Neanderthal Extinction: the Obstetric Obstacle is mandatory reading for anyone who is upset released by Independently Published at 2017-11-21 referenced for you if you find book quote . is mandatory reading for anyone who is upset composed by Chika Uzoigwe, with count of page 155 Pages. you can see book review at here
Download Neanderthal Extinction: the Obstetric Obstacle Pregnancy and Childbirth in Prehistory for free
ISBN: 9781973296027
Neanderthal extinction in Europe, 40,000 years ago, remains one of the greatest unexplained mysteries in natural history. It occurred several thousand years after contact with modern humans, who colonised the continent. Current extinction hypotheses explain how modern humans could supersede Neanderthals as the dominant hominin, but not result in their complete extinction. Both species were very intelligent, apex predators who gained some mastery over the environment. We show that modern humans may have out-survived Neanderthals because of a more efficient process of childbirth and superior adaptation to pregnancy. One of the greatest challenges to the survival of both species was the risk to life of birthing large-brained infants, through a comparatively small pelvis. Modern humans responded to this challenge with a sophisticated birth mechanism and cerebral reorganisation to a smaller but cognitively efficient brain. Neanderthals however were obstetrically maladapted, making them more susceptible to environmental vicissitudes. Seminal hominin remains found in China and Spain point to the human pelvis being at an evolutionary cross-road. One path led to modern humans who survived, the other to Neanderthals. Indeed we show that adaptations to pregnancy may have allowed modern humans to colonise the world including the Americas (from Canada, US to Brazil, Argentina and beyond), Far East and Australasia. Some of the modern adaptations to the challenges of childbirth and pregnancy may have occurred earlier in the history of Homo species. For example cerebral reconfiguration to a smaller but cognitively proficient brain may have been observed in the enigmatic Homo floresiensis of Flores, Indonesia or debutant Homo naledi of South Africa. Some features may even have emerged from inter Homo species hybridisation. Intriguingly the modern human genome may have developed means of protecting itself; such that even in cases where humans and Neanderthals mixed; their progeny could not always benefit from their adaptive strengths, thus ensuring some degree of exclusivity and protecting against extinction of modern humans by assimilation by other hominins as they colonised the world. Even more cunningly modern humans manage to amass the advantageous adaptations of other Homo species, including those of Neanderthals, that they encountered and admixed with, as they colonised the earth, allowing them to acclimatise to new territories; ironically not too dissimilar, in metaphorical terms, to the famous member of the X-men, Rogue. Providing the solutions to challenges that faced all our ancestors, namely pregnancy and childbirth, while ensuring genetic exclusivity may account for why modern humans remain the last Homo standing.
Neanderthal Extinction: the Obstetric Obstacle
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