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Neanderthals were ancient mariners
New Scientist ^ | 2-29-2012 | Michael Marshall

Posted on 03/02/2012 7:31:23 AM PST by Renfield

IT LOOKS like Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago - though not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers.

Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow....

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: ancientnavigation; dmanisi; godsgravesglyphs; greece; greeks; homoerectus; lefkada; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; origin; origins; paleoanthropology; varmintspam
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1 posted on 03/02/2012 7:31:30 AM PST by Renfield
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To: SunkenCiv

Ping...


2 posted on 03/02/2012 7:32:17 AM PST by Renfield (Turning apples into venison since 1999!)
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To: Renfield

Yes, but did they have a “Rime”?


3 posted on 03/02/2012 7:36:18 AM PST by WayneS (Comments now include 25% more sarcasm for no additional charge...)
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To: WayneS

Naaah. Neanderthals, no rime or reason...


4 posted on 03/02/2012 7:58:50 AM PST by null and void (Day 1136 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: Renfield
Even later studies by distinguished scholars at prominent universities have determined that the Neanderthal built rudimentary gliders and flew from island to island.

But these went extinct when they became known as NeanderFALLS.

5 posted on 03/02/2012 8:01:51 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Renfield

It’s beginning to look as though they were superior to humans, until they were interbred out of existence.

They certainly had a larger volume brain case.


6 posted on 03/02/2012 8:10:06 AM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: count-your-change
Adding to the doldrums of unreliable flight, was back then, acquiring insurance was a very complicated process, few cavemen, if any, could do it.
7 posted on 03/02/2012 8:14:42 AM PST by RavenLooneyToon
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To: BenLurkin; blam

Who says we are extinct? My redheaded kids are not extinct.

Sort of conservative, tho. Not sure that they believe in fire.


8 posted on 03/02/2012 8:15:06 AM PST by patton (bad math joke omitted - this space for rent)
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To: Renfield

No, they rode on the backs of dolphins.


9 posted on 03/02/2012 8:18:04 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: BenLurkin; SunkenCiv; Renfield; count-your-change; WayneS
Until very lately if somebody had ever asked me what Neanderthals looked like I'd have pointed them to Jay Matternes' reconstructions, but all of that has changed lately.

This is what Neanderthals actually looked like:


Image courtesy of www.themandus.org

Vendramini's website

I would say that some of our thinking on the subject of Neanderthals needs to change.....

10 posted on 03/02/2012 8:20:46 AM PST by varmintman
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To: patton

My next door neightbor, Og, has a unibrow, protruding eye ridges and wears animal skins.

Works in the IT department at Best Buy.


11 posted on 03/02/2012 8:21:09 AM PST by DManA
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To: Renfield

Since their cranial capacity was larger than ours (albeit distributed differently) and there’s evidence they were aware of an afterlife I have no problem believing they were anything but “stupid brutes”.


12 posted on 03/02/2012 8:25:28 AM PST by katana (Just my opinions)
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To: DManA

Since you mention Best Buy I take back what I said about “stupid”.


13 posted on 03/02/2012 8:26:49 AM PST by katana (Just my opinions)
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To: Renfield

The Mediterran Basin being dry land is not beyond possibility. Scientists do not believe that it has been so in recent history at least not during the time of Neanderthals but I suspect they are wrong on this count. There are several indicators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis

“At the narrowest part of the Straits, there are mountains placed to form barriers to the entrance on either side, Abyla in Africa, and Calpe in Europe, the boundaries formerly of the Labours of Hercules. Hence it is that the inhabitants have called them the Columns of that god; they also believe that they were dug through by him; upon which the sea, which was before excluded, gained admission, and so changed the face of nature.[36]”


14 posted on 03/02/2012 8:28:14 AM PST by Maelstorm (Better to keep your enemy in your sights than in your camp expecting him to guard your back.)
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To: varmintman
Tough to bury the old “apeman” ideas.
15 posted on 03/02/2012 8:44:32 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: count-your-change
Neanderthal DNA was roughly halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee. Moreover, as Vendramini points out, their skulls are completely good matches for ape profiles and very bad matches for ours:


Image courtesy of www.themandus.org

Neanderthals and all other hominids were glorified apes.

16 posted on 03/02/2012 8:49:13 AM PST by varmintman
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To: BenLurkin

“It’s beginning to look as though they were superior to humans, until they were interbred out of existence.”

They did not specialize. Their women were almost as large as their men and (from the injuries) participated in hunting.

As a result, they had lower birth rates and lower survivability of children.


17 posted on 03/02/2012 8:50:09 AM PST by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem.)
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To: varmintman

There is no such thing as evolution, there’s just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live ...


18 posted on 03/02/2012 8:50:47 AM PST by Scythian
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To: Scythian

Microevolution is real enough but microevolution won’t begin to get anybody from any sort of an ape or hominid to humans and macroevolution, which is what the theory of evolution is about, is a bunch of BS which is incompatible with modern mathematics and probability theory.


19 posted on 03/02/2012 8:55:47 AM PST by varmintman
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To: varmintman

And some other study will claim chip DNA is actually closer to human DNA than that of Neanderthals. Lots of theories, all of them new and irrefutable until they become old and refuted.


20 posted on 03/02/2012 9:01:08 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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