Neanderthal ping...
Oh snooze. Was my mother there?
"Don't use your teeth for that...you might break them?"
I sometimes think all mothers are Jewish.
Ah yes, the old meme resurrected for the umpteenth time—“the missing link.” Pure unadulterated nonsense. They cannot find anything better to write about. They really do think we are fools.
Sounds almost Lamarkian.
I'm told that "evolution" consists of random genetic drift and is not purposeful, or teleological. Therefore, features do not evolve "due to" eating or anything else.
My book on evolution, "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones, tells us that ... "The first members of our species, Homo sapiens, arose about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago ..." and ... "Although Neanderthals, at first sight so similar to modern humans, were once placed on the last rung before mankind, fossil DNA hints that they might not even be on the same ladder. Their mitochrondial genes are quite distinct from our own. They were not the ancestors of human genes but followed a separate path. For mitochondria, at least, Neanderthals and ourselves split half a million years ago."
Quotes come from pages 322 and 323 of Jones' book.
I seen carpenters put nails in their mouths.
As my Mom so eloquently put it, “TEETH are not TOOLS, Young Lady!”
A beer in one hand, bean dip in the other and a bag of chips carried by your teeth on the way to the couch. Not much has changed over the years.
"Grave findings have shown that late Palaeolithic settlers in central Europe and their Mesolithic descendants in the Scandinavian Peninsula were Europoids, who had compartively large teeth - a seemingly comical detail, but nevertheless an important factor in identifying these populations. Although it is very unlikely that the language of these settlers will ever be identified, I cannot see any grounds for the theory that either of these groups spoke Proto-Uralic."
"East Europeans have small teeth compared with the relatively large teeth of the Scandinavian, a peculiarity deriving from an age-old genetic distinction. Ancient skulls tell usthat the early settlers of east Europe were mostly descendants of an ancient east European population which lived in prolonged isolation from the Scandinavians. Perhaps the "Siberian" element in Finnish genes is, in fact, east European in origin? "
On the Other hand....
On the Biting Hand....
I remember one of the very first theories I heard in jr. high school about human evolution was that we were separated from most mammals because we have an opposable thumb which enables us to grip things and use tools.
Now we learn that the Neanderthal may have had an additional feature-—the opposable tongue.
Does this mean that my old girlfriend who could tie a cherry stem into a knot in her mouth with her tongue was descended from the Neanderthals?
She ALSO had red hair come to think on it.
