Posted on 11/20/2008 6:21:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Human aerial bombardments might have pushed Neanderthals to extinction, suggests new research. Changes in bone shape left by a life of overhand throwing hint that Stone Age humans regularly threw heavy objects, such as stones or spears, while Neanderthals did not...
Jill Rhodes, a biological anthropologist at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania... and a colleague studied changes to the arm bone that connects the shoulder to the elbow -- the humerus -- to determine when humans may have begun using projectile weapons...
Studies of elite handball and baseball players suggest that frequent overhand throwing from an early age permanently rotates the shoulder-end of the humerus toward an athlete's back, compared to people who haven't spent much time hurling.
This bone rotation only occurs in the throwing arm, so a difference between the right and left arm in fossils could be a sign of projectile use, Rhodes says.
To find out, she and Churchill measured humerus bones from Neanderthals and ancient and modern humans.
They found some evidence for projectile use in male European humans from around 26,000 to 28,000 years ago -- the middle Palaeolithic period -- who would have been contemporaries of Neanderthals. Their right humerus bones were generally more rotated toward their back than their left, while Rhodes's team noticed no such asymmetry in Neanderthal arms...
This could leave open the door for occasional uses of projectiles during the period when Neanderthals and humans might have interacted. A Neanderthal rib bone that shows signs of damage inflicted by a thrown spear is tantalizing evidence for a more nefarious use of projectile weapons.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
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They came into contact with the same alien vehicle that Quaterman did in “Quaterman and the Pit” and destroyed all the Neanderthals...
Neanderthals played softball and humans played baseball.
I thought contemporary science rejected one of the two of these “cave men”.
...leaping and jumping!
Cro Magnon Mammoths vs. the Neandertal Three-Toed Sloths
Good pitching always beats good hitting.
Just more self-loathing from the humans. Surely there’s no ill that has befallen this planet that those evil humans didn’t bring about.
Please forgive me. It’s dark now, the hot tub put me in a silly space and here it is:
(I’ll be fine tomorrow)
“compared to people who haven’t spent much time hurling.....”
I really thought I had some super witty response to that quote, but sadly, I can’t stop laughing long enough to type it.
Good night all!
So when am I gonna see me some REP-PAR-RAY_SHUNS?
LOL!!! I knew this post had ridicule written all over it.
Nova did a documentary on the mystery of who was the Neandrathal:
Neanderthals on Trial
In 1856, bones of an unrecognizable hominid turned up in Germany’s Neander Valley. This early human and others like it—sturdy, large-headed individuals—came to be known as Neanderthals. Despite a century and a half of study and debate, Neanderthals remain an enigma. Were they our ancestors, or an evolutionary dead-end? Were they assimilated into early modern (Cro Magnon) populations, or were they wiped out en masse in a Pleistocene genocide? “Neanderthals on Trial” investigates this long-standing mystery.
OMG! That is NOT who I think it is!
some of us at work were discussing neanderthals today ( a little slow at work )and decided since some modern men look like neanderthals still that they were merely a band of hominids that were cut off geologically for a time and inbred for a thosand years or so. the humans that show those traits today have GOT to be inbred.
If this is true, why is Algore still walking about?
Judging from the answers Obama supporters have given to a Zogby poll done after the election, I’d say that the Meanderthals are alive and well, though extremely ignorant (that hasn’t changed over time).
Judging from the answers Obama supporters have given to a Zogby poll done after the election, I’d say that the Neanderthals are alive and well, though extremely ignorant (that hasn’t changed over time).
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