heidelbergensis sailors?

[Fraggle Rocker]

Yeah well, there's an elephant in a zoo in South Korea, that has learned to utter a few Korean words. And there's the old talking seal from the 80s. Much like that more illustrates social behavior in a species than anything else.

Repeating a few words isn't much different from understanding a few words, which many social species can do; for example dogs and horses. But the chimpanzees and gorillas who have learned ASL actually form sentences and ask questions. One mother even taught it to her own baby.

One of the gorillas saw a zebra walk past her enclosure for the first time. Her teacher was there so she signed, "Look, a white tiger."

During the glacial phases were the oceans cooler at lower latitudes?

The Coriolis force keeps the water circulating--clockwise in the northern oceans, counterclockwise in the southern oceans. This has a tremendous impact on local temperatures. The greatest effect of the glacier formation is surely moving the northern shore of the ocean southward. So the water that laps the shore is probably at about the same temperature as the water that lapped the shore when the shore was 100 miles further north.

Would this then have the same benefit?

What benefit, to whom?

Brain size without comparison to body mass becomes misleading.

Indeed. A considerable fraction of our brain cells have nothing to do with thinking but instead control the motions of our muscles. More body mass requires more brain cells for movement.

Any idea of the body mass of the Cro-Magnon to which Hawkes et.al were reffering?

The Cro-Magnon were simply the first Homo sapiens to make the journey from Asia to Europe, around 30KYA. When the Indo-Europeans made their journey about 20-25KY later, they brought the Neolithic technology (farming and animal husbandry) that they had developed in Asia. With their superior technology, they did what always happens in such a meeting: they marginalized the older population.

Apparently the Cro-Magnon graveyards don't have any decently preserved DNA, so we can't compare them to other populations. Nonetheless, the Basques appear to be a distinct population unrelated to the Indo-Europeans. Given their location, it's a fair guess that they might be the last descendants of the Cro-Magnon. They seem to be virtually indistinguishable from the Indo-Europeans (the Celtic, Germanic, Italic and Hellenic tribes). This doesn't help solve the mystery at all.

 

[sculptor]

... What benefit, to whom? ...

reference post #13