A question about cro-magnon and hunter gatherer tribes?

Question

If cro magnon became the modern man because of the transition from hunter gatherer to farmer then why arent the tribes that stayed hunter gatherers still cro magnon or something similar?

Answer 1

Um...we *are* Cro-Magnon.  What the heck are they teaching you kids these days?

Answer 2

Because their way of life changed. Cromagnons are characterized by thick structural bones because hunting takes a lot of physical work so human slowly adapted to their environment as to not maintain a bulkier physique since it would be a waste of resource for farming don't require huge muscles and thick bones.

Answer 3

dukefenton, ed031639 and berikf basically summed up what I would say.  Cro-Magnon is just a name given to Homo sapiens living Europe.  A Cro-Magnon would be indistinguishable from a modern man if you put him in a business suit and he would easily be able to learn any modern language or work a computer if given the education we received.  The differences in size and shape are within modern norms and while maybe you would think 'Wow look at that big German dude' you would not pull your kids inside and bar the door.

random6x7:  Food and its acquisition can actually have a huge effect.  I would argue that Bergman's and Allen's rules are more influential on boy size but look at modern Polynesians.  Why are they so large if they are descended from Asian stock and live in warm climates?  The reason would be periods of food shortage that select for those best able to store calories.  Why were some populations in the northern reaches of the British isles found to have very dark complextions when we know that skin tone is a result of sun exposure and in northern latitudes the sun light is not sufficent to produce enough Vitamin D.  The answer is that their diets were heavy in fish and fish contains high concentrations of Vitamin D and therefore the skin did not need to lighten to manufacture the needed nutrients but remained dark to prevent Vit D posioning.

Answer 4

The Cro Magnon were just a bigger more robust version of modern man with a slightly bigger brain.  Due to the positive selection for more robust humans, the need to migrate with their prey  & possibly more protien in their diet they were physically stronger & taller than today's average homosapien. However, they fall within the upper end of the Sapien norm & were not notably different from today's northern Europeans in height & robustness.  Chuckle, enter one in track & field events & they'd not stand out as noticably different.

While I normally agree with berickf, our Cro Magnon ancestors were slightly more robust & taller than modern humans... however that could be explained by a more robust lifestyle.  While slightly taller on the average than modern sapiens they don't deserve to be called anything but homo sapien.

Answer 5

Cro Magnon is just a name that was applied to one group of European Homo sapiens, but they "are" Homo sapiens, none-the-less, and there is absolutely no physical distinction between hunter gathering Homo sapiens to pastoral or agricultural Homo sapiens.  That is why when comparing modern hunter-gatherers to modern pastoral or agricultural societies that there is absolutely no significant difference either.  Cro Magnon Homo sapiens were no bulkier or stronger then Homo sapiens are today, but this suggestion that they were somehow different, which they were not, seems to have guided your second answerer astray into somehow concluding that their was some kind of physical advantage to being a Cro Magnon.  It seems to me, however, that he is confusing Cro Magnon with Homo neanderthalensis, which Cro Magnon definitely was not!  Neanderthal was a completely separate hunter-gathering species, which was competing with the Cro Magnon European Homo sapiens, and this competition resulted in these bulkier stronger Neanderthals eventually becoming extinct, as to why Neanderthal was out competed is a completely different topic.  Anyways, prehistoric hunter-gatherers were Homo sapiens and modern hunter-gatherers are also Homo sapiens.  Some Homo sapiens became pastoralists and agriculturalists, but they are all still the same... Homo sapiens.

Answer 6

There's no connection between evolution and method of food acquisition.  Also, cro-magnons weren't very different from us.  They were a bit more robust, and their brains were slightly larger, but they were still homo sapiens.  They'd fit in perfectly if they were cleaned up and put into modern clothes.  You wouldn't even notice.

As for food production, well, they were pretty much the same as us later homo sapiens.  They exhibited all the same characteristics of us- art, sophisticated tool use, religion.  It's not that they were incapable of agriculture, it's that agriculture wasn't invented in Europe and took awhile to get over there.  Also, farming isn't genetic.  We aren't compelled to farm because we're modern humans; it's just the method that best allows for a large, war-like population that can crush smaller hunter/gatherer populations.  Farming isn't even appropriate for many areas in the world, which is why there are still hunter/gatherers and herders out there.  It's not that they are less evolved than us.  They still hunt and gather because that has worked for them and their ancestors for thousands of years, and their homelands are too infertile or rocky or whatever for us intensive agriculturalists to have taken them over yet.