Why are Humans the dominant species? Why is Western civilization the dominant civilization?

We never evolved from Neanderthals, they were our cousins. We both evolved from Homo erectus. Neanderthas were both physically stronger, had higher brain mass, and they developed culture and abstract thought earlier (which is why I said they were also more intelligent). For some reason, they died, we survived.

 

Okay I had noticed your H. sapiens timespan was off from what I learned. In my field of geography, modern humans are supposedly 100,000 years old. So I was figuring you were putting up a linear progression, but these two existed with one another for at least a few thousand years. A few theories suggest that either the subspecies interbred and simply were absorbed into the population that ultimately became humans, were wiped out by homo sapiens, or that neanderthals just evolved into homo sapiens and were never split off into another subspecies.

There are fossil records that show the mental abilities of these subspecies weren't exactly defined by the size of the brain alone. They are not exactly assumed to be any brighter in the 100-45 ka range than homo sapiens, but about equal. More fossil records related to the tools they used showed similar patterns to suggest that they were just as capable, but not exactly superior to the other subspecies of that period... if they indeed were separate subspecies.

There is more to intelligence or verbal communication than just the size of the brain. Fossil records show neanderthals to be physically inferior to modern humans in many regards, but very much as capable in speaking and other genetic traits associated with the physical aspects of intelligence. The shape of the chin and nose do alter how one speaks, but modern humans are supposedly better at verbal communication than primates.

There also is serious debate on whether Neanderthals used projectile-based weapons. There are very few signs that indicate they threw spears, made arrows, or any form of hunting other than directly attacking prey. There really is not much reason to assume that we homo sapiens from long ago were any worse off than Neanderthals, as we really are just able to speculate at this point. We can't even guarentee that humans were a subspecies of homo erectus because we can't even be sure of how neanderthals met their end.

 

Homo sapiens started to evolve and branch out on its own about 100kya, but completely modern homo sapiens like us didn't exist until 20-40kya, from what I've read. I think they have proven that Neanderthals and homo sapiens could not procreate together, at least not by the time they came into contact in Europe, so that points to them being completely different species and Neanderthals as just our distant cousins. At least when I took anthropology last year, that's what the textbook and the professor said the latest DNA testing showed, I think some scientists are attempting to map the Neanderthan genome. You're right that they're still not sure about our direct line of descent, and that brain volume does not have to equal intelligence, but they did seem to be just as intelligent and culturally evolved as our homo sapien ancestors. The Neanderthals seemed to have tougher and more enduring bodies, but you're right that some of their anatomy (I think it was in their shoulders) that showed it was unlikely they could throw spears or other projectiles very well.

 

So in this case, it may open the possibility that homo sapiens wiped them out because they had the ability to throw. Despite that limitation, Neanderthals were supposedly more resilient to wounds and matured faster from infant to adolescence.

Perhaps it was that characteristic which caused homo sapiens to develop intellectually at a faster rate... meaning that the longer they live before adolescence, the more capable infants are able to learn. This is pure speculation though, but humans develop more slowly than any other mammal on the planet.

 

Hey guys,

Really interesting thread. A good book to read for those interested in how the Britsh Empire came about is 'Empire' by Niall Ferguson (although he is criticised for defending colonialism). Ferguson shows how some parts of the Empire were started by mere accident or by chance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson

As the the Neanderthal question, I'm not sure if this has been touched on already, but I seem to remember reading/watching something about how a key difference between the Neanderthals and the humans that came into contact with them was speech - that the Neanderthals could not communicate in the way we take for granted which could be one of the factors limiting their development.

 

Yes, I came across that in regards to the shape of their jaw. The elongated chin really limited how effectively they could speak, but scientists believe that they possessed the ability to communicate verbally. Only that there were some limitations to the type of sounds they could produce. Other than that, they do believe that they possessed all the characteristics that humans possess to interpret language and speech.

It would be interesting to find out just how they ended and we homo sapiens were related to them.

 

I'm coming into this very interesting debate rather late, but I seem to recall a statement that neanderthals might have died out because of a virus that homo sapiens was immune to, but neanderthals were not and contact with homo sapiens gave them the virus that wiped them out.

 

There's also the theory that we just outcompeted and genocided them all, and that the myths throughout all regions of the world that talk of a "Giant" race or an "Elder" race or some kind of near-human predecessor to us are really based on the Neanderthals.

But how? It could be something like a virus, or it could be related with their difficulty to throw projectile weapons. But usually, extinction happen because of a lot of different difficulties converge at once for a species and overwhelm it. We just don't see the evidence for that, or even why we survived and they died out.

For the debate about Neanderthal language, they could definitely speak with one another in a common tongue, and that's what matters. Yeah, they probably would have talked differently than we do, because of slight anatomical differences. But if Neanderthals survived and we died out, they would be the ones saying that "homo sapiens" had a devolved form of communication. Nothing is certain, nothing is definitively more advanced, humans aren't the evolutionary apex of all life, evolution has many pathways available at every point, neither better or more advanced than the other, only adaptation and procreation matter to evolution.

 

Nothing will ever be the evolutionary apex of all life. There is no such thing, but humans have overcome the thrat that natural selection once posed to us. So human evolution is now more about our civilization than our genes.

 

Does anyone else have ideas why hominids (us homo sapiens being the last survivors) became the dominant species?

How different would the world be if another civilization, say the (1) Persians (2) Chinese (3) Mongols (4) Japanese (5) Indians (6) Arabs (7) Turks, had become the dominant civilization on Earth? How different would global culture, laws, religions, institutions, values, etc. be? Would we still value democracy or rights or economic liberalism?

 

Anyone want to throw in something about the Crusades? I love that period.

 

You aren't serious, are you, Asterix?
The Crusades are an embarrassment.

You aren't serious, are you, Ghost?
The West being dominant is just a snapshot. Maybe the West isn't dominant anymore in ten years, or in fifty. I can see no reason why it would still be dominant in 500 years. So the question is meaningless.

 

But whatever arises, will be shaped by the West. China, India, and the rest of the world have been molden into the West's system od law and government and insitutions, even values and culture. There was no modern sense of the sovereignty before the Peace of Westphalia, no modern sense of nationalism before the French Revolution, no modern sense of nation-states until after WW1 and then the independence of states across the world after WW2. The U.S. came up with the GATT/WTO, World Bank, IMF, UN which powers like China and Japan and India and Brazil and Indonesia and African states have joined and conformed to. The pre-modern east had very different ideas. They were also not that individualistic, more collectivist, more focus on tradition and shunning than criminal justice, etc. If Europe and America blew up tomorrow, "Western" civilization would still live on, it's been globalized for a while now.

 

Hundreds of years of war between the West and the East?

Did you take my opinion to mean that I feel it was a wonderful time in history? Because, I don't. I love the period because I find it fascinating. I figure, it's rather pertinent to this discussion about the West and the East. So if anyone wants to take the reigns on it--I think it might be a good idea.

 

Ghost:
I´m not so sure any of those ´achievements´ are a necessary requirement for a world/dominating ´civilization´. I put those words between colons, because they seem a little too convenient for your case, to me. You list nationalism and sovereignty. I fail to see how those are required. You're calling the Western 'civilization' dominant, but you don't say what that means. Sure, you're listing political ideas, but not the mathematical system. Don't forget that there's been exhange of ideas since forever.

Once a civilization spreads out over their world, some ideas and some styles will be dominant. The origin of those styles and ideas will more often than not be an area where that civilization thrives best - with an average temperature a bit below the species' body temperature, so that a specimen of the species gets up in the morning. Give the specimen some rivers and some seas for fresh air and cool winds, give him a horse to cross great distances and carry boats, and give him lots and lots of wood as a good renewable source of trade. Now your specimen's got the means to start a chain of events that will result in the invention of telecommunication, and as such will make one civilization - of which, by that time, the exact geographic origin is hard to trace - dominant in his world.


Asterix:
OK.

 

The reason I heard for Neaderthals dying out was that they lacked the social structure in their society that Homo Sapiens had.

During the Ice Age it was known that we traded with other groups that lived many hundreds of miles away. This indicates that different groups met up and so were able to provide each other with resources often enough to ensure survival in the harsh conditions.
In contrast, Neanderthals were much more enclosed within their own social groups. As the conditions of the Ice Age got worse, availability of food became a problem and without the trading system we possessed, the last group of Neanderthals was apparently forced into Gibraltar. There they slowly died out, resulting in Canibalism and ultimately extinction.

What amazes me about Humans is that, for all our intellect and achievement as the current pinacle of Evolution in the history of the Earth, we may well die out without even existing for 1% of the time that Earth's most successful species, The Dinosaurs, existed for.

 

You're misunderstanding. I'm not saying those achievements are necessary for a "dominant" civilization, I'm saying that's how the West shaped the entire world, and wondering what the world would be liked if another civilization had become dominant. Why is is the West dominant? I don't know, that's why it's one of the two main questions of this thread. I'm saying Western civilization is dominant because it is, the world has conformed to the West's standards from law to popular culture. Nationalism and soverignty don't make th West dominant, the West's dominance spread the ideas of sovereignty and nationalism.

 

Actually sharks pre-date dinosaurs by about 200 million years and are still going.

 

[image=http://host.everythingelsehere.com/Images/09_2009/shark-bear-small.jpg]

W E S T E R N

C I V I L I Z A R D O Z

 

Let me rephrase that - Most successful Land Species (especially if you count birds as a continuation of the species which some scientists do).

 

Why is Earth dominated by the Western civilization of humans?

Because they are greedy

The native indians said: "The land belongs to everyone, and no one in particular."

The white man came, and said: "The land can be owned, and others banned from it!"

 

I remember talking to someone who justified the conquest of land from natives on the basis that because they have no understanding of the concept of rights of ownership of land, they therefore have no rights and could be turfed out.

Really it shouldn't be a question of what is legally possible, but what is morally right.
The British Government Ministers' Expenses Scandal was tachnically within the rules of law, but that doesn't mean it was right to do it.

It seems throughout history the mentality of western society has been "we have the power to take it, so we will".

 

Because they are greedy

Yeah, but so is everyone else. Maybe, with a little fudging of memories and recorded history, with only the exception OF certain native tribes. And even those only in the north of the American continent.

To those that say the Western world is greedy -- well, yes. And what, the other civilizations on Earth AREN'T? That one side was 'victorious' doesn't mean those who 'lost' were any morally better.

I'm reminded how I've debated with people back in university about how the Celtic culture was crushed by the Romans and how heartless the Romans were. And how they lied to themselves about the Celts and crushed them underfoot with racist attitudes that knew only the sword. A lot of these folks were proto-wiccan types.

And my response to them was: Screw that, man. The Romans just WON, that's all. You think the Celts were these nice, peaceful people? You do realize they SACKED Rome and Etruscia for no reason other than they wanted some land, right? You know, hundreds of years before the Romans began thier Empire? What, was that not greed? From the historical point of view the Romans if anything could be seen as taking centuries-old revenge on the celts: they were attacked FIRST!

But no, by virtue of the fact that they lost, the Celts are somehow remembered as the 'good' guys who weren't greedy at all. Not at all.


The British Government Ministers' Expenses Scandal was tachnically within the rules of law, but that doesn't mean it was right to do it.

No in the cases it was done it was not right to do it. The British had thier fair amount of being in the wrong about this stuff, especially in respects to how they treated China later on.

On the North American continent... well it can get a little more dicey. The natives themselves sought to use the Europeans as allies against one another. They were unable to overcome most of thier own disagreements to resist enroachment (much like the Celts before them). The most viable attempt was what Techumseh attempted circa 1800-1814. The period of British and French involvement was not always necessarily so one-sided.

 

This thread might be a good one to discuss the first question asked, and have a discussion on the analysis of the Neanderthal genome.

 

Yes, I saw an article on that earlier this week. Very interesting, Neanderthals are the distant of some humans after all. Seeing the picture of Neanderthals being very white, with red hair, a couple years ago made me think that it may just be possible... it just seemed so human compared to our previous picture of the Neanderthal.