When I was out west on vacation, I saw an exhibit of a pack-rat's nest.
It too must have been human because of the diversity of curious and
beautiful objects found in the nest! ;-)
Consider another perspective...
Humanness relates to the soul, and to the spirit which God breathed into
Adam. This is then exhibited in the ideas, the reason, the planning and
thoughts behind the use for the objects that man had and kept. Human
behavior flows from that God-breathed spirit... man made in God's image.
But most of all, God's creation of man resulted in a being who
personally could communicate and had a relationship with God Himself.
When we see evidence of this we see "humanness".
As a creationist, I find it easy to envision Neanderthal as human and a
somewhat unique descendent of Adam. I do not allow a preassumption that
both evolved along different pathways during different time periods,
that they were anatomically different, possessed different technologies,
or that evidence is located in different geographical areas. I also do
not let their assumed appearance serve as a guide, but rather look at
what evidence there is that he may have been a descendent and
contemporary to "modern" man, and being a descendent of Adam maintained
at least a remnant of knowledge of God. The burial evidence mentioned by
Glenn may be interpreted in this way and worked into the model... a
knowledge of God, of mortality, and the special place death played in
their lives.
What little we know of Neanderthal can be useful to both TE's and
Creationists.
GR>One of the things I have been trying to do with my researches into
GR>anthropology is to show just how weak the answers christians have given on
GR>these issues. You have the young-earth creationists who say that
GR>Neanderthal is fully human (Lubenow, Bones of Contention, p. 75; Scott M.
GR>Huse, The Collapse of Evolution, p. 101-102). They are able to say this
GR>because their view allows the Neanderthals to be pre-diluvial people and
GR>thus they don't have to separate Neanderthals from humanity in order to
GR>avoid evolution.
GR>Why do old earth creationists reject the theological humanity of
GR>Neanderthal? Simple, they would then have to have Adam live at least
GR>230,000 years ago and that raises the possiblity of evolution.
I saw a very interesting show recently on PBS where it was alleged by
several apparently credible scientists that Neanderthals and modern man
were comtemporaries in the cave areas in France. Some even speculated
as to whether interbreeding or a social caste system may have occurred.
These guys weren't YEC's. Believe me. Evidently the evidence found
showed that communication and trading occurred between the two groups.
The scientists noted that this finding blew the pre-assumed evolutionary
model out of the water.
With this we have new data and evidence to build another explanation.
Realistically, this one brings us closer to a creationist model
different than that which is generally offered.
Paul Durham
to: IN:GRMorton@gnn.com
cc: IN:evolution@calvin.edu