A few comments about the review.
At 05:03 PM 2/15/98 -0500, Jim Bell wrote:
> READING THE MINDS OF FOSSILS
>
> Review by Donald Johanson
>
> Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness
> BY IAN TATTERSALL
> Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1998 ($27)
[snip]
> The "creative explosion" responsible for modern humans is perhaps
> most dramatically witnessed in Ice Age art. Examples of the art are
> found in caves such as Lascaux in France (and many, many others),
> which may have served as some sort of sanctuary, and in objects
> such as the Venus figurines, which even today, in the shape of soap
> bars, are bought by women as fertility aids.
And of course, a venus figurine was made by someone around 300 kyr ago at
Berekhat Ram. And a religious sanctuary was found a Bilzingsleben, Germany
made by Homo erectus.
"But Mania's most intriguing find lies under a protective
shed. As he opens the door sunlight illuminates a cluster of
smooth stones and pieces of bone that he believes were arranged
by humans to pave a 27-foot-wide circle.
"'They intentionally paved this area for cultural
activities,' says Mania. 'We found here a large anvil of
quartzite set between the horns of a huge bison, near it were
fractured human skulls.'"~Rick Gore, "The First Europeans,"
National Geographic, July, 1997, p. 110
One must be careful to distinguish those who are not like us from those
who have no humanity. There are many people on earth who are not like me
but who are fully human. There is no reason this couldn't have been the case
in the past also.
[snip]
> Modern humans came to live in a world of their own creation; unlike
> Neanderthals, they were not simply reacting to "the world as nature
> presented it to them." Burials from the Upper Paleolithic (as the
> period from about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago is known) reflect a
> deeply spiritual side: these early H. sapiens offered elaborate
> grave goods to accompany the deceased in the afterlife. Neanderthal
> burials, on the other hand, are devoid of grave offerings and, like
> most of Neanderthal society, reflect an absence of ritual and
> symbolic activity.
I suppose that those who don't leave elaborate grave goods are not human?
Etruscans burned their dead as do the Hindus. And it is not true that
neanderthal graves are "devoid of grave offerings". At Nahr Ibrahim,
Lebanon, Neanderthals buried a child. Solecki writes:
"In the same cave, Vandermeersch discovered a Mousterian
sepulcher with an offering of a cervid, possibly Dama
mesopotamica. The burial consisted of a child about ten years
old with which was interred a deer slaughterd for the sad
occasion. The association of animals with Middle Palaeolithic
interments have been found elsewhere in the Near East."~Ralph S.
Solecki, "A Ritual Middle Palaeolithic Deer Burial at Nahr
Ibrahim Cave, Lebanon," Archeologie au Levant, Recueil R. Saidah,
CMO 12, Arch. 9, Lyon, 1982, pp 47-56, p. 56
Even Chris Stringer, no friend of multiregionalism would not agree with the
above:
"Of course, a cave roof-fall could have done the trick. Or
perhaps the body had only been covered up to eradicate the stench
of decay. However, the team was to find even more striking
evidence that they had uncovered the remains of a primitive
funeral, for as the excavation proceeded, their careful scraping
revealed the jawbone of a red deer which had been placed over the
pelvis of the reclining infant. Rak interprets this as a
grieving, parental tribute. 'It was an intentional offering,' he
says, 'though it is not clear whether it was meant as food for
the afterlife, or as some more symbolic gesture. However, this
was a primary grave, and the baby was deliberately put in
it."~Chris Stringer and Robin McKie, African Exodus, (New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1997), p. 87-88
I would also point you to what Johanson said about the behavior of early
modern men and Neanderthals:
"Overall, however, the level of technology and
behavior found at Qafzeh, where the much older Homo sapiens remains occurred,
appears identical to that of the Neandertals at Kebara."~Donald C. Johanson,
Lenora Johanson, and Blake Edgar, Ancestors, (New York: Villard Books, 1994),
p. 276
It would seem that Neanderthal was like us.
>
> Neanderthals were hunters, but their tools were far less
> sophisticated than those of early modern humans. They lacked hafted
> spears
Why guys like Johanson don't read the literature, I don't know I don't know
why he doesn't read what he himself has written of the Neanderthal site Kebara:
"Half of the triangular points and flakes that have been analyzed
for signs of wear bear impact fractures, suggesting that these
tools had been hafted to wooden shafts and then heaved as
projectiles. Other tools have wear traces associated with
woodworking and cutting."~Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, From
Lucy to Language, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), p. 218
"Anderston-Gerfand further observes that certain Mousterian flint tools were
made and hafted in such a similar fashion that they could have been
replacement pieces for the same haft. This indicates that a clear concept, or
normative idea, existed for the creation of some stone tools involving
planning and manufacturing to fairly narrow specifications, not only of the
stone bits, but of the entire composite tool."~Brian Hayden "The Cultural
Capacities of Neandertals ", Journal of Human Evolution 1993, 24:113-146, p.
122
see also:Paul Mellars, The Neanderthal Legacy, (Princeton: University Press,
1996), p. 114-115
Rose L. Solecki, "More on Hafted Projectile Points in the Mousterian,"
Journal of Field Archaeology, 19(1992):207-212, p. 211
> Technologically and symbolically superior H. sapiens brought
> Neanderthals to extinction some 30,000 years ago, when they drove
> the earlier humans into peripheral areas of Europe where resources
> were diminished or less familiar. Our success, Tattersall proposes,
> is largely the result of language, not simply the intuitive level
> of understanding and rudimentary communication characteristic of
> Neanderthals, but symbolic, syntactic language, which distinguishes
> us even today.
Considering that the anatomical data shows that Neanderthal had a similar
vocal tract to ours, the above is mere assumption. The hyoid bone of the
Kebara Neanderthal nicknamed Moshe, was identical to ours implying they
could speak. And since we have no tape recordings of them there is no
evidence for or against their use syntax
Language is fundamental to our ability to think; it
> is "more or less synonymous with symbolic thought," and human
> intellect is simply impossible in its absence. The rich
> archaeological record, and to some extent the anatomy of our vocal
> apparatus and enlargement of certain areas of the brain, supports
> the notion that Cro-Magnons were fully capable of language.
I notice that he doesn't mention the fact that Neanderthals also had an
enlarged Broca's area and an identical vocal tract to that of the Cro-Magnons.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm