I am not sure that "love" is the correct emotion. :-)
>A good answer on the fire making thesis, but many other questions left
>unanswered:
>
Thank you. There are not as many unanswered questions as you think. The
unanswered questions are due to a lack of familiarity with the 30 or so other
flutes found. We should be sure that we have thoroughly studied the
issue before we suggest all these unanswered questions.
>1. Why hasn't a model been constructed to test whether the "flute" can
>actually make noise?
Some do. Some are found in mint condition and can play notes. Others are
found broken (just like the broken clarinets you can find at a flea market)
and they can't play because the reed and mouth piece are missing. The
Neanderthal flute has the tips broken off and so is unable to play. But that
does not mean that it wasn't a flute anymore than a broken clarinet means it
was never a clarinet.
>
>2. Why no consideration of its plausible use as axe or hammer head?
>
No strength for such use. The bone is hollow with perfectly round holes
drilled through it. The holes are in a line just like flute or recorder
holes. I don't know about your hammers at your house, but my hammers have no
holes. Besides, there are lots of hammer stones in the fossil record and they
too have no holes.
>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?)
>
My conclusion is that animals do not make musical instruments. Thus the
flutes which are made by neanderthal in Slovenia at 45,000 years ago and by
archaic homo sapiens/African Neanderthals at 100 thousand years ago are
entirely a different sort of behavior than is engaged in by any animal.
You are correct that animals do dress up their homes, but they do not make any
type of symboling art in which the art REPRESENTS an object. The Makapansgat
pebble has two naturally occuring faces on it. One looks like an
australopithecus, the other like humans. This pebble was picked up and carried
for at least 3 miles back to a cave. The reason we know this is that the
closest source for this kind of pebble is 3 miles NE of the cave. The object
REPRESENTS something, a hominid face.(K. P. Oakley, "Emergence of
Higher Thought 3.0-0.2 Ma B.P.", Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 292, 205-211
(1981), p. 205-206)
The next piece of art is the phonolite pebble dated at 1.6 million years old,
and once again represents a face like the human one on the Makapansgat pebble.
(see M.D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge, 3 Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1693,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 269)
The next piece of art is the golan Venus which we have talked about.
Microscopic analysis proves that it was man-made. It represents the female
form.
Your question about bid-brained art would be relevant IF birds were drawing
pictures of other birds or birds in sexy poses. There is no REPRESENTATION in
bird art. That is a big difference.
>4. No mention of the lack of tear ducts in Neanderthal skulls.
>
So?? big deal. Orientals squat a lot and their legs have slightly different
shapes than ours. They develop squatting facets on their tibia(see F. Wood
Jones, Habit and Heritage, pp. 49-50.) When I was in China and we sould stop
on the side of a road to eat lunch, all the Chinese squated on their haunches
and contentedly munched lunch. After about 5 minutes of doing the same, I was
in incredible pain. But the Chinese and I are of the same species. But I am
beginning to wonder about you. :-)
>5. Why do you confuse nose size with nasal sinus cavity size?
>
I am not confusing anything. These superficial differences are just that.
They are meaningless to procreation. The continuity from Neanderthal to
sapiens is well documented in eastern europe.
>6. Why no mention of "shaman art," the only truly religous art, which is AT
>MOST only 27,000 years old?
Sorry, Science News, Oct. 5, 1996, which you cited, says 33,000 years ago.
You should read more carefully.
I, and others view the Golan Venus as the first evidence of religious art. By
the way, body painting is also highly correlated with religious ritual in
primitive societies. It is religious art. The first evidence of body
painting is from 1.5 million years or so. So what if the religion changed at
27,000 years ago in some peoples which caused them to engage in a different
style of art. Does the advent of cubism or impressionism imply that prior to
then humans were not really human? To make such a claim is ridiculous.
9000 years ago Australian aborigines started painting a serpentine figure
which today is a religious figure. Are we to say that aborigines were not
religious prior to then?
>
><<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. ;-)
>
This is a misrepresentation, Jim. But I will ignore it.
Tell me what is wrong with my friends points about the lack of scorch marks
around the flute holes. Above you said, and I quote,
>A good answer on the fire making thesis...
You can't have it both ways Jim. Although Lawyers like to do that. My answer
was his answer and you thought it was good. Now you don't like the
fact that he is not famous. He will be so disappointed by that.
The whole area of continuity vs replacement is something that is highly
polarized. The issue seems to be too often put as either total replacement of
parallel evolution to modern human form among different regions. I don't
believe that either extreme is correct. There was probably more replacement
than continuity, but it is difficult to avoid some continuity. There are two
reasons for this. As mankind has moved into the territory of others there has
never been a reluctance to rape and intermarry regardless of what the people
look like to each other. Second features like shovel-shaped teeth on
orientals and Native Americans today corresponds with shovel-shaped teeth on
Asiatic Homo erectus.
Also, Tattersall is one of the extremists.
><<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.
>
See what I just said.
>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.
Let me suggest that alcoholic brews have been around for a while. Processing
plants and seeds by smashing them creates a doughy mass which if left out for
a while will ferment. The earliest plant processing tools are found at around
60,000 years ago in Australia. My proof might not be too far away since the
first colonizers of Australia may not have been anatomically modern humans.
The archaic ones may have been making beer, tequila or something equivalent.
However, If a flute made by a Neanderthal won't convince you of their
humanity, then neither will a Bud can. Afterall, some people have trained
their dogs to drink a Bud with them. So Bud-drinking does not prove
spirituality anymore than horses eating loco weed proves that horses are
seeking the meaning of life from drug experiences. And when I lived in
Louisiana, every morning my cat, when let out, would race to my neighbor's
herb garden, eat something and come staggering out of the vegetation. Don't
know what it was, but she sure liked it. I think she was having a
metaphysical experience.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm