Am interesting vid.
Danny Vedramini's theory has been around for quite a while now. I checked into it 10 or 12 years ago. It's supported by some fact, but mostly fantasy. For example, Neanderthal eyes were a lot larger than modern human eyes, and more widely spaced, but there is no evidence at all that they contained a tapidum lucidum or had slit pupils. The tapidum lucidum, by the way, is why a spider's eyes shine so brightly in a spotlight - spiders have roughly 50 times better night vision that cats do on account of that. They can see in near total darkness.
I also studied Neanderthal physiognomy for some reconstructions I was doing. Males were short - on average 5" 4" to 5' 6" tall, while females averaged 5' 0" to 5' 2" tall. Their bones were more robust than modern human bones, but so were the bones of early modern humans - the so-called "Cro-Magnons". Neanderthal skulls were objectively larger than modern human skulls, as well as relatively larger with respect to body size. That, combined with differences in their rib cages, waists, and hips, and the fact that distal limb bones - forearms and lower legs - were relatively shorter for their body size than those of humans, gave their overall physiques a look similar to what we think of as dwarves or trolls from Nordic mythologies. Michael Crighton wrote a novel called "Eaters of the Dead" that was made into the movie "The 13th Warrior" that postulated the trolls or mountain dwarves of Nordic mythology were a racial memory of interactions with Neanderthals.
Muscle attachments, on average, were stronger than in modern humans... but again, so were those of early modern humans. This indicates more muscle bulk than is the norm today, and hence more strength.
I personally think that the oldest "Venus figurine" ever found, the one from Hohle Fels in Germany, was carved by a modern human to commemorate an encounter with a Neanderthal - the body proportions of the figurine more closely match those of a Neanderthal than a modern human, in my estimation.
Brains were also larger in Neanderthals, with an average cranial capacity of 1600 cc for a Neanderthal vs. 1200 - 1300 CC for an average modern human, but early modern humans also had larger brains - just not quite s large as Neanderthals. Over past few millennia, human brains have been shrinking again in modern humans. It seems the advent of "civilization" doesn't require as much brain-power as the old ways of living.More than the size of the brains, however, is their organization - Neanderthals did have a much larger occipital region, at the back of the head, which is involved in vision. They had better sight, night or otherwise, than modern humans, due to having more processing power in their brains combined with a larger gathering capacity due to the larger eyes.
Since the fossil record only preserves bone, stone, and occasionally wood, there is no hard evidence for whether or not Neanderthals were more hirsute than modern humans, so that part of them being furry is pure speculation in the part of Vendramini, as is the black skin he alleges they had. To the contrary, Neanderthal genes indicate lighter skin, or to be more exact a skin tone range between Nordic white and Mexican or Arab brown. A gene for blue eyes has also been detected in the Neanderthal genome, but it is apparently a different gene or a different mutation than the one that gave rise to blue eyes in modern humans.
There is also no hard evidence of Neanderthal predation on modern humans - no modern human bones found butchered around Neanderthal hearths, for example. There is, however, some evidence for Neanderthal predation on other Neanderthals - at Krapina in Yugoslavia, for example. Neanderthals WERE carnivores, for the most part, with best estimates overall of them eating a diet consisting of roughly 80% meat, although in some cases that might be as high as the 96% mentioned in the video, while in other cases meat was almost entirely absent. A Neanderthal discovered in el Sidron Spain, I believe, had no evidence of meat in his diet - mostly only fungus like mushrooms and greens. That one also had traces of willow bark, possibly used as a pain reliever as it contains salicin, from which aspirin is made.
There is also evidence of interpersonal combat between Neanderthals, although it cannot be proven to have been intertribal. Some have been found to have had their skulls whacked with clubs, and others have been found with spear wounds from wooden spears - one in particular with a spear "scratch" on a rib, and another with a spear wound to the pelvis. Then there is the cannibal Neanderthals mentioned above - butchered bones of fellow Neanderthals found in caves, with butcher marks on them no different from those found on other game species.
The volcanic eruption mentioned in the video took place roughly 70 to 75,000 years ago, but neanderthals and most of the megafuana lived until 25,000 to 30,000 years ago, so while it may have had an impact, it was not the reason for their extinction. The megafauna lived up until the end of the last ice age, around 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, with things like woolly mammoths surviving up to less than 4000 years ago on Wrangel Island, within the time frame of historic records, although there were no historic records on Wrangel Island - just recent fossil mammoth bones.
Oddly, there has been video out of Siberia showing what appears to be living woolly mammoths. Whether they are real or not I cannot say. In that same vein, there have been reports of hominids in Central Asia, called by various names but most often "Almasty" or "Almas" that Myra Shackley believes to be surviving Neanderthals, right up to the current day. She wrote a book about it entitled "Still Living?". Interestingly, and perhaps pertinent, at the time her book was written, there was no evidence that the Neanderthal range extended into the Altai Mountains, where reports of Almas come from - but that changed with the discovery of Neanderthal remains in the Denisova Cave, in the Altai mountains. Now we have processed the genome of the "Altai Neanderthal", and found it to have come from a different population or "race" of Neanderthals than the western European Neanderthals.
Also, in Canada there is a valley colloquially known as "Headless Valley", also known as the Nahanni Valley, where Indians have reported the same or similar hominins known to them as the Nahanni Tribe, apparently a tribe of human or near human cannibal headhunters. A number of bodies of hunters and prospectors have been found in that valley, missing their heads - hence the name "Headless Valley". The Nahanni or "Nuk-Luks" are reported to wear furs including footwear, and carry purpose-made weapons - not your average Bigfoot report. Their description does sound sort of Neanderthal-ish, just like Almas do.
There is no Neanderthal DNA found in sub-Saharan Africans. Everyone else in the world has between 1% and 6% Neanderthal DNA. I have more Nenaderthal DNA than about 83% of the rest of people. .. but we all have slightly different bits of Neanderthal DNA. Altogether, about 20% of the Neanderthal genome still lives in modern humans, thanks to interbreeding. It can be both a blessing and a curse. Neanderthal DNA conferred some protection from COVID on some of us, but it also has other, more dangerous effects - for instance, some folks carry a Neanderthal blood-clotting factor gene that aided Neanderthals from bleeding to death from wounds received during the pursuit of their dangerous lifestyle, but nowadays can cause unwanted blood clots in modern humans.
Neanderthals also interbred with Denisovans - one of the Denisovans bones found in Denisova cave was from a teenage girl whose parents had been an interspecies couple - Neanderthal and Denisovan. Denisovans also interbred with modern humans - Denisovan genes are found in some Southeast Asians, Australian Aborigines, and some Pacific Islanders - Melanesians mostly, I believe.
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Danny Vedramini's theory has been around for quite a while now. I checked into it 10 or 12 years ago. It's supported by some fact, but mostly fantasy. For example, Neanderthal eyes were a lot larger than modern human eyes, and more widely spaced, but there is no evidence at all that they contained a tapidum lucidum or had slit pupils. The tapidum lucidum, by the way, is why a spider's eyes shine so brightly in a spotlight - spiders have roughly 50 times better night vision that cats do on account of that. They can see in near total darkness.
I also studied Neanderthal physiognomy for some reconstructions I was doing. Males were short - on average 5" 4" to 5' 6" tall, while females averaged 5' 0" to 5' 2" tall. Their bones were more robust than modern human bones, but so were the bones of early modern humans - the so-called "Cro-Magnons". Neanderthal skulls were objectively larger than modern human skulls, as well as relatively larger with respect to body size. That, combined with differences in their rib cages, waists, and hips, and the fact that distal limb bones - forearms and lower legs - were relatively shorter for their body size than those of humans, gave their overall physiques a look similar to what we think of as dwarves or trolls from Nordic mythologies. Michael Crighton wrote a novel called "Eaters of the Dead" that was made into the movie "The 13th Warrior" that postulated the trolls or mountain dwarves of Nordic mythology were a racial memory of interactions with Neanderthals.
Muscle attachments, on average, were stronger than in modern humans... but again, so were those of early modern humans. This indicates more muscle bulk than is the norm today, and hence more strength.
I personally think that the oldest "Venus figurine" ever found, the one from Hohle Fels in Germany, was carved by a modern human to commemorate an encounter with a Neanderthal - the body proportions of the figurine more closely match those of a Neanderthal than a modern human, in my estimation.
Brains were also larger in Neanderthals, with an average cranial capacity of 1600 cc for a Neanderthal vs. 1200 - 1300 CC for an average modern human, but early modern humans also had larger brains - just not quite s large as Neanderthals. Over past few millennia, human brains have been shrinking again in modern humans. It seems the advent of "civilization" doesn't require as much brain-power as the old ways of living.More than the size of the brains, however, is their organization - Neanderthals did have a much larger occipital region, at the back of the head, which is involved in vision. They had better sight, night or otherwise, than modern humans, due to having more processing power in their brains combined with a larger gathering capacity due to the larger eyes.
Since the fossil record only preserves bone, stone, and occasionally wood, there is no hard evidence for whether or not Neanderthals were more hirsute than modern humans, so that part of them being furry is pure speculation in the part of Vendramini, as is the black skin he alleges they had. To the contrary, Neanderthal genes indicate lighter skin, or to be more exact a skin tone range between Nordic white and Mexican or Arab brown. A gene for blue eyes has also been detected in the Neanderthal genome, but it is apparently a different gene or a different mutation than the one that gave rise to blue eyes in modern humans.
There is also no hard evidence of Neanderthal predation on modern humans - no modern human bones found butchered around Neanderthal hearths, for example. There is, however, some evidence for Neanderthal predation on other Neanderthals - at Krapina in Yugoslavia, for example. Neanderthals WERE carnivores, for the most part, with best estimates overall of them eating a diet consisting of roughly 80% meat, although in some cases that might be as high as the 96% mentioned in the video, while in other cases meat was almost entirely absent. A Neanderthal discovered in el Sidron Spain, I believe, had no evidence of meat in his diet - mostly only fungus like mushrooms and greens. That one also had traces of willow bark, possibly used as a pain reliever as it contains salicin, from which aspirin is made.
There is also evidence of interpersonal combat between Neanderthals, although it cannot be proven to have been intertribal. Some have been found to have had their skulls whacked with clubs, and others have been found with spear wounds from wooden spears - one in particular with a spear "scratch" on a rib, and another with a spear wound to the pelvis. Then there is the cannibal Neanderthals mentioned above - butchered bones of fellow Neanderthals found in caves, with butcher marks on them no different from those found on other game species.
The volcanic eruption mentioned in the video took place roughly 70 to 75,000 years ago, but neanderthals and most of the megafuana lived until 25,000 to 30,000 years ago, so while it may have had an impact, it was not the reason for their extinction. The megafauna lived up until the end of the last ice age, around 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, with things like woolly mammoths surviving up to less than 4000 years ago on Wrangel Island, within the time frame of historic records, although there were no historic records on Wrangel Island - just recent fossil mammoth bones.
Oddly, there has been video out of Siberia showing what appears to be living woolly mammoths. Whether they are real or not I cannot say. In that same vein, there have been reports of hominids in Central Asia, called by various names but most often "Almasty" or "Almas" that Myra Shackley believes to be surviving Neanderthals, right up to the current day. She wrote a book about it entitled "Still Living?". Interestingly, and perhaps pertinent, at the time her book was written, there was no evidence that the Neanderthal range extended into the Altai Mountains, where reports of Almas come from - but that changed with the discovery of Neanderthal remains in the Denisova Cave, in the Altai mountains. Now we have processed the genome of the "Altai Neanderthal", and found it to have come from a different population or "race" of Neanderthals than the western European Neanderthals.
Also, in Canada there is a valley colloquially known as "Headless Valley", also known as the Nahanni Valley, where Indians have reported the same or similar hominins known to them as the Nahanni Tribe, apparently a tribe of human or near human cannibal headhunters. A number of bodies of hunters and prospectors have been found in that valley, missing their heads - hence the name "Headless Valley". The Nahanni or "Nuk-Luks" are reported to wear furs including footwear, and carry purpose-made weapons - not your average Bigfoot report. Their description does sound sort of Neanderthal-ish, just like Almas do.
There is no Neanderthal DNA found in sub-Saharan Africans. Everyone else in the world has between 1% and 6% Neanderthal DNA. I have more Nenaderthal DNA than about 83% of the rest of people. .. but we all have slightly different bits of Neanderthal DNA. Altogether, about 20% of the Neanderthal genome still lives in modern humans, thanks to interbreeding. It can be both a blessing and a curse. Neanderthal DNA conferred some protection from COVID on some of us, but it also has other, more dangerous effects - for instance, some folks carry a Neanderthal blood-clotting factor gene that aided Neanderthals from bleeding to death from wounds received during the pursuit of their dangerous lifestyle, but nowadays can cause unwanted blood clots in modern humans.
Neanderthals also interbred with Denisovans - one of the Denisovans bones found in Denisova cave was from a teenage girl whose parents had been an interspecies couple - Neanderthal and Denisovan. Denisovans also interbred with modern humans - Denisovan genes are found in some Southeast Asians, Australian Aborigines, and some Pacific Islanders - Melanesians mostly, I believe.
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