
What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us? - gmays
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/the-brain-2/28-what-happened-to-hominids-who-were-smarter-than-us
======
brymaster
This article is ancient (pun intended) in terms of paleoanthropology research
and apparently comes with some criticism from people in the field:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskop_Man#Criticisms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskop_Man#Criticisms)

[http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/return-
amazi...](http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/return-amazing-
boskops-lynch-granger-2009.html)

Recommend this story and discussion instead:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6849223](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6849223)

~~~
darkmighty
I'm no anthropologist, but it all sounds like a big succession of unfounded
claims following from a single fact (the large skull). Brain size is weakly
correlated with IQ, structure is far more important: otherwise, people with
size abnormalities should have been geniuses [1] There are mammalians with
huge brains out there --- whales and elephants, and they're behind apes
cognitively.

Modern processors are laid out in a few square centimeters, and not because we
are involuntarily constrained by size, quite the opposite -- we're voluntarily
constraining them. Making them bigger is actually inefficient: signals
couldn't reach the whole die in a single clock cycle, losses increase, and so
on. Many diminishing returns architectural changes are required for scaling up
[2].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people)
\-- most of those are sports players, not mathematicians or whatever

[2]
[http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7003/IntelDieSize_575px.png](http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7003/IntelDieSize_575px.png)
\-- die size remains fairly constant through generations

~~~
yen223
It's not the size of the brain, it's the "brain-to-body mass ratio" that
matters. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-
body_mass_ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio)

------
jrs99
They may have had a philosophy of nonviolence and were slaughtered by violent
humans.

They may have been too gentle to kill another humanoid.

Or if they fought back, they may have been massively outnumbered by humans.

Obviously, humans love to kill and wipe out entire species. They may have had
an agreement of peace with the neanderthals and then simply lied about it and
killed and tortured them all. They may have raped their neanderthal children,
which would have led to the gene transfer.

update: I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. Humans don't rape. I take that part
back. And humans aren't that violent (except against native americans, maybe,
which is pretty minor.)

~~~
yongjik
> They may have been too gentle to kill another humanoid. (...) Obviously,
> humans love to kill and wipe out entire species.

Wow, projection much?

History tells us that native Americans were just as capable of killing other
native Americans as other individuals of homo sapiens. That doesn't make the
crime made by European settlers lighter, but that does make the anachronistic
idea of "Noble Savages" look like a lame attempt at feeling morally superior
to other people of non-native American descent. (Not to mention objectifying
native Americans: those peace-loving, naturalist sages.)

Also, "an agreement of peace with the Neanderthals", seriously? We are not
talking about Napoleon, we're dealing with many different cave-dwelling
tribes, mostly moving around by walking, scattered over Europe that displaced
a different population in the course of thousands of years. Your statement
makes no sense.

~~~
jrs99
i don't know where you read that i believe native americans were NOT capable
of killing other people. I believe that ALL groups of humans are capable of
murder and rape. That's not something that I only believe in, but probably is
just a simple fact.

I'm sorry if I was unclear when I say "they." I mean "they" as in the hominids
the article says "may have been smarter than us."

~~~
yongjik
Well, sorry about my unclear writing. I was trying to say that your argument
is just a variation of "bad Europeans killed peaceful Indians" narrative, only
applied to a bigger picture.

And just like that narrative, your story doesn't tell why those hominids would
be less inclined to kill competitors (after all, having big brains than
chimpanzees didn't make us saints). You just assumed it because it suits the
narrative you chose.

~~~
jrs99
i don't make any real conclusions here. I'm sorry if I sounded like this is
the only thing I can accept. It's not. I only suggest a possibility. There's a
possibility that this group of hominids killed each other in some kind of
civil war or died in some drought.

And i hope this isn't a revelation, but the narrative is real. Bad europeans
did kill peaceful indians. That doesn't mean that all europeans are bad and
all indians were peaceful. But largely, that narrative is hard to deny. All
kinds of humans have done bad things to people who really just wanted to be
left alone. To me, though it may not be the whole story, it's a true fact. I
merely suggest that it is a very real possibility that humans hunted this
hominid group down and slaughtered them all while the hominids wanted to be
left alone. I don't see how you can not consider that scenario if you are
wondering how a group of hominids became extinct.

------
hippoman
Wikipedia says they were probably a fantasy and really just above-average
skull size humans similar to what we find today. I wonder if they were found
in groups which would suggest they were consistently different, or just
randomly appearing among normal-skull people as the final paragraph seems to
say (but tries not to).

~~~
jostmey
I saw that wikipedia article too. The articles smells like BS. But, who is to
say that intelligence is favored by evolution. If humanity is not careful, our
ancestors could end up being intellectually inferior. For a more entertaining
story that this article read "Galápagos" by Kurt Vonnegut.

~~~
jrs99
i don't think Einstein back then would have had a higher chance of surviving
than some other random person.

Possibly there was very little advantage being a genius would give you back
then? Especially if you count the life expectancy.

If everyone had a spear and you were the genius that invented the bow and
arrow, then one day later, everyone would copy you.

Also, an older society of average people would have created more technology
than a newer society of geniuses. Or even if a society of thousands developed,
they would be able to create more advanced weaponry than a village of 40
geniuses. So maybe the group of humanoids with the genetics that made them a
super social species with the predilection for massive groups would give them
a huge advantage over a genius group without the genetics to seek massive
societies.

A city of 10,000 people all with "IQ" of 90 that has been around for 500 years
would annihilate technologically a village of 40 all with "IQ" of 150 which
has been around for 100 years.

~~~
baddox
Is there a correlation now between intelligence and having children?

~~~
jrs99
not being in a city doesn't necessarily mean you'll have fewer children. but
it may mean you don't like cities, and your children won't like cities, and
you may prefer living in a small tribe.

------
pistle
They evolved into sperm whales which have the physical capacity to support
such a massive brain. Sperms whales also think the research and link bait
article are full of shite.

------
DonGateley
For all we know, the morphological differences could have rendered them
severely autistic. Isn't it about quality, not quantity?

~~~
marshray
For all we know they would be considering us the severely autistic ones.

------
kqr2
Check out _Last Ape Standing_ by Chip Walter for more speculation on why homo
sapiens were more successful than other hominids,

[http://www.amazon.com/Last-Ape-Standing-Seven-Million-
Year-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Last-Ape-Standing-Seven-Million-Year-
Survived-ebook/dp/B009K4YLU2)

------
lutusp
What do you mean? They're still here -- they're called "Hungarians." :)

------
skylan_q
Isn't it possible that they were us and we just happened to get smaller
brains?

~~~
autokad
yes, i believe our brains have shrank by 10% in the last 5,000 years alone. so
a 20-30% lift isn't a big leap. also, if you read the wikipedia article it
mentions that they were not a separate species, but human and the size is
highly debated

------
jesusmichael
who is us?

~~~
tg3
Homo Sapien. The article uses Human to refer to the Homo genus (Homo Erectus,
etc).

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liveoneggs
We ate them.

~~~
JetSpiegel
With fava beans

~~~
ghkbrew
and a nice chianti

------
ams6110
Maybe their women found homo sapien men more attractive.

~~~
marshray
I can almost hear them thinking "Oh look at that nice small-headed boy, I
could possibly bear three or more of his children before dying in childbirth"

(Note: not sarcasm)

------
meric
All of humanity descended from a single female 100,000 years ago, so every
other female from that time didn't have any descendants alive today either...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve)

~~~
mahmud
Nothing in the article suggests we interbred with them.

~~~
jrs99
You don't think some humans raped neanderthals?

