I find things like that hard to perfectly square with observations like the Flynn Effect (“the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Epa095 4 hours ago [-]
Why? Draw the line backwards, and in a couple of decades you are down at 0 IQ. That's clearly absurd, you can't draw any conclusions of IQ significantly before 1950 from how the line behaves after 1950.
cluckindan 3 hours ago [-]
And that’s because IQ is a statistical distribution, not an absolute measurement of intelligence.
If everyone suddenly gets twice as smart as before, nobody’s IQ changes.
anamexis 3 hours ago [-]
For any given IQ test, the norming sample is taken once. So if everyone gets twice as smart as before, everyone's IQ, as measured by any existing IQ test, would go up.
readthenotes1 3 hours ago [-]
True, but irrelevant.
Or, false and irrelevant.
People's scores on yesteryear's tests rose over the distribution when the test was initially taken.
echelon 4 hours ago [-]
Firstly, this is completely orthogonal. But it's also improper reasoning.
If Neanderthal had bigger brains (they did) or had different cognitive abilities, there's a chance they were baseline smarter than homo sapiens at the time.
Being perhaps a little smarter doesn't mean you win the evolutionary game. There are so many factors at play.
> average Neanderthal cranial capacity for females was 1300 cm3 and 1600 cm3 for males. [Modern humans, 1473 cm3.]
Nor the dude Neanderthals, since they were using the swollen brainparts for vision and coordination:
> Neanderthals had larger eyes and bodies relative to their height [...] when these areas were adjusted to match anatomically modern human proportions it was found Neanderthals had brains 15-22% smaller than in anatomically-modern humans.
dismalaf 3 hours ago [-]
> Being perhaps a little smarter doesn't mean you win the evolutionary game. There are so many factors at play.
Considering most human groups have a % of Neanderthal DNA, they didn't exactly lose... Based on the % of Neanderthal vs. Sapien DNA, it seems Neanderthals were simply outnumbered.
hrimfaxi 2 hours ago [-]
What does it mean to lose evolutionarily if not be outnumbered?
tsunamifury 2 hours ago [-]
Ants won over humans? Worms?
hrimfaxi 2 hours ago [-]
When you are in direct competition? I should have said outcompeted, which in this case I think outnumbered is a fair proxy.
dismalaf 53 minutes ago [-]
Are numbers everything? Are sardines more evolved than whales?
Anyhow, the traditional view is that Neanderthals were brutes who were actually out-competed and killed off by Sapiens. The more realistic view considering the evidence is that Neanderthals were much closer to Sapiens, equally or even more sophisticated, but less numerous, and thus their contribution to our DNA is smaller than Sapiens.
But do keep in mind the Neanderthals live on because Europeans and Asians are all part Neanderthal.
nullorempty 3 hours ago [-]
Neah, can't be. We are meticulously excluding fat from our diet. Fat-free milk, fat-free yogurt, fat-free brain. I bet they had better cognitive abilities for they understood the importance of fat better than we do apparently.
throwaway27448 1 hours ago [-]
Did you just get in from the 90s? I haven't seen anyone pitch a fat-free diet since I was a child (barring a relevant health issue).
nullorempty 39 minutes ago [-]
well, the stores still don't carry whole milk in canada.
Neywiny 2 hours ago [-]
Do we know how many people were in the community? Maybe I missed it in the article? 2000 people worth it food a day is hard to put into perspective otherwise. Though it's all very impressive regardless
russellbeattie 32 minutes ago [-]
Here's something random about "Neanderthal".
The word comes from the Neander Valley (Neander-thal) where their fossils were originally discovered. It was named after Joachim Neander, a 17th-century German pastor. Neander is a latinization of his family name Neumann, meaning "new man".
So not only did we discover a new type of man in a valley named new man, but the computers that are used for artificial intelligence (a future type of new man) all use the von Neumann architecture.
I found that amusing.
(Other random detail: The word "dollar" is derived from "thal". The Holy Roman Empire first minted standardized 1 ounce coins made out of silver from mines in Joachimsthal ("Joachim's Valley") and so were called Joachimsthalers. That got shortened to "thaler", then through Low German "daler" then Dutch to English.)
ewy1 3 hours ago [-]
university of leiden is a great institution and i am blessed for having studied there despite dropping out!
JackFr 2 hours ago [-]
“Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
23 minutes ago [-]
kioleanu 4 hours ago [-]
If I enable reader mode on this article on my iPhone, I get an AI summary instead of the article text. I’d it the sure doing that or my phone? I hate it either way as there’s no way to read the article in reader mode
Tagbert 4 hours ago [-]
For some reason, Safari (on Mac) is only pulling two paragraphs from the source. it isn't AI generated but the parsing routine seems to break on this page. I don't see any particular properties that make these paragraphs stand out from the others.
<p><span><span><span><span><span>The Neumark-Nord discoveries are continuing to reshape our view of Neanderthal adaptability and survival strategies. They show that Neanderthals could plan ahead, process food efficiently and make sophisticated use of their environment.</span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>The authors emphasise the sheer quantity of herbivores that Neanderthals must have routinely been ‘harvesting’ in this warm-temperate phase: beyond the remains of minimally 172 large mammals processed at that small site alone within a very short period, hundreds of herbivores, including straight-tusked elephants, were butchered around the Neumark-Nord 1 lake in the early Last Interglacial, within the excavated areas only. Other exposures in the wider area around Neumark-Nord have yielded more coarse-grained evidence of regular exploitation of the same range of prey animals, at sites such as Rabutz, Gröbern and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309427120">Taubach</a>. The last site contained cut-marked remains of 76 rhinos and 40 straight-tusked elephants. Roebroeks: ‘Safely assuming that with these sites we are only looking at the tip of the proverbial ice-berg of Neanderthal impact on herbivore populations, especially on slowly-reproducing taxa, could have been substantial during the Last Interglacial.’</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
rogerrogerr 4 hours ago [-]
I assume you're seeing the text starting with "The authors emphasise the sheer quantity of herbivores"? I see that too in reader mode, both on my iPhone and Mac.
The text is in the article, second paragraph under "survival strategies". I don't see any obvious reason in the HTML why reader mode is skipping everything else.
Aardwolf 4 hours ago [-]
Firefox reader view on PC shows the exact same text as is in the article
If everyone suddenly gets twice as smart as before, nobody’s IQ changes.
Or, false and irrelevant.
People's scores on yesteryear's tests rose over the distribution when the test was initially taken.
If Neanderthal had bigger brains (they did) or had different cognitive abilities, there's a chance they were baseline smarter than homo sapiens at the time.
Being perhaps a little smarter doesn't mean you win the evolutionary game. There are so many factors at play.
Not the lady Neanderthals:
> average Neanderthal cranial capacity for females was 1300 cm3 and 1600 cm3 for males. [Modern humans, 1473 cm3.]
Nor the dude Neanderthals, since they were using the swollen brainparts for vision and coordination:
> Neanderthals had larger eyes and bodies relative to their height [...] when these areas were adjusted to match anatomically modern human proportions it was found Neanderthals had brains 15-22% smaller than in anatomically-modern humans.
Considering most human groups have a % of Neanderthal DNA, they didn't exactly lose... Based on the % of Neanderthal vs. Sapien DNA, it seems Neanderthals were simply outnumbered.
Anyhow, the traditional view is that Neanderthals were brutes who were actually out-competed and killed off by Sapiens. The more realistic view considering the evidence is that Neanderthals were much closer to Sapiens, equally or even more sophisticated, but less numerous, and thus their contribution to our DNA is smaller than Sapiens.
But do keep in mind the Neanderthals live on because Europeans and Asians are all part Neanderthal.
The word comes from the Neander Valley (Neander-thal) where their fossils were originally discovered. It was named after Joachim Neander, a 17th-century German pastor. Neander is a latinization of his family name Neumann, meaning "new man".
So not only did we discover a new type of man in a valley named new man, but the computers that are used for artificial intelligence (a future type of new man) all use the von Neumann architecture.
I found that amusing.
(Other random detail: The word "dollar" is derived from "thal". The Holy Roman Empire first minted standardized 1 ounce coins made out of silver from mines in Joachimsthal ("Joachim's Valley") and so were called Joachimsthalers. That got shortened to "thaler", then through Low German "daler" then Dutch to English.)
<p><span><span><span><span><span>The Neumark-Nord discoveries are continuing to reshape our view of Neanderthal adaptability and survival strategies. They show that Neanderthals could plan ahead, process food efficiently and make sophisticated use of their environment.</span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>The authors emphasise the sheer quantity of herbivores that Neanderthals must have routinely been ‘harvesting’ in this warm-temperate phase: beyond the remains of minimally 172 large mammals processed at that small site alone within a very short period, hundreds of herbivores, including straight-tusked elephants, were butchered around the Neumark-Nord 1 lake in the early Last Interglacial, within the excavated areas only. Other exposures in the wider area around Neumark-Nord have yielded more coarse-grained evidence of regular exploitation of the same range of prey animals, at sites such as Rabutz, Gröbern and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309427120">Taubach</a>. The last site contained cut-marked remains of 76 rhinos and 40 straight-tusked elephants. Roebroeks: ‘Safely assuming that with these sites we are only looking at the tip of the proverbial ice-berg of Neanderthal impact on herbivore populations, especially on slowly-reproducing taxa, could have been substantial during the Last Interglacial.’</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
The text is in the article, second paragraph under "survival strategies". I don't see any obvious reason in the HTML why reader mode is skipping everything else.
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257 [PDF]