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Where are all the Neanderthals? (Pre-History)
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On trawling through the internet for the most up to date (official) views on the origins of Homo sapiens I learned that fresh discoveries of ancient human remains have escalated in the last couple of decades.

A substantial proportion of these recent finds are of Homo erectus (considered to be our immediate predecessor) and Homo sapiens proper (us), but many of them are disconcerting to the palaeo- fraternity.

At the point in time where the two types of human overlapped - somewhere around 100,000 BP, give or take, the skulls of both became so variable that in some cases it has been difficult to detemine which species the skulls should be attributed to.

The implication is so unPC that no orthodox scientist has quite dared to spell it out. They hint broadly, but they never actually state that at this formative period there appears to have been a good deal of cross-species breeding.

The unPC element resides in the uncomfortable realisation that H erectus, a tropical being, who by this time had spread into most of the warmer parts of the world, especially across southeast Asia where he proliferated, had a distinctly oriental appearance. What academic who valued his career would dare to pursue the line of thought suggested by this fact?

The knowledge that H sapiens must also have overlapped the Neanderthals (supposedly between 70,000 and 30,000 BP) raises the same delicate issue. Orthodoxy doggedly maintains that there is no evidence of interbreeding between them and that anyway they were genetically too far apart for fruitful copulation to have been possible.

But at least one skeleton has been found (in what is now Portugal) that appears to have inherited characteristics from both species - and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that other awkward examples have been quietly shunted off to some inaccessible basement room.

But the more academics deny or ignore the possiblity of intimacy between different human species the higher they are hoist on their own petard. They have been able to dodge the issue so far only because no one has spotted an inconsistency in their reasoning.

It all boils down to the human nose. According to the experts in the field the size of our noses is an indication of the climatic conditions our formative ancestors endured or enjoyed. The colder the climate, the bigger the nose as it helped to warm inhaled air before it reached the lungs. Little noses, therefore tell of a tropical ancestry, while big ones indicate a former life on the frozen steppe.

But the experts also insist that unlike the Neanderthals, we as a species are too recent to have had the time to adapt physically to specific conditions. We remain, as H erectus did, a tropical species, but unlike him we had the wherewithal to create our own mini-environments (in the form of clothing, shelters and fire) wherever we went. Neanderthals adapted themselves to suit their habitat; we adapted the habitat to suit ourselves.

Academia can't have it both ways. If we have not had enough time to evolve, how come those of us descended from the people who lived in the frozen north during the Ice Age have, in general, bigger noses than anyone else? Surely this striking feature must either have evolved, or have been acquired through interbreeding with our extinct cousins. We know that Neanderthals had developed very large noses.

The 'those of us' in question belong to the pale-skinned or Caucasian group. Apart from big noses and a lack of pigmentation in the skin, these 'white' people are characterised by other cold-related features. In common with Neanderthals they tend to be bigger-boned and heavier-built - although to a lesser degree - and they are by far the hairiest race (especially the males).

Neanderthals are always portrayed as dark-skinned, but this is pure, badly reasoned, supposition. Since they also inhabited the northern regions where the sun has less strength and since they were otherwise so well-adapted to their habitat it is more logical to assume that they too were light-skinned.

Personally I have no problem with the idea that I could be part-Neanderthal, with a touch of Homo erectus from my Polish grandmother (who like many eastern Europeans clearly had some Mongol blood). But what about the possible effect of an inner Neanderthal on the Caucasian mental make-up?

Orthodoxy has it that Neanderthals were wiped out about 30,000 BP by our cleverer, more aggressively competitive ancestors, but this was not the case. Up to this date, which marked the onset of the coldest part of the inappropriately named Wurm Period, all northern inhabitants had co-existed for up to forty thousand years. It was the extreme cold that did for them - along with almost every living thing that didn't escape to warmer regions, including the ancestral Caucasians.

Pale-skinned H sapiens did survive - just - and have more than made up for it since.Which brings me to another unPC inquiry: have white people effectively achieved world domination because of a genetic tendency to aggression, is it culturally induced, or is it a bit of both?
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Ray



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The fossilised brainpans of Neanderthals, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens show clearly that they were all configured very differently. Neanderthals, for example, had greatly enlarged cerebellums in contrast to out own highly developed and divided forebrain. Homo erectus' brain was the most variable in size, ranging from little more than half the size of ours to about the same overall dimensions. The skull capacity of Neanderthals was actually greater than our own.

Apart from cubic capacity, which is taken to be an obvious indication of mental ability, it is impossible to tell if the differently arranged brains produced different kinds of mental processing, or to what extent they differed. The function of our very small cerebellum is a bit mysterious; it appears to contribute to our spatial awareness and to help us to orientate ourselves - or so scientists reckon - but it is nonsense for them to conclude, as they have in the not so distant past, that although Neanderthals weren't too bright they were very good getting around.

Experts are now coming round to the idea that the cerebellum was the equivalent of our forebrain - more or less - although it had developed from a different part of the brain. But because Neanderthals' technological advancment was evidently slower than ours, it is assumed that our brains were superior to theirs, rather than just different.

The trouble is that having no experience of any thinking patterns but our own it is difficult for us to imagine in what way thought processes could be different. Most people would think, if they thought about it at all, that ours is the only possible way of thinking. Scientists, being no different to the rest of us in this respect, can therefore only gauge differing mental abilities in terms of whether they are more or less efficient than ours.

Because of this the scientists use our proclivities as a yardstick for assessing our near relative's abilities. Were they capable of artistic expression? Did they ritualise important events? Were they capable of looking into the future and if so did they believe in an afterlife - and so on. In a nutshell were they as human as we are?

While the assumption that our direct ancestors had the mental edge on them is probably correct, it is as well to bear in mind the possibility that other kinds of humans may have had attributes invisible to us simply because they fall outside our particular range of talents. Homo erectus could build houses, cross the seas and was probably first to domesticate the dog. We have discovered these facts because they correspond to the activities of early H sapiens. We understand the signs that they have left. But what if Erectus and Neanderthals left signs of activities that are not recognisable to us because they are not part of our own repertoire?

Or do we, in part, understand them better than we think? Is it conceivable that through a degree of intermarriage they may have enriched our mental makeup? Is it possible that they equipped us with the means to outstrip them and take possession of the world?
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Mick Harper
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There's an even trickier academic problem when it comes to sorting out Us and Them. The evidence, of which there is not very much to start with, is divvied up between bones (Palaeoanthroplogy) and artefacts (Archaeology) which is bad enough, but it so happens that the first is attached to the Life Sciences and the second to the History branch of the Humanities. Each with its own methodologies but each with an exaggerated respect for the mysteries of the other.

Plus, due to the fact that finding the evidence is down to serendipity in out-of-the-way places, the whole field is infested with "experts" whose whole professional reputation is based on the status of their pet discovery. Which, given the way academe is structured, means that their students and soon entire schools-of-thought are committed for generations to come.

Never mind all the national, racial and religious axes being ground.
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Oakey Dokey



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I personally believe the archaeologists are talking outta their hats on this one.

I work in 'life sciences' and understand the arguments put forward by the academics, which basically is 'nothing'. There isn't enough evidence to support or refute the archaeologists' claims made on the social beliefs imposed on Neanderthals.

The techniques of DNA cloning (PCR) used to boost the signals of fragmented or degraded DNA has no marker to say what effect time has on its preservation or lack of. There is no benchmark for 'rate of DNA decay' or our ability as scientists to accurately repair or represent this decay. They've also only ever been able to study mtDNA, a very bad gauge of ancestry, as the nuclear DNA isn't viable in ANY SINGLE CASE AS OF YET.

So how come firm conclusions are drawn from this?

I have no idea, I'm guessing even the slightest reinforcement to the archaeological view that Neanderthals being dumb, brutish second rate Homo is purely an invention necessary to perpetuate the long-standing 'belief'. The fact that they lost out cos they couldn't cut it is absurd.

The Neanderthals couldn't walk upright well and had a hunch and dragged knuckles--

--It's been found that an early skeleton of Neanderthal was an unfortunate individual suffering from arthritis, myth continues to an extent.

The Neanderthals had no great works of art--

--More and more evidence is being found to suggest they DO have great works of art, far earlier in date than humans; it's now thought by some that it may have been the Neanderthals that introduced the sapiens to 'art' by a few. The myth still continues to a degree.

The Neanderthals showed no great ability to change their environment (clothing, fire)--

Later finds show caves attributed to later sapiens or cohabitation where ash is attributed to sapiens are in fact bone fide Neanderthal fires. As are tools, funerary rites etc etc. Still the myth that they were second rate to us persists.

-Neanderthals showed little 'compassion' as we as sapiens are capable of and were at a disadvantage as the sick and elderly were left to die.

Also complete tosh; there are wounded Neanderthal skeletons showing definite healing on broken bones and disease, add in the arthritis from the 'first' skeleton, you quickly see they are very dedicated socially, and that they must have had a rudimentary understanding of a medical technique or two.

Neanderthals had a bigger brain to body mass ratio than us early Cro-Magnons, survived far longer in much harsher conditions, showed many if not all of our prerequisites to societal, intelligent, hardy humanity--what we think of as our tools of survival.

Were they a separate species? Maybe

Were they capable of interbreeding as some skeletons suggest? Maybe

Did we force them out and force their extinction? Maybe

All unanswered questions.

The best scenario I could come up with is based on an often overlooked fact. That is Neanderthals inhabited a niche environment that suited them; we have no proof that they weren't good walkers such as a nomadic type, but if they did have limited range, could this not be the deciding factor?

Us sapiens having a slighter build could travel with the widening migratory patterns of the herds because of the decreasing ice sheets, faster and better than our similar but more heavily built cousins. Was it our ability to travel great distances and willingness to do so that was the difference?

The Neanderthals would have found the animal migrations and winters far harder than sapiens purely as a factor of the environment beginning to warm up.
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Martin



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What would you suggest the Neanderthal niche to be?
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Mick Harper
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I'm not sure "niche" is quite the right concept. Do we have a niche? But that said, I take a quite radical position and regard all the hominids as completely separate from us -- and that they are essentially Great Apes (ie they are 'animals') adapted for living away from equatorial forests. The possession of stone axes allows them to defend themselves without shinning up the nearest tree and the possession of fire allows them to live away from the tropics. [Though it is an unexplained anomaly why the Primates are limited to tropical and sub-tropical climes - and the occasional Japanese hot pool.]

Thus the hominids occupy the "niche" of, say, baboons ie as low-level all-purpose scavenger/gatherers, but in the temperate (and even sub-polar) zones. As the top of the food chain, their numbers are limited only by one another ie each troup has several square miles. Presumably the Neanderthals are the most northerly ie sub-polar adapted species of the hominids. There is a presumption that the further cold it gets, the more "intelligent" you have to become to survive.
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Martin



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A Neanderthal thought...

Why are the Neanderthals found only in western Eurasia?
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Mick Harper
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It wasn't western Eurasia at the time but northern Eurasia. However I can't tell you why because this obtrudes on a Treasure Hunt subject. However, memo to those who've done the TH: Martin's point is quite cute secondary evidence of the efficacy of the theory, n'est-ce pas?
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
There is a presumption that the further cold it gets, the more "intelligent" you have to become to survive.

Yes. I was always frustrated at university by that keener Polar Bear in my Philosophy class. Always had the right answers! Damn.
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Martin



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It wasn't western Eurasia at the time but northern Eurasia

I thought they found them in Gibraltar, Portugal and upwards.
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Mick Harper
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Quite so, mon vieux, quite so. Rather a coincidence, wouldn't you say? I mean, fancy Neanderthal's range being so precisely aligned with the Mediterranean when orthodoxy claims that the Mediterranean was an irrelevancy in Neanderthal's time of the ebb-and-flow of the Ice Ages.
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Mick Harper
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Don't get your drift, Ishmael. Bears are accounted to be the most intelligent of the carnivores and is also the most cold-adapted. However, I am not claiming the cold/intelligence link to be a fact, merely a speculation of mine that would account for Neanderthal being the most intelligent of the hominids.

But come to think of it -- and given my own theory of the Origin of Man, which I think you subscribe to -- it's not a bad idea to run with. After all, cold does demand being coped with in ways that warmth doesn't. Adolf Hitler and the Thule Society also advanced some such notion I think.
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Martin



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During animal domestication brain size reduces. This is usually ascribed to a reduction in sensory perception. Could there be a connection to Neanderthal brain size?
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Oakey Dokey



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An article in 'Nature' dated 18/25 dec 03

Art of the Ancients (Anthony Sinclair)

It describes art finds at Hohle Fels in south-western Germany and other anomalous clay/art/textile finds.

Quote
'pieces that show a coherent set of manufacturing techniques and themes for representation. Alongside the figurines found at each of these four sites are remains of waste from ivory, bone and stone working. At these four sites, could we be looking at the oldest artists' workshops?'

In reference to 30,000 odd year old finds.(including ivory figurines of mammoths and birds and flutes made from swan thigh bones)

And

'The study of early art has been plagued by our desire to see this essentially human skill in a progressive evolutionary context:simple artistic expressions should lead to later, more sophisticated creations. We imagine that the first artist worked with a small range of materials and techniques, and produced a limited range of representations of the world around them. As new materials and new techniques were developed, we should see this pattern of evolution in the archaeological record. Yet for many outlets of artistic expression - cave paintings, textiles, ceramics and musical instruments - the evidence increasingly refuses to fit. Instead of the gradual evolution of skills, the first modern humans in Europe were in fact astonishingly precocious artists.'

Essentially the studies so far indicate modern human finds get progressively worse through the centuries and millenia. Starting around 30,000 to 35,000 years ago.

Add to this the difficulty and location of these finds, valleys and caves and you quickly see that we are missing a huge section of knowledge relating to our early ancestry. Especially towards culture.
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This post is from Komorikid who is at present travelling around the world:

Anthropology
One of the difficulties in finding enough corroborating evidence of human habitation is that anthropologists have always been restricted in the areas they have available to explore. Most are isolated valleys and caves where the chances of finding anything significant are rare. The startling finds that do crop up are by far the exception rather than the rule.

Humans are creatures of habit, whatever Homo genus they belong to. They tend towards social groups in areas which provide adequate if not abundant food resources. This is why most of the cities of the world are situated on rivers or by the sea, the most pre-eminent being fertile deltas. Most of the cities of the Old World (Europe--Near East) have had an uninterrupted progression of habitation for millennia. This makes it extremely difficult to explore the most obvious prime sites for 'evidence of presence' aside from tearing up a large portion of EU real estate.

The Life Sciences are looking in the wrong places, and until they get unimpeded access to excavate city foundations before a building site is redeveloped, the chances of finding anything of real significance is remote. And that's not the only problem.

The aforementioned Life Sciences will remain nothing more than well-meaning amateurs, despite their university credentials, as long as they are bound by narrow-visioned paradigms. Ancient cultures, and I include the origin of the species within this designation, need to be treated like missing persons and the analytical skills of forensic science brought to bear when assessing the evidence. Far too much speculation, based on inconclusive and sometimes untenable evidence, has passed into orthodoxy. And by its very nature is treated as FACT where there is none.
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