Neanderthals may have been as handy as modern man

CNN.com ^ | Wednesday, March 26, 2003 | AP

[gomaaa]

The modeling suggests that the disappearance of Neanderthals cannot be attributed solely to a physical inability to make tools as successfully as their modern human cousins, researchers said.

Instead, the reason for the Neanderthals' demise seems to be more complex, said Wesley Niewoehner, an anthropologist at California State University-San Bernadino who developed the computer model. Results of his comparisons appear in the current issue of the journal Nature.

[gomaaa]

Cool stuff! I've been interested in Neanderthals since reading Clan of the Cave Bear. The rest of the series was bad romance novel stuff, but the first is more science fiction than anything, except the aliens are Neanderthals.

I'm interested in how creationists account for these creatures.

[gomaaa]

Ping.

Feel free to bring in anyone I may have missed.

[Doctor Stochastic]

As a guess: Neanderthals were the descendents of Adam and Eve and thus more closesly related to us than evolutionary theory claims?

Another guess: Neanderthals were specially created creatures but not covered in the Bible?


Another guess: Neanderthals never existed but old bones were specially created to Test One's Faith?


Another guess: Neanderthal finds are all fakes?

[VRWCmember]

I'm interested in how creationists account for these creatures.

Easy, neanderthals are simply modern frenchmen.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Easy, neanderthals are simply modern frenchmen.

More likely, modern Germans.

[gomaaa]

Another one I've heard before is that they are referred to in the Old Testament as contemporaries of Noah or something. The flood did them in, of course.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Frankly I think the Neanderthals just moved south and bred with other humanoids... Sadam is living proof that modern women had sex with Neanderthals :P

Semper Fi

[PatrickHenry]

[El Sordo]

"If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy"

[bondserv]

You can run, but you can't hide.

Enough said.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Another possibility is that the Creationists will ignore the question.

Another possibility is that the Creationists will post inane non-sequiturs.

[Dataman]

I'm interested in how creationists account for these creatures.

What might be more interesting is how evolutionists account for this:

The popularized idea of Neanderthal man as caveman is wrong, said Schwartz, who noted that the Neanderthal brain was as big as modern man's, if not bigger.

[Con X-Poser]

<< I'm interested in how creationists account for these creatures. >>

http://www.jackcuozzo.com

They're aged men, just as the Bible describes. The differences in their bones are a continuation of our aging process - according to an orthodontist who did the measurements. He also made several corrections of the way museums had the skulls assembled, and they were forced to make the corrections before chasing him out of the country for exposing their fraud and folly.

http://www.jackcuozzo.com/dna.html

<< Also as one ages today his or her mtDna also changes considerably. The older persons in Genesis (300+) would most likely have mtDNA which is different than the younger people. Also new information tells us than mtDNA mutates much faster than previously known rates. Also, the Lake Mungo 3 (Australia)individual,an anatomically modern human, supposedly from 60,000 yrs. ago has different mtDNA than moderns today. >>

<< "The problem with ancient DNA research, besides all the contamination difficulties in the lab, is that if our ancient Pre-Flood and immediate Post-Flood forefathers and mothers had a better genome that us, which I suspect, the matches would come out something like the Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA is presently showing. >>

[gore3000]

I'm interested in how creationists account for these creatures.

There's a lot of incorrect stuff in this article. It tries to paint Neanderthals as just about the same as humans and as predecessors of humans even though science has shown this is not the case. Three different DNA tests by different sets of scientists from three different finds have shown that Neanderthals could not have been the ancestors of humans (homo sapiens). This had long been suspected because in spite of many finds of Neanderthals and humans in fairly close proximity, no mixed species fossils have ever been found. So the underlying impression given by this article is a totally false one.

There are other problems with the article. The question of their closeness to humans has nothing to do with dexterity or bone structure. It has to do with things which cannot be gathered from fossils. Head size has nothing to do with intelligence. What indicates a more developed brain are the folds in the brain, not the size. This has been known for almost 100 years and it is shameful that these so called scientists should try to tell us that brain size has anything to do with intelligence just on that fact alone. In addition, while all humans have the same brains, they do not have the same intelligence. You cannot tell a person's intelligence by the size of their head, that's why we have IQ tests. If all this were not enough, a year or so ago scientists found that the reason humans are smarter than chimps is because they express some genes much more than the chimps giving us higher intelligence. Therefore, you cannot tell intelligence from bones and these people who call themselves scientists definitely should know better than to say such a thing.

That humans were much smarter and had much greater abilities, right from the start can be easily seen in the caves of Northern Spain and Southern France. Here we see the first works of art of any creature known. We see paintings which are worthy of a Michelangelo done in caves with simple materials. Now this is a true example of the uniqueness of men.

[SGCOS]

Neanderthals may have been as handy as modern man

No kidding. You should see how my bathroom remodel is working out.

[Con X-Poser]

<< That humans were much smarter and had much greater abilities, right from the start can be easily seen in the caves of Northern Spain and Southern France. Here we see the first works of art of any creature known. >>

That's why I believe Neandertals were another race of humans.

There is evidence that they cared for injured friends (some with broken bones survived), they cooked their food and used stone hot plates, buried their dead with ceremony and floral arrangments (together, and mixed with modern humans), practiced herbal medicine, sewed animal skins to make clothing, and possibly could write and play musical instruments.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3497.asp (info from hard copy)

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4218tj_v12n1.asp (article online)

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v23n4_focus.asp

The Sunday Herald Sun, 22 April 2001, p. 22.

Researchers think the ‘ginger gene’, a mutation responsible for red hair, fair skin and freckles, could have originated in Neandertal man.

This would suggest that ‘modern’ man and Neandertal man not only lived side-by-side, but also intermarried–demonstrating that ‘Neandertals were more similar to us than we previously thought.’

[gomaaa]

This would suggest that ‘modern’ man and Neandertal man not only lived side-by-side, but also intermarried–demonstrating that ‘Neandertals were more similar to us than we previously thought.’

Yeah, I've read similar things as well. Last I heard there were suggestions that the Neanderthals never actually went extinct, but intermarried with homo sapiens to the point that they were basically bred out of existence. This is another example of when the line drawn between species is a bit arbitrary. I don't think anyone has been suggesting that neanderthals were an actual ancestor of modern humans, just that we shared an ancestor.

There is a lot of contention about how intelligent they were. Their brain capacity was larger, as you pointed out, but I'm told that this is mostly in the back of the skull, whereas their frontal lobes were actually smaller than ours. Frontal lobes are where we do a lot of planning and tough thinking, so it's possible they were significantly dumber.

Maybe they were way smarter, but because their craniums were so large, they had trouble in childbirth and we, the dumber race, were just able to out-reproduce them. Who knows. I just think they're pretty cool!

[Con X-Poser]

<< This is another example of when the line drawn between species is a bit arbitrary. >>

When you come across apes who bury their dead with religious ceremonies and floral arrangments, let me know. Better yet, let the Smithsonian know.

One main thing that separates men from animals is worship. Men worship, animals don't. The line couldn't be more broad.

[gomaaa]

When you come across apes who bury their dead with religious ceremonies and floral arrangments, let me know. Better yet, let the Smithsonian know.

Err... I was talking about differences, or lack of them, between humans and neandertals. Something you were arguing in favor of in your own way.