inconsistent with a largely migratory/seasonal way of life.

You may be right, though I’d hesitate to equate a ‘settled’ way of life with a ‘farming’ one; you can have the former without the latter so long as there’s a sustainable food source – ‘primitive’ costal communities are a good example of that. We can also see evidence of a non-migratory means of sustaining life among traditional Australian aboriginal communities, and it’s interesting to note that some of those communities did, actually, employ stone in -

...stone-walled windbreaks, stone-walled residential buildings, stone foundations for houses and shelters, hunting hides, food storage buildings, as well as storage sites for sacred objects.

Engineering works of stone were also known, such as marine and freshwater fish traps, canals, ovens, protective coverings for sacred objects and path liners. There were also stone layouts on the ground of geometric and abstract design that had spiritual significance.

See Australia: The Land Where Time Began.

It’s dangerous to draw parallels with Australian aborigines and Neanderthals of course but it is interesting. Cave painting, as tiompan and others have alluded to, might have been a common activity and perhaps also ‘stone layouts on the ground of geometric and abstract design with spiritual significance’.

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Nov 7, 2012 12:02:23
Replying to Littlestone

Littlestone wrote:
thesweetcheat wrote:
One thing that occurs to me is that Homo Sapiens Sapiens didn't start building ceremonial monuments (as far as we know) until the Mesolithic, and on a larger scale until the Neolithic. I've always thought this was due largely to a change from a migratory/seasonal hunter/gatherer way of life to a more settled life where being in one place for most of the time was critical (i.e. farming).

If so, this would suggest that only a settled population would be likely to build ceremonial monuments that would require a big investment of time and manpower. As yet, there is no evidence that Homo Sapiens Sapiens adopted an agrarian lifestyle that would lend itself to such "permanent" monument-building until much later than the periods we would need to be talking about for the Neanderthals to have done something similar.

This suggests (although obviously it doesn't prove or disprove) that megalithic monuments are associated with a settled community, which itself requires a non-migratory means of sustaining itself, i.e. farming. If so, unless evidence comes to light that the Neanderthals adopted farming techniques millenia before HSS did, it seems unlikely that they would have spent their energies on building permanent megalithic structures, even if they had the capacity or technology to do so, as it would be inconsistent with a largely migratory/seasonal way of life.

You may be right, though I’d hesitate to equate a ‘settled’ way of life with a ‘farming’ one; you can have the former without the latter so long as there’s a sustainable food source – ‘primitive’ costal communities are a good example of that. We can also see evidence of a non-migratory means of sustaining life among traditional Australian aboriginal communities, and it’s interesting to note that some of those communities did, actually, employ stone in -

...stone-walled windbreaks, stone-walled residential buildings, stone foundations for houses and shelters, hunting hides, food storage buildings, as well as storage sites for sacred objects.

Engineering works of stone were also known, such as marine and freshwater fish traps, canals, ovens, protective coverings for sacred objects and path liners. There were also stone layouts on the ground of geometric and abstract design that had spiritual significance.

See Australia: The Land Where Time Began.

It’s dangerous to draw parallels with Australian aborigines and Neanderthals of course but it is interesting. Cave painting, as tiompan and others have alluded to, might have been a common activity and perhaps also ‘stone layouts on the ground of geometric and abstract design with spiritual significance’.

I've often wondered what would happen to us if we were suddenly all plunged back into a Neanderthal way of life and time without anything that we have today. How many of us would survive I wonder? Unlike them, we were not born and raised in their environment and almost for sure would fail miserably...yet in truth many still see them as no more than a step up from animals. I doubt that was the case and feel priviledged to have just a little of them still in me. They must have been remarkable people.

T thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Nov 7, 2012 20:15:08
Replying to Littlestone

Interesting stuff LS. Of course in this country there are known Mesolithic "seasonal" camps like Starr Carr and the wetlands on the Severn shore, but nothing particularly structural as far as I know (unless you count fish traps!). Plus some caves were no doubt occupied regularly/seasonally before and after the last Ice Age.

So yeah, examples of places being used regularly even if not in the form of permanent homesteads, etc. But little to compare with the Australian stone patterns you refer to (although fro something like that to have survived 10,000 years plus would be quite an achievement, even for something constructed from stones).

I still can't help but feel that the bigger ceremonial monuments reflect an awareness of seasonal cycles that would be more relevant to people based in one place and trying to create a permanent, sustainable life from farming (grain and livestock), where celestial cycles and territorial "ownership" become more important than they would to a hunter/gatherer group that essentially follow the herd, as it were. So much is speculative, it's impossible to get a real grasp before any theory slips away into unknowns.

My own view (until better - any - evidence comes along) is that Neanderthal people could have created very simple funerary monuments (e.g. slab over grave) as we know they respected the dead from the archaeology available, but that they probably did not build any more structurally complex monuments, as such behaviour is not generally exhibited by any Hominid species - as far as we know - until a period when subsistence shifted from pure hunter/gatherer to something more settled. Could easily be wrong, obviously.