Posted on 09/04/2014 7:01:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- When I read the other day about those cross-hatched engravings found by archaeologists in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar being "the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art," I, of course, thought immediately of Rolling Stone magazine. Rolling Stone, the magazine for modern aesthetes, covers "rock art" ceaselessly. That a Rolling Stone writer might have found modern rock's roots among Neanderthal man came as no surprise to me. What about punk rock? What about grunge? I believe the word is grunge.
Yet I had leapt to a hasty conclusion. The report I was reading about in London's Daily Mail was not drawn from Rolling Stone but rather from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And it was not about the artistic aspirations of rock singers, but rather about artists who really were scribbling on ancient rocks over 39,000 years ago, artists drawn from the species Homo neanderthalensis, a species of human much like us only less intellectual.
As to their artistic aspirations we can only speculate, but as to their art there is no question, at least not in the mind of Dr. Clive Gamble, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton who adjudged, "Any discovery that helps improve the public image of Neanderthals is welcome." Apparently Neanderthals have heretofore had an image problem down through the ages.
According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Neanderthal man (and presumably woman) attempted to communicate artistically with their peers by scratchings on stone, and now, thanks to the industry of these devoted archaeologists, we are in possession of some of these priceless works of art, stones that are in essence cross-hatched engravings. Perhaps we shall eventually find stones with squiggles. Possibly we shall find stones with primitive faces. At any rate, these stones are doubtless the first artifacts on the road to Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) or more recently Henry Moore (1898-1986). Though this was not mentioned in the report in Proceedings.
At first, I was skeptical about these findings. It occurred to me that some miscreant might have been having a little fun at the expense of our earnest archaeologists. Some cut-up might have gone into Gorham's Cave surreptitiously, scratched a few lines on an old stone, and left it out there where even a trained archaeologist could not miss it. Or perhaps the stones were the leavings of a performance artiste or a lunatic.
Yet no, these archaeologists are serious and rigorous in their tests. They had not been duped. They had done chemical analysis of the stones and their grooves or cross-hatched engravings, as they are called. They had, as the Mail reports, "shrunk photographs to microscopic scale to see the tool marks [used by the Neanderthals] within the engraving and then compared them with experimental marks made with various tools." They are convinced. The detritus at Gorham's Cave is no hoax.
Yet is it really art? How would it stand up to today's geniuses? Would it be mistaken for the work of Jackson Pollock? I have seen the cross-hatched engravings of 39,000 years ago. I think it would stand up.
Or push the question to the outer limits of contemporary art. How would Neanderthal art be judged against Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ," which depicts a crucifix in a glass container of Andres' own urine? Or how would it compare with the work of Chris Ofili that incorporates elephant dung among other substances?
I am no expert. I really cannot say. I do know that Neanderthal man's sloped forehead suggests he had a very primitive brain. I doubt that Ofili and Serrano have that excuse.
video at site cleverly indicates it might be a road map
Well. What to say ... the Neanderthals had larger brains that modern homo sapiens - slopped forehead or not; their brains were no less primitive than modern man’s brainthey are only thought to be less smart because they do not appear to have any of modern man’s tools.
This author obviously has very limited knowledge of Neanderthals anatomy and culture - probably should stick to reading Rolling Stone and away from physical anthropology.
Is it just me or is the writing at Townhall getting a bit lame? It seems that they usually start with a dry subject and add so much puffery that you don’t even get to the dry stuff. Here, they start with something really promising and then it’s just kinda blah. If Dave Barry or Mark Steyn wrote up the same story I think I would have been checkling from start to finish.
It might be time for Emmett Tyrrell to consider retiring from the writing biz.
...a species of human much like us only less intellectual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWpU8sX10_4
Soon after the first skeletons were discovered in Belgium (1829), Gibraltar (1848) and Germany (1856), scientists of the time claimed that the Homo neanderthalensis, as it had been named, was not human. They imagined that it was some sort of beast-like primate, closer to the gorilla or the Yeti than to modern humans. We now know that these early inhabitants of Europe, not found on other continents apart from the Near East and Central Asia, actually looked much more like us than anything else. Here is a reconstruction of a Neanderthal child from Gibraltar by the Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich.
The most deeply rooted misconception, still widespread in the scientific world, is that Neanderthal became extinct, without leaving any contribution to modern humans. Morphological comparison between Neanderthals and modern Europeans immediately reveals striking similarities in unique physical traits not found among Africans (see below). The sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, completed in 2010, has definitely proven that, not only Europeans, but all non-African people today inherited a few percents of Neanderthalian DNA.
One first misconception is that all Neanderthals were the same. The proto-Neanderthals first appeared some 350,000 years ago, at a time when our Homo sapiens ancestors were still fairly primitive Homo erectus, with a brain size of 900 to 1100 cc. Neanderthal roamed Europe until 30,000 to 24,000 years ago, when its presence progressively disappears from the archeological record. Naturally, there was plenty of time for evolution in over 300,000 years, and many sub-species developed (see Fabre 2009). It is likely that there was a greater genetic distance between the most different Neanderthals subspecies than between modern human ethnic groups.
When the Homo sapiens sapiens (also known as anatomically modern humans) arrived in Europe about 40,000 years ago, Neanderthal was at its most advanced level of evolution. Its cranium, with a volume ranging from 1200 to 1700 cc, was in fact larger than that of Cro-Magnons (Paleolithic European Homo sapiens), and also 10% greater than that of modern humans in average. If brain size is any indication, Neanderthals could have been cleverer than us. But that’s not the whole story. Neanderthal’s skull had a lower vaulted prefrontal cortex than most modern humans, and it has been speculated that they would have had less good at decision making and moderating social behaviour. On the other hand, Neanderthals possessed a bigger occipital lobe, meaning that their visual abilities (including the distinction of details and colours) were certainly better than that of modern humans.
There are several genes influencing skin colour. Among them, the BNC2 gene, which influences saturation of skin colour and is responsible for freckling, was confirmed by Sankararaman et al. (2014) to have been come from Neanderthal As for the genes for light eyes, there is a relatively high likelihood that they were inherited from Neanderthals too,
Neanderthal mania was established to allow more relatives of the new business, academic and political leaders easier access to the mainstream.
Sure he did...
Calvin did the same thing in his front yard!
These were people, and good people. As evidenced by their skulls they were probably quite advanced in years as was common during the early prediluvian epoch.
Typically, the exposure of their own ignorance is self-inflicted.
Oh Boy!
Cursive!!
Selfies!!!!
Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens intermingled for thousands of years and were leaving offspring. And the proof survived to the present day.
Average Caucasian has 2-3% of Neanderthal genes. Some have more, some have less.
Only African Blacks have none, they are pure Homo Sapiens race. A blow to White supremacists who often sound like their Neanderthal lineage.
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