The Invaders by Pat Shipman

New, interesting book on paleo anthropology.  Addresses the Neanderthal man problem.  Neanderthal man lived in Europe from who knows how far back up until 40,000 to 25,000 years ago.  Then modern man, Homo Sapiens, appeared in Europe and Neanderthal man disappeared, sometime between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago, depending upon whose radiocarbon dates you accept.  So what happened to Neanderthal  man?  Did our ancestors kill off the Neanderthals?  Did they interbreed with them and absorb them, the way Americans interbred with the Indians?  Did a disease wipe them out?  Or climate change? or what?
   Pat Shipman starts out by going thru the radio carbon dating problem.  Cosmic radiation and solar radiation convert a small fraction of the carbon in the world into the radio active isotope carbon 14.  Living organisms  take in carbon from the environment while they live, and cease to do so when they die.  The carbon 14 decays over time and a measurement of the lingering radioactivity gives a measure of age.  Works back to about 40,000 years ago, at which point the radioactivity gets too weak to detect at all.   Due to one thing or another,  modern radiocarbon dating gives a great deal more age to ancient samples than radio carbon dating did even 10 years ago.  A number of Neanderthal sites were redated recently, and pushed back from 25,000 years to 40,000 years ago.  People used to think that Neanderthals and modern man co-existed in Europe from maybe 40,000 years ago until 25,000 years ago.  If you buy the re done radio carbon dates it now looks like Neanderthals disappeared just a few hundred years after modern man appeared on the European scene.  Which leads to the thought that modern man was responsible for the end of the Neanderthals. 
   The fossil record does not show direct conflict, say Neanderthal bones with butchering marks in modern man sites.  Things like a Neanderthal hunting party getting wiped out in a conflict over an big  kill out in the field probably would not show in the fossil record. 
   Shipman says that modern man had projectile weapons (bows and arrows) and Neanderthals did not.  To an old technological determinist like me, that could be decisive.  With a bow, the hunter only has to get within 50 yards of a deer to beg it.  Without, he has to close in hand to hand and rassle it down.  Deer are alert and wary and getting that close without spooking them takes a level of woodcraft that I don't have.  Clearly a bow hunter will have far greater success than a hunter with just a flint knife.   Shipman's argument would be stronger if he presented real evidence for the absence of Neanderthal bows.  A count and comparison of flint arrow head finds from Neanderthal sites versus modern man sites would greatly strengthen Shipman's argument.
   Likewise, Shipman asserts that modern man had bone needles, with eyes, and Neanderthal did not.  Again, a sewn fur outfit will keep the hunter warmer than just a fur thrown over the shoulders.  Again, Shipman's argument would be stronger with some counts of needle finds in Neanderthal sites versus modern man sites. 
   All in all, interesting and thought provoking read.