On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:46, Geoffrey Purcell wrote:

>I merely wanted to point out that until recently, it was thought that 
>Neanderthals in Europe ate only meat from large wild game such as 
>mammoths - and it was also wrongly suggested, at the time, that the 
>Neanderthals died out due to this lack of variety when the larger mammals 
>died out. However, in recent times, it's been pointed out that the 
>Neanderthals in Europe did in fact have a very varied diet including lots of 
>seafood and plants and nuts and even small game, not just meat from the
>Neanderthalis may have eaten sapiens

An alternative hypothesis has been proposed by Danny Vendramini, in his book
Them and Us. Vendramini proposes that Eurasian Neanderthals hunted, killed
and cannibalised early humans for 50,000 years in an area of the Middle East
known as the Mediterranean Levant Because the two species were sexually
compatible, Eurasian Neanderthals also abducted and raped human females. He
says that a prolonged period of cannibalistic and sexual predation began
about 100,000 years ago and that by 50,000 years ago, the human population
in the Levant was reduced to as few as 50 individuals. The death toll from
Neanderthal predation generated the selection pressure that transformed the
tiny survivor population of early humans into modern humans. This Levantine
group became the founding population of all humans living today. He argues
that modern human physiology, sexuality, aggression, propensity for
inter-group violence and human nature all emerged as a direct consequence of
systematic long-term dietary and sexual predation by Eurasian Neanderthals.

http://www.themandus.org/

Keith