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Neanderthals: how needles and skins gave us the edge on our kissing cousins
The Observer ^ | Sunday, December 5, 2010 | Robin McKie

Posted on 12/12/2010 12:19:16 PM PST by SunkenCiv

Many treasures compete for attention, but there is one sample, kept in a small plywood box, that deserves especial interest: the Swanscombe skull. Found near Gravesend last century, it is made up of three pieces of the brain case of a 400,000-year-old female and is one of only half-a-dozen bits of skeleton that can be traced to men and women who lived in Britain before the end of the last ice age. Human remains do not get more precious than this.

However, the Swanscombe find is important for another, crucial reason: the skull is that of a Neanderthal, that race of shadowy, evolutionary cousins of our own species who made complex stone tools and who once thrived in Europe before being wiped about 35,000 years ago, not long after modern humans had emerged from their African birthplace and had begun to spread across the planet.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; swanscombeskull
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To: SunkenCiv

Mother always liked you best.


21 posted on 12/12/2010 4:07:36 PM PST by GAB-1955 (I write books, love my wife, serve my nation, and believe in the Resurrection.)
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To: blam; SunkenCiv
While we weren't watching a couple of interesting things creeped up on us (and I mean "creep") ~ they added the Yakuts/Sakha to the list of "tribes" with the Sa'ami X-Factor genetic sequence.

I haven't heard if they've done enough studies to add the Hakka (another non-Han Chinese population ~ they have the Three Kings in their tradition, one of whom rides a reindeer).

The Sakha and the Hakka may well have a relationship of sorts since both wandered about in the same grazing lands and mountain passes as all the other Turcic speaking people way back when.

The Yakuts/Sakha were identified a few years back by Russian archaeologists as being the "residual" population that had earlier ruled India ~ or much of it ~ at least in their newly translated ancient histories that seemed to be the case.

They are identified in the Mahabarat BTW. A way to identify these guys is that among the Chinese ethnotypes they are the ones whose women have mammaries suitable for modeling some of those Indian female statues!

DNA studies done earlier had tied the Yakuts/Sakha in to a substantial part of the modern Japanese population. Recall they were invaded in the 6th century from the Mainland. The new Imperial line arrived on horseback and took over the Yayoi settlements and began warring with the Emeshi to the North. After several hundred years they conquered the whole place.

That's all well known history. Where the royal family and the Daimyo families came from who invaded in the 6th century had never been known.

There's still a problem in deciphering the Japanese list of kings because some of the early, supposedly mythical kings, may well have been warlords in Northern China and Siberia, and there may be records of them.

I think I've covered most of that before except the X-factor.

Now, the rest of it ~ there's a Lake Inari in Finland. That's where the Inari Sa'ami live. The remaining Skolt in Finland live in the Inari area, and this overlaps the Northern Sa'ami zones.

These folks LOOK DIFFERENT. I finally found some photos of Inari Sa'ami and these seem to be the folks friends have described as having the "most Asiatic" eyes of any of the Sa'ami they've ever seen.

Inari is an expression found in many Eastern Turcic languages meaning something like "spirits of the forest" or "gods", or when you get to Japanese, they know they term was brought to Japan in the 500s. The new comers had something like 1200 "kami" or gods, in their Pantheon, but they were also pushing Zen Buddhism ~ and although most folks would usually think Shinto has its origins among the original population there (the Emeshi and the Jomon) most of it came in with the 6th century invaders.

So, that seems about right to me. An East Asian tribe (with its own N/S chunk of the Silk Road) left India (got booted out) about 200 AD, went North for more permanent quarters in Siberia, then about 535 or thereabouts got driven out by the weather anomaly that created the Dark Ages, lost their knowledge of how to read and write, yet ended up in Japan with Zen Buddhism AND 1200 guys in their pantheon ~ which really sounds like they picked up an awful lot of Indian baggage ~ and BREASESUS (see Saturday Night Live) on their ladies.

Now, I've got to find out if the Inari Sa'ami translates Inari as "spirits of the forest" or something like that.

Do you guys know how hard it is to find ANYBODY who knows any of these Sa'ami languages ~ WOW.

22 posted on 12/12/2010 4:11:42 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
"I haven't heard if they've done enough studies to add the Hakka (another non-Han Chinese population ~ they have the Three Kings in their tradition, one of whom rides a reindeer)."

Hakka History

I've read quite a bit about the Hakka in the past but admit that I've forgotten most.

It is my opinion (contrary to this link) that the Hakka are or are related to the Xiongnu...probably the southern branch of the Xiongnu that allied with the Han. Anyway, due to severe droughts in the north, they were allowed to migrate across China (in five different waves) to the south. To this day, the Hakka are known as 'the guests.'

What is generally not known is that during the migrations those Hakka with Caucasian features were discriminated against and killed losing most of these features before arriving in the south.

Btw, there are Hakka associations/groups in almost every country.

23 posted on 12/12/2010 4:29:19 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
They're fairly easy to find ~ they have these big pictures of the Three Kings with the one riding a reindeer. He's the guy with the white beard.

What I hadn't known before paying some attention to the Yakuts/Sakha was that in the Classical and Middle Ages periods they were technologically equal to the Chinese ON THE BATTLEFIELD. And so were the Hakka.

Nobody wanted to mess with them ~ probably why the Han let the Hakka cross China proper.

The guys with the Caucasion features were most likely those poor souls with more than their fair share of autosomal recessives left over from consorting with the Sa'ami!

To think, for hundreds of years the Norse thought of the Sa'ami as looking rather Asiatic ~ but actually, it was the other way around. The Asiatics looked rather Sa'ami!

This is the current avant garde theory on the origin of the Fenno-Ughric languages ~ that they reflect a Sa'ami origin (not the other way around), and are consistent with Europeans developing language and technology and MOVING EAST in Northern Asia.

24 posted on 12/12/2010 4:42:32 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: SunkenCiv; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; ...
The Neanderthals are important in our time because they were truly the first victims of climate change. I am also certain that Neanderthal Women, Children, Gays, Lesbians, and the darker-skinned among them suffered most.

Those of us who are found to have more of the Neanderthal genome present in our DNA must be paid reparations immediately.

25 posted on 12/12/2010 6:12:55 PM PST by Kenny Bunk (Lek antilla reka po grille.)
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To: Kenny Bunk

Cro mangon immigrants did the work Neanderthals didn’t want to do, out breed them and took over.


26 posted on 12/12/2010 6:25:16 PM PST by Rebelbase
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To: muawiyah

:’) Thanks muawiyah.

http://www.google.com/search?q=saami+language


27 posted on 12/12/2010 6:43:03 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: muawiyah

Sami Language (Saami Language): complete guide to online learning
http://home.earthlink.net/~arran4/siida/sami-language.htm


28 posted on 12/12/2010 6:43:50 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: blam

:’) Updated a mere, well, almost three years ago. :’o Time slides by very easily, have you noticed? :’)


29 posted on 12/12/2010 7:24:19 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: GAB-1955; Kenny Bunk; Rebelbase

:’)


30 posted on 12/12/2010 7:25:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: SunkenCiv
"Time slides by very easily, have you noticed? :’)"

Whew!

31 posted on 12/12/2010 7:33:56 PM PST by blam
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To: SunkenCiv
although I would put that the other way around — as those characteristics disappeared (due to luck o’ the draw, iow chromosome lines vanishing, and maybe mutation) other means of eating had to be innovated.

Isn't that like putting the cart in front of the horse?

(IMO) Environment changes usually drive genetic adaptation.

Can you point out a case where genetic variation caused an environmental change? Other than the obvious... mankind and global warming.

32 posted on 12/13/2010 8:34:13 AM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: Rebelbase

The article indicates that the Cro-Magnons were snappy dressers, which enabled them to attract the Neanderthal debutantes, who unable to help themselves, caved-in to the suave new guys in town.


33 posted on 12/13/2010 1:26:34 PM PST by Kenny Bunk (Lek antilla reka po grille.)
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To: Kenny Bunk; SunkenCiv; blam; All

The article also refers to the Neanderthals being in rags, and the Cro-Magnons using plant fiber for sewing. This is sloppy writing and probably counter-factual. To have rags they would have needed fabric, which since spinning and weaving had not yet been invented is impossible. From what I have read of the American Indians, common sewing materials were sinew and strips of hide, although plant fibers are certainly possible in some areas.


34 posted on 12/14/2010 2:05:23 AM PST by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin
You simply must stop interjecting factual material into Neanderthal vs.Cro-Magnon type threads. To have rags they would have needed fabric, which since spinning and weaving had not yet been invented is impossible. From what I have read of the American Indians, common sewing materials were sinew and strips of hide, although plant fibers are certainly possible in some areas.

IMHO, the guy who wrote the posted article is a pubbic scrool survivor who may have gotten his facts from the film, "Encino Man."

35 posted on 12/14/2010 5:44:14 AM PST by Kenny Bunk (America can survive fools in office. It cannot long survive the fools who elect them.)
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To: blam
Thanks for the repost. Interesting.
36 posted on 12/15/2010 12:26:45 PM PST by colorado tanker
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