The Scientific American article I mentioned yesterday has a couple of
inserted articles that are fascinating because they discuss several lines of
evidence that lead to the conclusion that Neandertal interbred with the
early modern humans. The articles are written by well known anthropologists.
Trinkaus and Duarte discuss the Lagar Velho child which is a
Neandertal/human hybrid. They write:
"Yet intriguingly, a number of features also suggest Neandertal
affinities-specifically the front of the mandible (which slopes backward
despite the chin), details of the incisor teeth, the pectoral muscle
markings the knee proportions and the short, strong lower-leg bones. Thus,
the Lagar Velho child appears to exhibit a complex mosaic of Neandertal and
early modern human features." Erik Trinkaus, and Cidalia Duarte, "The Hybrid
Child from Portugal," Scientific American April 2000, p. 102
Further they lay out the tremendous implications of this child,, including
the concept that Neanderthals would have had to speak:
"Rigorous study is necessary because the discovery of an individual with
such a mosaic of features has profound implications. First, it rejects the
extreme Out of Africa model of modern human emergence, which proposes that
early moderns originating in Africa subsequently displaced all archaic
humans in other regions. Instead the Lagar Velho child's anatomy supports a
scenario that combines a dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of
Africa with mixing between that population and the archaic populations it
encountered (The African ancestry of early modern Europeans is reflected in
their relatively long lower-leg bones, a tropical adaptation. Lagar Velho 1,
however, has the short shins of the cold-adapted Neandertals.)
"Lagar Velho 1 also provides insights into the behavioral similarities
of Neandertals and early modern humans. Despite the paleontological evidence
indicating anatomical differences between these two groups, their overall
adaptive patterns, social behaviors and means of communication (including
language) cannot have contrasted greatly. To their contemporaries, the
Neandertals were just another group of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers, fully
as human as themselves." Erik Trinkaus, and Cidalia Duarte, "The Hybrid
Child from Portugal," Scientific American April 2000, p.102-102
Zilhao and d'Errico note that Neandertals' abilities have been denigrated
ever since they were discovered. They re-cap some work they had published
concerning the symbolic abilities of Neandertals. Neandertals were making
jewelry to wear, much as modern man did. Some anthropologists have tried
to say that Neandertals merely played monkey see monkey do. That view is
destroyed by the fact that Neanderthals did it differently. They write:
"With regard, for example to the pendants-modified bear, wolf and deer
teeth, among others-Neandertals carved a furrow around the tooth root so
that a string of some sort could be tied around it for suspension, whereas
Aurignacians pierced their pendants. As archaeologist Francois Leveque and a
colleague have described, even when, as they did on occasion, Neandertals
put a hole through a tooth, they took an unusual approach, puncturing the
tooth. Moderns, on the other hand, preferred to scrape the tooth thin and
then pierce it." Joao Zilhao and Francesco d'Errico, "A Case for Neandertal
Culture," Scientific American April 2000, p. 104
They conclude that the supposed behavioral differences that were supposed to
exist between Neanderthals and the supposedly smarter modern humans. They
say:
"Regardless of which is eventually proved correct, the behavioral barrier
that seemed to separate moderns from Neandertals and gave us the impression
of being a unique and particularly gifted human type-the ability to produce
symbolic cultures-has definitively collapsed." Joao Zilhao and Francesco d'
Errico, "A Case for Neandertal Culture," Scientific American April 2000, p.
105
Neanderthals are a symbolic peoples--like us.
The final article is by Fred Smith who cites some very interesting data
supporting Neandertal/modern human interbreeding in eastern Europe. The
latest dated Neandertal, from Vindija Cave, lived 28,000 years ago. But he
wasn't the classic Neandertal type. Smith writes:
"Morphologically, the Vindija Neandertals look more modern than do most
other Neandertals, which suggests that their ancestors interbred with early
moderns." Fred H. Smith, "The Fate of the Neandertals," Scientific American
April 2000, p. 107
and,
"The likelihood of gene flow between the groups is also supported by
evidence that Neandertals left their mark on early modern Europeans. Fossils
representing early modern adults from central European sites such as
Vogelherd in southwestern Germany and Mladec in Moravia (Czech Republic)
have features that are difficult to explain unless they have some Neandertal
contribution to their ancestry. For example, Neandertals and early modern
Europeans virtually all exhibit a projection of the back of the skull called
an occipital bun (aspects of the shape and position of the buns differ
between them because the overall skull shapes are not the same). Yet fossils
from the Near Eastern sites of Skhul and Qafzeh, which presumably represent
the ancestors of early modern Europeans, do not have this morphology. It is
hard to explain how the growth phenomenon responsible for this bunning could
reappear independently and ubiquitously in early modern Europeans. Instead
it is far more logical to recognize this morphology as a link to the
Neandertals. The Portuguese child discovered recently offers more intriguing
clues." Fred H. Smith, "The Fate of the Neandertals," Scientific American
April 2000, p.107
The interesting thing about the Vogelherd specimen that Smith mentions is
that to claim Neandertal ancestry in the Vogelherd hominid (date 31.9 kyr)
is the same as saying that a descendant of Neanderthals produced some of the
most famous art in the Paleolithic. Of the Vogelherd horse, Marshack writes:
"Microscopic examination of the statuette revealed that eye, ear, nose,
mouth, and mane had been carefully carved but that these had been worn down
by long handling and perhaps by carrying in a pouch. The length of time
required for such wear on ivory might be a number of years. The microscope
also revealed that at one point in the use of the horse an angle that was
still fresh had been cut into the shoulder representing a late use of the
horse, perhaps as part of a symbolic 'killing,' though for what purpose is
not known. "Alexander Marshack, "Some Implications of the Paleolithic
Symbolic Evidence for the Origin of Language," Current Anthropology, 17:2,
June, 1976, p. 275
A color photo of this object can be seen in Paul Bahn and Jean Vertut,
Journey Through the Ice Age, (London: Weidenfeld & Nelson, 1997), p. 74. It
is a truly excellent piece of art--made by a person of Neandertal heritage.
Given that at present the oldest securely dated anatomically modern human in
Europe
dates at 26,000 years ago, the art made earlier than this is up for grabs by
either the Neanderthal, modern humans or their hybrid children
For documentation of the 26,000 year old secure date of a modern human see
Bernard G. Campbell and James D. Loy, Humankind Emerging, (New York:
HarperCollins, 1996), p. 463.
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