RE: I think they meant “Neanderthals are part of the first family.”
1)Well, what can I say ? The evidence went from “slam dunk” similarity between Chimps and Humans, to almost a complete turnaround to their being growing compelling evidence for individuality of genomes. I hope people will understand my reservations with this Neanderthal study a little more clearly now.
2) If one were to read Young Earth sites like Answers In Genesis and Institute for Creation Research, one would learn that have been saying for decades that Neanderthals were normal human beings with Rickets disease and existed as separate colonies from humans, much like leper colonies.
Rickets. LOL. Yeah. Like leper colonies. In the stone age. With dinosaurs presumably?
According to both morphology and DNA, neanderthals are distinctly not homo sapiens.
“If one were to read Young Earth sites like Answers In Genesis and Institute for Creation Research, one would learn that have been saying for decades that Neanderthals were normal human beings with Rickets disease and existed as separate colonies from humans, much like leper colonies.”
—If the standard Neanderthal physique is from rickets, than I need to stop drinking milk.
One of the most easily identifiable differences between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens is how incredibly massive their bones are and how powerfully built they are. The very opposite of rickets. The vast majority of the Neanderthal diet was meat; in other words they hunted for almost all their food, a lifestyle next to impossible for people with rickets.
It’s a rather odd idea to have people who have a disease that’s completely non-contagious, and makes it very difficult to walk, travel hundreds or thousands of miles north – to a land with relatively little sunlight. Of course, lack of sunlight is a main cause of rickets. It would be like sending people suffering from scurvy to the Island of No Fruit, when all they need to get better is to eat an orange.