Re: Another Hypothesis

Glenn Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Thu, 18 Dec 1997 20:37:47 -0600

Hi Eduardo,
At 10:40 AM 12/18/97 -0600, Eduardo G. Moros wrote:
>This is directed mainly to Glenn Morton.
>
>Since Humans and Neanderthals lived side-by-side IT IS POSSIBLE that humans
>were the ones who buried the hominids. Following your line of thinking from
>modern times to the ancient past I may add that, (hypothesizing here) since I
>certainly see humans burying their beloved pets today in ritualistics ways, I
>see no reason why ancient humans did not do the same with their domesticated
>and beloved hominids. Tarzan would have done so with cheeta. Another "Just
>so" story for the record.

This will not work, because in Europe the oldest burials are ONLY
Neanderthal with NO anatomically modern humans found at all. The earliest
burials were those of Neanderthals (Trinkaus and Shipman). Thus your
hypothesis would require that modern men buried their pets but not
themselves. Interesting.

The earliest european Neanderthal burial dates before 70,000 years probably
closer to 76,000 years ago (Mellars). The earliest European burial of an
anatomically modern man is 33,000 years ago. There were no anatomically
modern men to bury the Neanderthal. It seems your hypothesis has a pet but
no master.

The fact is that the oldest, dated, unquestioned, anatomically modern human in
Europe is 33,850 years ago (Smith 1982, p. 680)

Reference

Trinkaus and Shipman, The Neandertals, Vintage Books, 1994, p. 418

Paul Mellars, The neanderthal Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996), p. 404.

Smith, Fred H., 1982. "Upper Pleistocene Hominid Evolution in South-Central
Europe: A Review of the Evidence and Analysis of Trends," Current
Anthropology, 23(1982):6:667-703.

glenn

Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man

and

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm