The place of Neanderthals.

From: glenn morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Mon Nov 06 2000 - 16:28:38 EST

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    I just bought a new book on Neanderthals and the forward was by Chris
    Stringer. He has been one of the minimalists about who and what Neanderthal
    was.

            “Recent scientific research is perhaps finally stabilizing the pendulum
    around the view that the Neanderthals were fully human, but were also quite
    different from us. From their fossil remains, it seems justified to regard
    them as belonging to a different species from us, Homo neanderthalensis.
    There is now even DNA data to support the view that Neanderthals lay on a
    different evolutionary line from modern humans. But recognizing the
    Neanderthals as a different speices does not mean we should dehumanize them.
    Comparing them with us should help to define what it means to be human (what
    we share with them) and what it means to be a modern human (how we are
    different).” Chris Stringer, “Foreward,” in Douglas Palmer, Neanderthal,
    (London: Channel 4 Books, 2000), p. 7
    **
    “There is also some evidence of ‘advanced’ behaviour by late Neanderthals,
    behaviour that has sometimes been thought exclusive to modern humans – such
    as the exploitation of marine resources (excavations in Gibraltar show that
    over 50,000 years ago their diet included baked mussels, as well as birds,
    wild goat, deer and rabbit), and the working of bone and mammoth ivory to
    make jewellery. A fierce scientific debate has developed about whether they
    did this independently, or only under the influence of neighbouring
    Cro-Magnons.”
            “While most researchers now agree that the fossil record shows no evidence
    of evolution from Neanderthals to modern humans, and only hotly disputed
    evidence of interbreeding between them, it does seem that the supposed
    behavioural gap between ‘them’ and ‘us’ has narrowed. This, simple scenario
    of a massive superiority of Homo sapiens much less plausible. So additional
    or alternative explanations for the extinction of the Neanderthals are
    required, and these might include the effects of a remarkably unstable
    climate during the period of overlap in Europe.” Chris Stringer, “Foreward,”
    in Douglas Palmer, Neanderthal, (London: Channel 4 Books, 2000), p. 7

    glenn

    see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
    for lots of creation/evolution information



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