"Perhaps as recently as 31,000 years ago, the caves sheltered another
forgotten European. The Cave of the Reindeer in particular was found to be
full of artifacts from a tool industry known as the Chatelperronian, an odd
blending of the flake-based Mousterian tradition and the blade-based
Aurignacian. Until recently, most investigatores believed the Chatelperronian
was the handiwork of the earliest Cro-Magnon immigrants into Europe. But in
1979, in another French cave called Saint-Cesaire, a Neandertal partial
skeleton turned up in deposits full of Chatelperronian artifacts. Abruptly,
the significance of the Chatelperronian was turned upside down. Instead of
the first sign of the new Europeans, it is now believed to be the last trace
of the old.
"With the Chatelperronians now identified as Neandertals, it becomes
much more difficult simply to shoo them offstage so that the great modern
Upper Paleolithic show can begin. They linger around, complicating the plot in
Western Europe for fully 10,000 years after the arrival of Aurignacians into
the region, refusing to play either one of the two roles scripted for them by
the traditional theories. Replacement advocates who see the Neandertals as
doomed by their innate limitations have to acknowledge that they were fully
capable of emulating an Upper Paleolithic standard of technology, one that
includes not only a heavy reliance on blade technology but also respectably
elaborate bone tools at several sites. Chatelperronian deposits in the Grotte
du Renne itself have also surrendered ivory beads, pierced animal teeth, and
evidence of dwelling structures supported by mammoth tusks. Such cultural
sophistication makes the continuity believers happy."~James R. Shreeve, The
Neandertal Enigma, (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1995), p. 336
So, if they died out when did this occur?
last neanderthal
"In 1990, Jean-Jacques Hublin introduced me to my first Neandertal fossil in a
Parisian cafe. At the time, Hublin suspected that the mandible he showed me
from Zafarraya cave in southern Spain was around 30,000 years old. This would
make Zafarraya, rather than the Grotte du Renne, the last known Neandertal
address. Recently, Hublin told me that he has a new date for the Zafarraya
specimen, which now seems to be around 28,000 years old. So their moment of
extinction creeps even closer to the present."~James R. Shreeve, The
Neandertal Enigma, (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1995), p. 342.
An interesting test for yourself. Neanderthals were the only fossil man who
had an occiptal bun at the back of the head. This is a bump in the center of
the back part of your head. Neanderthal only lived in Europe and Palestine,
and Modern Europeans are the only modern peoples are the only peoples who have
this bump. Some believe that this is a sign that Europeans are descended from
Neanderthals. I have such a bump on the back of my head.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm