Okay, I did find something to say on this subject, from a totally
unexpected source. I was watching an episode on Nova the other night. Our local
channel has 2 episodes on Wednesdays, and we usually watch the first, but not
the second, because that’s getting too late for my husband, who is an early
bird. That night, I heard that the 2nd episode was on Neanderthals, and human
evolution has always been an interest of mine, so I stayed up to watch it.
As a whole, the episode explored a lot of different information about
the humans known as Neanderthals, but my interest picked up during their talk
about the small colony of Neanderthals who lived in caves currently located at
the base of the Rock of Gibraltar.
One question this episode was asking is, “Did Modern Humans have any
part in eliminating the Neanderthals?” They didn’t have an answer to that
question, in the end. Not a simple one, anyway.
Neanderthals lived in the Middle East, Western Asia and Europe for as
much as 700,000 years. During all of that time, the world was in an ice age,
but the Neanderthals were built for it, and apparently did not find that a
hardship.
About 100,000 years ago (maybe as early as 125,000 years ago), modern
humans started to populate these same areas. The cold probably made them wear
more clothes than the Neanderthals. And maybe there were instances of violence
between the 2 sub-species.
However, the scientists said, it was unlikely the modern humans had
traveled all the way around the Mediterranean Sea and got to the Rock of
Gibraltar before that particular group of Neanderthals died out. What the
scientists discovered in those caves showed that the Neanderthals living there
not only hunted and gathered, they ate a variety of sea life as well, from
seals to clams. Today, the mouths of those caves are practically at the sea
line, but during the brunt of the ice age, the water line would have been about
59 feet (18 meters) lower.
Neanderthals lived in small groups. Scientists estimate their entire
population may have been about 100,000, scattered in small groups across a
quarter of the world. (How big is the town you live in?) And as they studied
this particular group, they realized that it died out during a long and severe
drought that hit the area.
My thought? Neanderthals were suited for cold. Not so much for heat.
They had a short, stocky build that would help them retain body heat. But when
the world heats up, that doesn’t do you much good.
If the world were going through the gradual changes of leaving the ice
age, the flora and fauna would no doubt evolve in order to survive. But the
current rapid pace of warming that we are in doesn’t leave us time for that.
Those who currently live in the tropics might manage by migrating north or south
to the temperate zones. Those in the temperate zones might find some comfort in
the polar regions, although there’s not a lot of land for them to settle on.
Once Antarctica thaws, that land would be available. Would it be fertile? Who
knows?
It won’t be a matter of the fit being able to survive. Those who can
accept what’s happening and deal with it will have a chance to survive.
And I’m back to looking for potential food for that migrating
population.
