What about the evidence for a Shaman's cape found in a Neanderthal grave?
"But the Neandertals' true humanity revealed itself in the actions of
their souls. At the 50,000-year-old site of Hortus in southern France, two
French archaeologists in 1972 reported the discovery of the articulated bones
of the left paw and tail of a leopard. Their arrangement suggested that the
fragments were once the remnants of a complete leopard hide worn as a
costume."~James R. Shreeve, The Neandertal Enigma, (New York: William Morrow
and Co., 1995), p. 52
>Then answer my question:
>
><<You're saying there is a qualitative difference between
>outer manifestations of the inner lives of birds and humans.All right. I am
>saying there is a qualitative difference between the outer manifestations
> of
>the inner lives of man and Neanderthal. Under your own standard, I win.>>
>
>Why is such a distinction all right for you, and not for me?
>
>Jim
Jim, There is very little distinction between what Neanderthal man did and
what middle Aurignacian man did.
Neither had pottery, iron, mathematics. writing, farming.
Both made jewellry, musical instruments (Neanderthal made the earliest musical
instruments), stone tools (neanderthal's were more complex), buried their dead
with grave offerings, engaged in underground mining, used red ochre-a paint
for coloring objects, collected minerals (iron pyrite/quartz)pretty shells and
so did Homo erectus. Both modern man and Neanderthal built tents or hogans,
constructed walls, paved areas in their habitation, bought bedding to their
caves, built fire. Both made spears points and attached them to spears; hunted
big game; lived in caves on the northern side of valleys (the caves are
warmer there); chose habitations along the migration pathways of game animals;
and gave evidence of religion.
You reject all these similarities because you feel that some sort of "shaman
art" becomes the definition of humanity. If this is true, then are the
Azilians spiritual people? They left NO shaman art, and no representational
art. Are they human? Are they spiritual?
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm