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Did Large Eyes Lead To Neanderthals' Demise?

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-the-better-to-see-you-with dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Bigger eyes and a corresponding greater allocation of the brain to process visual information is the most recent theory about the reasons that led to the extinction of Neanderthals, our closest relatives. Neanderthals split from the primate line that gave rise to modern humans about 400,000 years ago. This group then moved to Eurasia and completely disappeared from the world about 30,000 years back. Other studies have shown that Neanderthals might have lived near the Arctic Circle around 31,000 to 34,000 years ago."

5 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Correlation vs causality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Neanderthals died out because they weren't smart enough. In other news, they had big eyes.

  2. Disappeared? by WillKemp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Neanderthals didn't disappear. As a distinct culture they "disappeared" from the archaeological record, but that certainly doesn't mean Neanderthals disappeared from existence. A big chunk of the world's population have a significant proportion of Neanderthal genes. You can't say a population went extinct if their descendants are still alive!

    1. Re:Disappeared? by Andtalath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, the more we learn about bird/dinosaur similarities, the more it seems like dinosaurs aren't extinct.
      The genetics between birds and dinosaurs are very few.

      So, scientifically speaking, saying dinosaurs are extinct isn't entirely correct, or rather, almost meaningless since dinosaur isn't a very well-defined scientific term.

  3. big eyes by charlesr44403 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Horses have huge eyes and aren't going extinct any time soon.

  4. Send samzenpus back for more training please by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I rarely comment on /. innner workings but honestly, samzenpus needs some retraining. Last night it was the 'microsoft killing windows phone' fantasy headline.. now an obvious dupe.. among quite a few others of recent vintage.