A good answer on the fire making thesis, but many other questions left
unanswered:
1. Why hasn't a model been constructed to test whether the "flute" can
actually make noise?
2. Why no consideration of its plausible use as axe or hammer head?
3. No rejoinder to the birds which decorate their nests (this is ACTUALLY
done). Does that art sense make them human? (Your finches don't have jam
sessions, true...but birds DO physically dress up their homes. So your
conclusion IS?)
4. No mention of the lack of tear ducts in Neanderthal skulls.
5. Why do you confuse nose size with nasal sinus cavity size?
6. Why no mention of "shaman art," the only truly religous art, which is AT
MOST only 27,000 years old?
<<Furthermore, I have called a knowledgeable friend. My understanding is that
bone is never used for starting fire. The coefficient of friction is too
low.>>
Gee, Glenn, just a few short messages ago you "cried" because, among other
things, Hugh Ross cited "a guy I never heard of." I guess what's good for the
goose is only good for the gander when YOU get to decide who is the goose!
It is this reflector that's getting goosed, methinks. ;-)
<< There is much evidence of interbreeding between moderns and Neanderthal in
Eastern Europe.>>
Ahem:
"If the Neanderthals and moderns shared the world between them over an
extended period of time, it's vanishingly improbable that there was no
interaction between them. And, if interaction there was, what was its nature?
One school of thought, in which the advocates of regional continuity figure
prominently, finds evidence in variable morphologies of hybridization between
Neanderthals and moderns. To them, the distinctive Neanderthal morphology was
eventually 'swamped' by incoming modern genes. A number of factors argue
against this, however. One of thes is that evidence of 'hybrid' fossils (or
fossils that cn be interpreted as such) is poorest--indeed, as far as I can
see, TOTALLY LACKING--in just that region of the world where evidence for
long-term cohabitation is best. Another is that, if the Neanderthals were a
separate species from us--which the continuity people would deny, of
course--significant interchange of genes would not have been possible (thouth,
possibly, individuals might willingly or unwillingly have participated in
attempts to hybridize). And yet another comes from observation of the
appallingly nasty ways in which invading modern peoples have tended to treat
each other--let alone other species--throughout recorded history. The idea of
a gigantic blissful late Pleistocene love-in [with flute concerts, no
doubt!--JB] among morphologically-differentiated hominids simply DEFIES EVERY
CRITERION OF PLAUSIBILITY, however we might wish to imagine otherwise. There
are other reasons, too. If Lewis Binford is right about Neanderthal behavior,
for instance, the incompatibility in behavioral systems between Neanderthals
and moderns contemporaneous with them would make successful intermixing HIGHLY
IMPLAUSIBLE. But suffice it for the present to not that both the fossil and
the archaeological evidence needs to be passed through a powerful filter of
perception before it's possible to swallow the conclusion either that
Neanderthals are our forebears, or that those forebears somehow incorporated
the Neanderthal gene pool into their own." [Tattersall, The Fossil Trail, @
225-226, emphasis added]
<<Jim, this is all getting very silly on Hugh's part.>>
I guess if you want to call Tattersall and Schwartz silly, too, that's your
right. Lewis Binford might also be silly. So, in fact, might all those
anthropological experts who disagree with you.
Of course, the other conclusion might be...
<<When I moved down here, it was legal to drink a beer and drive. When you
threw the can out the window the only thing the cop could get you for was
littrin' as they said.>>
Perhaps when we find Bud cans around the Neanderthal hearths, you'll at last
have your evidence.
Jim