On Fri, 26 Dec 1997 12:20:00 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
>At 03:06 PM 12/26/97 +0800, Stephen Jones wrote:
[...]
>SJ>This argues against your point. Why go to all the trouble to
>>make a neat bowl out of the top of the skull, when the easiest
>>way to get at brains is through the existing opening at the
>>neck?
GM>Precisely, The Neanderthal didn't simply get to the brain via the
>foramen magnum--he carved the skull which took a lot of work if all
>he wanted was brain he could have gotten it a lot simpler. Why the
>extra work? ritual???
Your original point was that the carved skull was evidence of ritual
cannibalism. Yet now you admit that there could have been
cannibalism without carving the skull, ie. by extracting the brain
through the neck. Equally, there is no reason why there could have
been carving of the skull without cannibalism, eg. carving the skull
for utilitarian puposes-a bowl. Why then does carving the skull have
anything necessarily to do with cannibalism in general, and ritual
cannibalism in particular?
The article at http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/neandertal.html
does not lend any support to your ritual cannibalism interpretation,
stating that it "appears to have been deliberately shaped, perhaps to
form a sort of vessel", and that "there was no evidence of either
occupation or other remains, human or animal":
"A Neandertal cranium was discovered during quarrying operations at
Ochtendung, near Koblenz, in western Germany, this past spring. Axel
von Berg, a local archaeological official, spotted the skull fragment
in loess (wind-blown Ice Age deposits) that was being removed to
expose valuable lava in the crater of an extinct volcano. The
skullcap, broken into three pieces, measures 6.9 by 5.7 inches. Its
edge bears cutmarks, and the bone appears to have been deliberately
shaped, perhaps to form a sort of vessel. The skullcap is
exceptionally thick, up to 0.4 inches in places, and is thought to be
from a male aged between 30 and 45 with a large cranial capacity.
Initial estimates place it between 100,000 and 150,000 years old, but
it may prove to be as many as 200,000 years old based on its
stratigraphic position relative to volcanic layers. A flint
sidescraper, a quartz flake, and a quartzite core were found in the
immediate vicinity of the bone, but there was no evidence of either
occupation or other remains, human or animal, with the cranium
fragment.--PAUL G. BAHN
>SJ>While it is theoretically possible that this neandertal's nuclear
>>DNA might have modern human genes, while his mtDNA doesn't, this is
>>thought unlikely:
GM>See my post to Cliff on Christmas day.
I did. It doesn't really change anything. You have just ignored my
quoted articles in NATURE and SCIENCE which state that geneticists
think it "unlikely" that a neandertal could have modern human nuclear
DNA but no modern human mitochondrial DNA.
>SJ>I asked you below how you know it was "an experimental error" and
>>you simply cite the article. How about a quote where it says its
>>was "an experimental error".
GM>Stephen, Stephen, when one has performed experiments one can
>recognize an experimental error. There was no anthropologist that
>disagreed with my contribution in the Anthro E-mail news.
I take it then that the original article does not actually say that
the range of 22-26 nucleotide differences was an "experimental
error". Did any anthropologist on the Anthro E-mail news agree with
you that this range is correctly termed an "experimental error"?
[...]
>>GM>No a random sample would be expected to have a maximum of 24
>>>differences. 8 is the average difference.
>SJ>OK. I will rephrase it: from a random sample of modern humans we
>>would have expected an average difference of 5-8 base-pairs:
GM>Good But averages are averages it is the range that is important.
The SCIENCE and NATURE articles seem to think that the *averages*
were more important. Besides, if the ranges are "experimental
errors" (according to you) why do you claim they are more important
than the averages which are not?
>SJ>See above. It would be appreciated if you would please supply a
>>quote from the Cell article that says that this was an "experimental
>>error". Thanks.
GM>"Neandertal sequence is 27.2+/-2.2 (range 22-36)
>substitutions."~Krings, Matthias, et al, 1997. "Neandertal DNA
>Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans," Cell, 90:19-30, p.
>24-25
>
>The +/- is one standard deviation and (range 22-36) are the range of the
>individual measurments.
Thanks. Now why is this "range of the individual measurements"
necessarily "experimental errors"? Are you claiming that one
scientist looked at a string of mtDNA and found 22 differences
between it and the reference string of human mtDNA, and another
scientist looked at the exact same strings and found 36 differences,
and that therefore one or both of them were in error to the tune of
*14* differences?
>>GM>It was accepted into the Anthropological E mail news. That is
>what I said.
>SJ>I know what you "said". What I asked was "What was the
>>*result*?" Since its been "nearly 5 months", I would have thought
>>that if your point had any validity it would have been a hot topic
>>and would have largely invalidated the study. What happened?
GM>No one criticised it.
I take it therefore that no one positively endorsed it either? If
this was the case then it seems that your claim was simply ignored?
Happy new year.
Steve
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