Hypothesis: Neanderthals died of Homo sapien germs (lacking vitamin D)

VITAMIN D AND THE HUMAN FAMILY TREE Heaney Blog Aug 2015

By Cindy Workman

Summary by VitaminDWiki

  • Homo sapiens got vitamin D from seafood and sea mammals

  • “Greenfield (in the book below) points out that only the Homo sapiens immigrants had developed cultural practices that included fishing and/or eating the meat and fat of marine mammals.”

  • Neanderthals had weak immune systems due to lack of vitamin D

  • Homo sapiens germs won.

  • Homo sapiens germs also killed out many homo sapiens natives (e.g. in the Western Hemisphere) who did not have immunity to the arriving germs.

  • Wonder if those natives also lacked vitamin D

Reference for the blog post

Vitamin D Deficiency In Modern Humans and Neanderthals

Amazon, Leonard O Greenfield, June 2015 $18

Comment

The 1999 Pulitzer Prize book Germs, Guns, Steel by Jared M. Diamond made a strong case for germs killing off the natives, I do not recall anything about the lack of seafood/vitamin D in the natives.

Created March 2016