Posted on 01/10/2002 5:42:43 AM PST by blam
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:38:56 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Humanity's first steps out of Africa along a path that led ultimately to dominion over the earth are subject to intense scientific debate. So is the role played by the Neandertals who roamed across Europe for 100,000 years before quietly disappearing. The two issues may well be related, and a University of Tennessee anthropologist reports statistical evidence that Neandertals and emerging modern humans likely interbred and evolved together.
(Excerpt) Read more at usatoday.com ...
See post #58.
In pop science, nothing is that simple. For instance, there are usually said to be 13 species of finches in the Galapagos, with each species having a highly characteristic beak shape. But scientists have known for many years that these birds almost all inter-breed when circumstances require it. Usually they choose partners with similar beaks & eating habits, but it's not a physically driven, biochemical thing. They are still routinely described as separate species just because of the choices they make.
The world of evolution science is a wonderful world with quite a lot in common with, say, Apple Computer advertising...
Mark W.
follow "Neanderlinks" to the "talkorigins links page" to the link "Neanderthals and modern humans"
The finch beak example is a very poor one. The finch beak sizes are cyclical, they go back and forth from larger to smaller - it's all in their genome. That's something the evolutionists always fail to mention when they use finches as examples of speciation. It's not speciation - it's adaptation as proven by the cyclical nature of the change. They mate together because they are all finches.
Futhermore, a human cannot mate with a non-human and produce offspring. This is certain.
But, what I really find amusing is when people, especially women, use "Neanderthal!" as an epithet against men, perhaps forgetting, or perhaps not realizing in the first place, that half of all Neanderthals were women.
I got the very same impression reading this article. It sounded like Kramer was "backing-in" his theory to conform with PC notions that are still alive and well in academia these days. There was an interesting documentary on the Discovery Channel a few months ago about Neanderthals and early Man and the consensus was that Man starved and hunted the Neanderthals out of existence. No professional field is safe from PC.
I think Neanderthal skeletons as recent a 26,000 years ago have been found.
Just kidding about the dentistry. What Rozzi is trying to prove is the *blind belief* that Neandertal was inferior and driven to extinction by our ancestors. IOW, it's more GIGO. If Rozzi were a dentist -- or for that matter, hadn't received his paleontology degree from the University of Disneyland -- he'd be aware of this:Neanderthals matured faster than humansA new study suggests that Neanderthal children blazed through adolescence and on average reached adulthood at age 15... [P]aleontologist Fernando V. Ramirez Rozzi... with the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, based his study on analysis of Neanderthal teeth... "It's a very exciting paper," said anthropologist Katerina Harvati of New York University. "Our current understanding of Neanderthals is that they're brutish and stupid, even though it turns out they have larger brains on average than ourselves"... For more than 100,000 years, Neanderthals roamed across a vast region from Spain to southern Russia and western Asia, overlapping with anatomically modern man for several thousand years... Harvati said their quick maturation rate may have been an adaptation to a harsh environment that decreased their life span and made it important for youngsters to reach sexual maturity quickly... Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis said he's skeptical of the research. Human growth varies widely within a population, he said. In fact, Rozzi's study includes some Neanderthal teeth that took as long to develop as modern human teeth. University of Illinois at Chicago anatomy professor Jay Kelley said he's also concerned about making conclusions based on what are essentially assumptions about Neanderthal tooth growth.
Associated Press
April 28, 2004
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
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