miércoles, 16 de mayo de 2012

Dog domestication may have helped humans thrive while Neandertals declined

15-05-12. We all know the adage that dogs are man’s best friend. And we’ve all heard heartwarming stories about dogs who save their owners—waking them during a fire or summoning help after an accident. Anyone who has ever loved a dog knows the amazing, almost inexpressible warmth of a dog’s companionship and devotion. But it just might be that dogs have done much, much more than that for humankind. They may have saved not only individuals but also our whole species, by “domesticating” us while we domesticated them.

One of the classic conundrums in paleoanthropology is why Neandertals went extinct while modern humans survived in the same habitat at the same time. (The phrase “modern humans,” in this context, refers to humans who were anatomically—if not behaviorally—indistinguishable from ourselves.) The two species overlapped in Europe and the Middle East between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago; at the end of that period, Neandertals were in steep decline and modern humans were thriving. What happened?

A stunning study that illuminates this decisive period was recently published in Science by Paul Mellars and Jennifer French of Cambridge University. They argue, based on a meta-analysis of 164 archaeological sites that date to the period when modern humans and Neandertals overlapped in the Dordogne region of southwest France, that the modern-human population grew so rapidly that it overwhelmed Neandertals with its sheer numbers.

Because not all the archaeological sites in the study contained clearly identifiable remains of modern humans or Neandertals, Mellars and French made a common assumption: that sites containing stone tools of the Mousterian tradition
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americanscientist.org

¿Fue la domesticación del perro una ventaja decisiva de los Humanos Modernos frente a los Neandertales?
16-05-12. Pat Shipman, profesora de antropología de la Universidad estatal de Pennsylvania, ha propuesto una nueva hipótesis sobre las ventajas de los humanos modernos sobre los neandertales. La investigadora, en un artículo publicado en American Scientist, ha sugerido que la domesticación del perro pudo suponer una ventaja añadida para los humanos modernos a la hora de desplazar a los neandertales de las zonas que éstos ocupaban... [Leer más]

3 comentarios:

salaman.es dijo...

Añadido link a: ¿Fue la domesticación del perro una ventaja decisiva de los Humanos Modernos frente a los Neandertales?

David Sánchez dijo...

Gracias por el link Salaman!!

A mi me ha parecido una hipótesis que por lo menos se sustenta en alguna evidencia arqueológica, por pequeña que sea, a diferencia de otras teorías.

Un saludo!!

salaman.es dijo...

A ti por facilitarnos su lectura con tu traducción y comentarios :)