this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
1111 points (98.0% liked)

Comic Strips

19561 readers
2086 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Neanderthals went extinct because they couldn't survive the ice age of 40,000 years ago. Unlike homo-sapiens, they never learned to sew, so they couldn't make tighter-fitting fur clothing to keep warm. They mostly wore loose-fitting animal hides.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ice wasn't everywhere. The sewing can't be the only reason but interesting nevertheless.

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ice wasn’t everywhere.

The last ice age of 40,000 years ago covered everywhere Neanderthals lived, and no Neanderthals survived it. The last Neanderthals went extinct from exposure in a cave in Spain, which was affected by the last ice age.

No sewing equipment has ever been found with Neanderthals. They died of exposure in spite of being more cold-hardy than homo-sapiens, who by the last ice age had mastered sewing tighter-fitting clothing with leather and fur. That's why we survived the last ice age, and the Neanderthals did not.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There are sites outside of Europe which means that it was not only sewing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal Demographics

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

From your article:

Pre- and early Neanderthals seem to have continuously occupied only France, Spain, and Italy, although some appear to have moved out of this "core-area" to form temporary settlements eastward (without leaving Europe). Nonetheless, southwestern France has the highest density of sites for pre- and classic Neanderthals.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

continuously

They were expelled elsewhere. If they were not they would have survived.

It is also possible that they didn't need sewing but are extinct because sewing allowed us to finally also settle Europe.

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The archaeological consensus remains that Neanderthals went extinct because they could not survive the last ice age.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

No doubt about that.