Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years

It's wild to think how long very human-like beings and modern humans existed before the technological revolution really took off. Hundreds of thousands of years of existing on the technological level of stone tools, spears, cloth made out of hides, and fire. Then at some unknown point probably in the last 100,000 years, the bow and arrow. Then about 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution, which probably unlocked much of the subsequent technological progress by enabling more food security and larger populations.

> Harmful mutations can accumulate through inbreeding. Yet somehow Neanderthals managed to survive across most of Eurasia for nearly 400,000 years

It is also true that inbreeding for extended periods weeds out both dominant and recessive bad genes very effectively. As long as at least one good or not-so bad alternative is maintained.

So not as surprising that small groups can last a long time, once they reach a threshold, as implied by the article.

It’s a brutal way to improve the stock, as lots of individuals suffer until (and in service of) a debilitating gene going “extinct”. And every new maladaptive mutation restarts the process, but it works.

On the upside, any adaptive mutation can just as quickly become pervasive.

The biggest downside in the long term is a lack of genetic diversity as a shield against new diseases.

350,000 years of just chilling, picking berries, you die in identical technological and cultural environment as when you were born. Now we got to be around when God is made in a data center

I know even with humans pre-modern populations were drastically smaller, but it's still just astounding to me how small of a population size it seems like Neanderthals had.

I spent a year of high school in the Basque Country, and it always stuck out to me that a common feature of the Basques, especially the beefy ones, was incredibly caveman-like.

I know this is not unique to this population, but I also always wondered if it correlated to the fact that it is one of the historic Neanderthal populations. I have a photo of a dude I used to play soccer with that looks like I put a Neanderthal model from the natural history museum in a jersey, and I have met very few people like that in the states. The Basque Country is a very small population.