The Next Species: The Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man by Michael Tennesen

thought to have been from 10,000 to 100,000 total individuals at its apex.Examinations of Neanderthal bones reveal that adult males had greater strength in their right arm as opposed to their left, indicating that they carried heavy, hand-held spears, which they probably used for thrusting rather than throwing. Males had solidly built bodies, standing only about 5 feet 5 inches (1.7 meters) but weighing around 185 pounds (84 kilograms). They needed 5,000 calories a day to do their job, an amount approximately equal to what a typical cyclist needs to compete fora day in the Tour de France.
    Neanderthals hunted in forested areas where they could ambush prey at close range using thrusting spears to bring them down. They relied almost completely on large and medium-size mammals like horses, deer, bison, and wild cattle for food. It was a hard living. Remains of Neanderthal bodies resemble rodeo contestants in that they bear multiple scars and fractures. Neanderthals adapted to live in warmer forested climates, but toward the end of their reign, Europe got colder and ice covered Scandinavian mountains and northern Britain, enclosing them in barren, glacial landscapes. Neanderthals moved into the southernmost forests surrounding the Mediterranean to escape the cold and the spreading open terrain.
    Meanwhile, Homo sapiens moved up into Europe during a brief interval in the larger cold phase between 58,000 and 28,000 years ago, and adapted well. They were lighter than Neanderthals, needed fewer calories to survive, and were more omnivorous. And they weren’t against an occasional meal of fish or even a vegetable or two. They hunted with lighter stone-tipped spears that could be thrown at a distance. They also used spear throwers (atlatls), which consisted of a shaft with a cup at the end into which the spear fit, giving the hurtler and his spear additional leverage, distance, and velocity. Using a thrower, a human could toss a spear up to 325 feet (100 meters), though it was most effective and mortal at about half that distance.
    The end came for Neanderthals during the period when Homo sapiens were undergoing their grandest growth—an explosion of culture, symbolic communication, and art. While the communities of modern man grew, Neanderthal communities remained small, and the range of their influence was smaller, too. Neanderthals were lucky to collect stones sixty-two miles (one hundred kilometers) away, while Homo sapiens collected stones up to three hundred ten miles (five hundred kilometers) away.
    “ Homo Sapiens had the ability to develop trade at a much greater distance than Neanderthals,” says Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program. “Our species can get somethingfive hundred kilometers away, or develop an alliance with someone five hundred kilometers away. In the end, that can really buffer bad times.”
    Neanderthals gradually disappeared from Britain, Greece, the Middle East, Russia, and Mongolia. Their last stand may have been in the caves beneath the Rock of Gibraltar. Did the Neanderthals go peacefully, or were they pushed over the evolutionary cliff? Scientists believe that early hunter-gatherer societies were more aggressive than previously judged.

    One of the biggest advantages Homo sapiens may have had over other hominids was language. Language gave moderns the ability to pass on the lessons of the past. Communication and the ability to remember and utilize a broader range of information allowed for innovation. “And Homo sapiens had the ability to accumulate innovation,” says Rick Potts. No other species had demonstrated this before.
    The ability to understand language may have actually preceded the ability to talk. Beneficial mutations in the genetics of understanding may have come before mutations in the ability to mouth words. Thus scientists have had luck getting primates, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos to understand language but less luck getting them to