Neandertal reconstructions

[lagarvelho]

As Jacques has quite properly suggested, responses in "inappropriate" forums should be moved to more "appropriate" ones, I'm suggesting to Dale(and anyone else interested)that we move the subject of the various reconstruction attempts on Neandertals should be moved here.  I'm happy to do this, and to sum up, I believe Dale thought that at least one of the reconstructions was too muscular for any Neandertal reality, and I replied that how Neandertals were represented depended in part on the preexisting ideas of the reconstructor.  Does anyone else have any ideas?  How about it Dale?  Anybody else?
Anne G

[Dale Hoogeveen]

This move is well done, and should have been posted here in the first place.  Sorry about that.

You have my feelings pretty much correct in that I feel that Neanderthal musculature could not have been anywhere as bulky as is frequently represented.  

Extreme bulk such as is frequently used to cloth Neanderthal skeletons requires a very specialized exercise regimen with special techniques solely for display that would have had no reason to exist in any subsistance level economy.  I feel that working muscles are a much better model than competitve display forms.

Dutch

As Jacques has quite properly suggested, responses in "inappropriate" forums should be moved to more "appropriate" ones, I'm suggesting to Dale(and anyone else interested)that we move the subject of the various reconstruction attempts on Neandertals should be moved here.  I'm happy to do this, and to sum up, I believe Dale thought that at least one of the reconstructions was too muscular for any Neandertal reality, and I replied that how Neandertals were represented depended in part on the preexisting ideas of the reconstructor.  Does anyone else have any ideas?  How about it Dale?  Anybody else?
Anne G

[abazagaroth]

I think there is a much greater likelihood of such physiques than is being expressed here. Not that I believe they looked like that, especially considering their climate, but many young men from hunter-gatherer societies have such features, as do chimpanzees. If you have ever seen a hairless chimp moving around, its pretty interesting. I saw one once that had some sort of allergic reaction to its diet that lost all its hair, every single hair on its body. A change in diet fixed that and its hair grew back, but seeing it in movement was like seeing a body-builder moving around, muscles all over the body flexing with each movement.

As I said, I doubt a cold adapted population would look like that (particularly older individuals), but the idea that no one looks like that except body builders isn't so robust. In addition, there is a *big* difference between body builders that have muscles that don't even look proportional to their body structure, and those that are just heavily muscled. A big difference between, say, Arnold Swarzenegger in his body building days, and his body a decade later in the 1980s. I don't remember ever seeing representations of neanderthals that looked like the former, and rarely the later. Usually, its more like the way a 6' 200 lbs man in good shape looks. And that is not really that large.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Anne and the others,

As Jacques has quite properly suggested, responses in "inappropriate" forums should be moved to more "appropriate" ones, I'm suggesting to Dale(and anyone else interested)that we move the subject of the various reconstruction attempts on Neandertals should be moved here.  I'm happy to do this, and to sum up, I believe Dale thought that at least one of the reconstructions was too muscular for any Neandertal reality, and I replied that how Neandertals were represented depended in part on the preexisting ideas of the reconstructor.  Does anyone else have any ideas?  How about it Dale?  Anybody else?
Anne G

First, I thought that what Dale was referring to is not so much the “muscular mass” itself, as where (if any) it is likely to have been distributed on the body of Neanderthals as a response to their physical activities and associated stresses and trauma. In other words, they (the Neanderthals) were not into aesthetically designed muscle building but just into plain surviving in rugged times and environments, with all that entails in terms of biological (muscle mass and correlative bone) development . As an aside, I am pretty sure that any healthy adult Neanderthal (or early so-called “modern” for that matter) would have been perfectly able to take on any of today’s prize winning, centerfold Mr. or Mrs. Muscle. That is, unless they lacked the brain to do it! Just teasing you, here.

What would actually be very interesting is to see a number of blind tests (using both the traditional methods and the new computer assisted ones) done by various (independent) individuals or teams, on a number of well made and selected casts. And, compare the results. The problem with this is that it might be very difficult to find people (to do this) who do not have pre-conceived ideas about what Neanderthals were supposed to look like. One way around this would be to include in such experiments specimens of both Neanderthals and very early, so-called “Anatomically Moderns”. I suppose I could go on with the “checks and balances”, but, given the costs of such an exercise – and I am not just talking about $, here -- I doubt that it will ever get done.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

PS   Not to mention that if this were to be carried out, we would end up looking at and arguing about -- at the very best -- very few individuals plucked, more or less by taphonomic chance, from an actual, most likely diversified population that spanned millennia of evolutionary time, and this, over a very large portion of Eurasia.

[lagarvelho]

Jacques, Dale, and everybody else:.

"What would actually be very interesting is to see a number of blind tests (using both the traditional methods and the new computer assisted ones) done by various (independent) individuals or teams, on a number of well made and selected casts. And, compare the results. The problem with this is that it might be very difficult to find people (to do this) who do not have pre-conceived ideas about what Neanderthals were supposed to look like. One way around this would be to include in such experiments specimens of both Neanderthals and very early, so-called “Anatomically Moderns”. I suppose I could go on with the “checks and balances”, but, given the costs of such an exercise – and I am not just talking about $, here -- I doubt that it will ever get done.

PS   Not to mention that if this were to be carried out, we would end up looking at and arguing about -- at the very best -- very few individuals plucked, more or less by taphonomic chance, from an actual, most likely diversified population that spanned millennia of evolutionary time, and this, over a very large portion of Eurasia. "

The idea of doing such a study sounds, as they say, "really cool".  It might be possible to do it "blind"  *without* labeling any of the specimens in any manner, other than something like "reconstructions of humans, prehistoric and modern".  *If*, and this is a rather big "if", the people doing the reconstructions didn't know or sense that some of the reconstructions they were doing were of Neandertals, I wonder if that would be enough to keep preconceived ideas out.  I can't answer this directly of course, but I once created a t-shirt labeled "Famous women of prehistory" with a picture of a Neandertal "morph"(you can find the original in the January, 1996 National Geographic), from some computer software I had.  I went around wearing the t-shirt and nobody other than people who knew I was writing science fiction dealing with Neandertals even "noticed" anything.  But of course that is only *one* admittedly unscientific attempt.
Anne G

[Dale Hoogeveen]

There is no doubt that young men in subsistance economies are usually in very good condition in most cases;  they are subject to intense selection both environmentally and culturally.  Most everyone in such conditions would likely to be in what one would call "thrifty" condition in a domestic animal herd - meaning with sufficient condition and mass to be extremely functional but not overdeveloped.  

My comments on Neanderthals, who would certainly follow that pattern, IMO, are meant to be taken in regard to the model to be used to reconstruct that musculature.  Mr. Universe-bulked muscles do not seem to me to be appropriate due to the specialized type of exercise needed to produce them which would not have had any reason to have been in existance in Neanderthal times, and therefore not only would be incorrect in proportions but also in bulk.  Nor would such types of muscles be generally useful for day to day use and survival.  Muscle-bound wouldn't have cut it and probably would have been anti-survival,  especially in those cases were sudden and unexpected action might necessary.

I am not trying to "wimp" out on the Neanderthals, rather I would just like to to see a realistic approach to normal-lifestyle generated musculature.  There is enough variation in modern pound for pound muscle strength that it is very conceivable that normal use development and bulk would be quite consistant from human type to type regardless of underlying bone structure.  In any work crew you see just such a variety.  Often extra muscle bulk (and I'm not talking about "beer muscles"...) actually means less strength and almost certainly less endurance.  So I do not think that human robusticity automatically means muscular bulk, although I would certainly agree to increased muscular strength on the basis of the bone attachment points.

Dale

[lagarvelho]

Dale:

"y comments on Neanderthals, who would certainly follow that pattern, IMO, are meant to be taken in regard to the model to be used to reconstruct that musculature.  Mr. Universe-bulked muscles do not seem to me to be appropriate due to the specialized type of exercise needed to produce them which would not have had any reason to have been in existance in Neanderthal times, and therefore not only would be incorrect in proportions but also in bulk.  Nor would such types of muscles be generally useful for day to day use and survival.  Muscle-bound wouldn't have cut it and probably would have been anti-survival,  especially in those cases were sudden and unexpected action might necessary."

I think you are likely right.

"I amot trying to "wimp" out on the Neanderthals, rather I would just like to to see a realistic approach to normal-lifestyle generated musculature.  There is enough variation in modern pound for pound muscle strength that it is very conceivable that normal use development and bulk would be quite consistant from human type to type regardless of underlying bone structure.  In any work crew you see just such a variety.  Often extra muscle bulk (and I'm not talking about "beer muscles"...) actually means less strength and almost certainly less endurance.  So I do not think that human robusticity automatically means muscular bulk, although I would certainly agree to increased muscular strength on the basis of the bone attachment points."

My guess is that what you are saying is, that Neandertals had (somewhat) larger and denser bones, somewhat larger muscles and somewhat different muscle attachments.  But if I'm "reading" you correctly, it seems to me they would have been "robust" all over, rather than "bulked up".  IOW, they would have looked as if they could "carry a heavy load", but not necessarily as if they "worked out" a lot.  And what evidence there is seems to suggest that Neandertals varied as much within their own population as "moderns" do or did.
Anne G

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Dale:

snip

My guess is that what you are saying is, that Neandertals had (somewhat) larger and denser bones, somewhat larger muscles and somewhat different muscle attachments.  But if I'm "reading" you correctly, it seems to me they would have been "robust" all over, rather than "bulked up".  IOW, they would have looked as if they could "carry a heavy load", but not necessarily as if they "worked out" a lot.  And what evidence there is seems to suggest that Neandertals varied as much within their own population as "moderns" do or did.
Anne G

That is just about correct.  I am not so sure that differences would even be very noticeable to us, considering how many of us are currently overweight to begin with.  What was probably even more noticeable <at the time> would likely have been variations in hair and beard color and amount.  There probably wasn't anything else in the world of male facial hair to rival the Neanderthal beard which we almost never see represented.  Once again we are conditioned to beards in a way that the outside contemporaries of the Neanderthals might not have been.  So we have to be very careful not to let our cultural biases and realities cloud our considerations.

Dale

[lagarvelho]

Dale:

You may be right on the "beard" issue.  I don't know.  Assuming this to be true, though, it may have partly been because Neandertals may not have had much of anything to trim their facial hair with.  Or maybe they trimmed and styled them, as some men do, even today.  It's all pure speculation in any case, since beards don't fossilize. . . .
Anne G

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Dale:

You may be right on the "beard" issue.  I don't know.  Assuming this to be true, though, it may have partly been because Neandertals may not have had much of anything to trim their facial hair with.  Or maybe they trimmed and styled them, as some men do, even today.  It's all pure speculation in any case, since beards don't fossilize. . . .
Anne G

What you say is at the core of the problem with what is being attempted with reconstructions.

Using beards and hair for example, I am not sure that anybody cares (and I am sure that nobody actually notices anyway) what shape the heads or chins are on ZZTop.  Should Neanderthals have been capable of that sort of hairness, then such unfossilized, soft tissues might well have ruled or at least heavily modified appearances.

As to trimming, you are probably correct that to the extent that shaving was probably out with chipped stone surfaces, (I have enough problem with smooth metal razor blades!) but using the ZZTop example again, and having had both very long hair and a full beard, I would not want to go on a cattle hunt with it a full ZZTop length.  One would think that Mousterian level cutting surfaces would certainly be capable of trimming hair and/or beards, at any rate.  

Dale