Science & Technology - Posted by Neil Schoenherr-WUSTL on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 15:55 - 1 Comment 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Fertility gave early humans an edge
Any advantage that early modern humans may have had over Neandertals was the result of increased fertility and reduced immature death, not longevity as has been suggested. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
WASHINGTON U.-ST. LOUIS (US) — Increased fertility and/or reduced immature mortality—not longevity—is what gave early modern humans a demographic advantage over Neandertals.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
In fact, life expectancy was probably the same for early modern and late archaic humans and did not factor in the extinction of Neandertals, according to a new study.
An examination of the fossil record to assess adult mortality for both groups, which co-existed in different regions for roughly 150,000 years, shows the proportions of 20 to 40-year-old adults versus adults older than 40, were about the same, says Erik Trinkaus, professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.
This similar age distribution reflects common patterns of adult mortality and treatment of the elderly in the context of highly mobile hunting-and-gathering human populations.
The study is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Older individuals are rarely found among the remains of late archaic humans, which has prompted some researchers to propose that Neandertals had an inherently shorter life expectancy, contributing to their demise.
“If indeed there was a demographic advantage for early modern humans, at least during transitional phases of Late Pleistocene human evolution, it must have been the result of increased fertility and/or reduced immature mortality,” writes Trinkaus in the paper’s conclusion.
“Neither adult longevity nor proposed modest shifts in developmental rates are likely to have played a role in this demographic transition.”
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Considering the difference in bone fractures found in Neandertals and archaic humans with the Neandertals resembling rodeo riders, it would be logical to assume archaic humans had a softer lifestyle. This would indicate less chance of early death for infants. The theory makes sense based on that premise.