Posted on 01/16/2006 3:13:24 PM PST by blam
Neanderthal man floated into Europe, say Spanish researchers
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Monday January 16, 2006
The Guardian (UK)
Spanish investigators believe they may have found proof that neanderthal man reached Europe from Africa not just via the Middle East but by sailing, swimming or floating across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Prehistoric remains of hunter-gatherer communities found at a site known as La Cabililla de Benzú, in the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta, are remarkably similar to those found in southern Spain, investigators said.
Stone tools at the site correspond to the middle palaeolithic period, when neanderthal man emerged, and resemble those found across Spain.
"This could break the paradigm of most investigators, who have refused to believe in any contact in the palaeolithic era between southern Europe and northern Africa," investigator José Ramos explained in the University of Cadiz's research journal. Although the scientists have not yet reached definite conclusions, they say the evidence that neanderthal man mastered some primitive techniques for crossing the sea into Europe from the coast near Ceuta looks promising.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
GGG Ping.
I thought Spain and N. Africa were joined during the first half of the Middle Paleolithic and that the Mediterranean was a dry lowlands.
Or a low wetlands, better yet, but in any case not a sea (that one would need float over..)
Well that explains the Liberals in Europe!
Algore is best known for floating back...singing "Neanderthal Sunset"
I understand it was more of a very wet swamp.
Regardless, that area has been so thoroughly inhabited for so long, I would think any primative encampment would be nigh impossible to uncover.
"Neanderthal Man Floated Into Europe"
And his name was Ted Kennedy
That's long been a point of confusion for me. My understanding is that the Sahara was a grassland until a relatively modern era - modern enough that hominid rock drawings indicate as much - and that the Mediterranean basin was closed on the western end as well. If recollection serves, it was the flooding of the Mediterranean that is held to have changed the climate of the Sahara and turned it into desert. Yet, I've never seen any hominid migration routes that just cross over the Sahara and Mediterranean into Europe.
Of course, plenty of critters don't walk someplace just because they can. They keep to their range for one reason or other, and hominids definitely had a range during the epochs in question, but it's just a little point of confusion on my part. I'm not sure I have the timelines right in my head.
and he thought he was just going on a three hour cruise.
... a three hour cruise.
And whence the term "floater" was born.
I find the first two plausible...but the third has me puzzled.
But than again...I'm only doing the straight lines tonight.
Well, it seems to me that sailing indicates some kind of directed propulsion whereas floating is just launching yourself for whatever reason and going wherever the waves and wind take you.
The Mediterranean Ocean has dried out more than 40 times however, the last time was 5 million years ago. There is salt two miles thick on the bottom that was formed by drying in sunlight
Now, it is my opinion that the Med was blocked at Gilbralter during the Ice Age and the water level in the Med was greatly reduced, that would have allowed Neanderthal to walk across.
This theory would have allowed for large areas of the Mediterranean to have been dry and also contain a larger number of islands during the long period of the Ice Age.
If Atlantis was in this area, the flood waters, earthquakes, volcanos and tsunamis at the end of the Ice Age would have wrecked it and sent it below the inflowing water. The timing would be about right and the flooding into the Med would have columinated with the (Now documented) Black Sea flood.
OK...I'll buy that.
I do have a problem with a hominid just launching off into the sea on a log..or log raft. Neanderthals weren't essentially stupid or reckless.
My thoughts go here. The Neanderthal in all probability had no sail....nor did they have any ability for navigation.....they certainly couldn't swim that far.
Island to island seems plausible....however...
and please excuse me....I'm just trying to catch up a bit.
I think it was a long walk.
The first Neanderthal was a "Homeless Drifter".
Some of the Australian Aboriginies have brow ridges that are more 'severe' that the Neanderthals, yet we call them moderns but, not so Neanderthals.
I think Wolpoff, Sharpe and Hu (the Multiregionalist) have it correct, we are all one with regional differences
Journey Of Mankind (Modern Humans)
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