'Your Forefathers Were Not Neanderthals'

IOL ^ | 1-26-2004 | Maggie Fox

[blam]

'Your forefathers were not Neanderthals'

January 26 2004 at 02:30PM

By Maggie Fox

Washington - You may think your grandparents act like Neanderthals, but United States researchers said on Monday they had strong evidence that modern humans are not descended from them.

A computer analysis of the skulls of modern humans, Neanderthals, monkeys and apes shows that we are substantially different, physically, from those early humans.

New York University paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati said Neanderthals should be considered a separate species from Homo sapiens, and not just a sub-species.

"We interpret the evidence presented here as supporting the view that Neanderthals represent an extinct human species and therefore refute the regional continuity model for Europe," she and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Some anthropologists believe that Neanderthals, who went extinct 30 000 years ago, may have at least contributed to the ancestry of modern Europeans.

There is strong evidence that Homo sapiens neanderthalis, as they are known scientifically, interacted with the more modern Cro-Magnons, who eventually displaced them. Cro-Magnons are the ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.

Some research has suggested they may have interbred to a limited degree, although this is hotly disputed in anthropological circles.

At least one study that looked at fragments of Neanderthal DNA suggested any Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon offspring did not add to the modern gene pool.

Harvati and colleagues combined modern computer technology and the tried-and-true method of determining species that uses physical comparisons.

They examined the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals and 11 existing species of non-human primates including chimpanzees, gorillas and baboons.

They measured 15 standard skull and face landmarks and used 3-D analysis to superimpose each one on the other.

"From these data, we were able to determine how much variation living primate species generally accommodate, as well as measure how different two primate species that are closely related can be," Harvati said in a statement.

Their computer analyses showed that the differences measured between modern humans and Neanderthals were significantly greater than those found between subspecies of living monkeys and apes.

[Modernman]

All of those fossil horses were running around at more or less the same time and there's no way to claim any one of them is older than or ancestral to any other.

Okay. Take a looksie here and try to get back to me:

http://chem.tufts.edu/science/evolution/HorseEvolution.htm

[blam]

"You don't think they (neanderthals) died out simply from being too UGLY or anything like that?"

Nah, to many ugly people still around, lol.

[hopespringseternal]

Ah, the old tabula rosa gambit.

Who's playing who? "Slog through 90 posts"?

I am not now asking you to address every point, I am making the comment that in 90 posts, you refused to address the points and instead focused on attacking religion.

I didn't bring up any points, I just noted that only a couple of people even bothered to acknowledge the points or answer them.

[CobaltBlue]

One version of the Out of Africa theory has our African ancestors crossing into the Middle East - Israel, the Sinai, Iraq - and then spreading East and West from there, so maybe his ancestors DID come from the Garden of Eden - if by that he means a place located in the Middle East.

I think the evidence is very compelling that everybody whose mitochondrial DNA has been studied so far is descended from a few people in Africa maybe 100,000 years ago, but I also think it's theoretically possible for earlier ancestors to have evolved elsewhere, spread to Africa, hit some kind of bottleneck there, and died off everywhere else.

So, I have no problem at all when someone wants to argue Garden of Eden, or even Adam and Eve. Speaking metaphorically, in some sense, they could be right.

[biblewonk]

The bible

[SunkenCiv]

Glad to hear it. There's nothing to this latest "study". It's just another in which the conclusions fit the original assumptions, and in this case that means GIGO.

The Replacement "theory" is inherently racist, and it's weird that Multiregionalism is sometimes derided as racist. Here's a quote from another, earlier article (sorry, I'm too lazy to look for a link):

"They demonstrate conclusively that there was never a Neanderthal stage in human evolution," F. Clark Howell, also from Berkeley and a co-author of the research papers, said in a statement.

That sentence is so obviously unscientific that it is another exhibit in the case against the weird prejudice against Neandertal. There isn't anything that can be demonstrated conclusively on the topic of origins, even in the narrow little world of F. Clark Howell. Because of some skulls found in Ethiopia -- which the finders themselves say show some features found in living humans, but are not modern -- the complete ancestry of living humans obviously can't be determined. Berkeley is the place from which the mtDNA nonsense has bloomed -- the late Allan Wilson made many boneheaded claims, but the most flagrant may have been to attribute what he saw as the unique quality of speech and language to mtDNA.

Neandertal walked the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years (although there have been recent attempts to reduce antiquity and duration, in the interests of a "kinder, gentler" Replacement), and in the Middle East...

Neanderthals and Modern Humans in Western Asia
by Scott J. Brown

Western Asia... has yielded some of the earliest remains of anatomically modern humans ever found -- as early, or maybe even earlier, than those found in sub-Saharan Africa. The puzzle over the relationship between Neanderthals and early modern humans in Western Asia begins with a skull from the Zuttiyeh site in Israel, from a period known as the Middle Paleolithic. The Zuttiyeh skull was associated with an early Middle Paleolithic industry, the Acheulo-Yabrudian. This industry at Zuttiyeh has been dated to as late as 148,000 years before the present, but other estimates place the Zuttiyeh skull as early as 200,000 to 250,000 B.P. The Acheulo-Yabrudian existed in the eastern Mediterranean, or Levant, before the appearance of the Mousterian -- another Middle Paleolithic industry associated with both early modern humans and a contemporaneous population with more archaic traits, whom most scholars identify as Neanderthals... These dates indicate that the Neanderthal and possibly modern remains from layer C, and also the Tabun C1 Neanderthal, are as old as, or perhaps even older than, early modern humans from other sites in Israel and from sub-Saharan Africa, dated to 80-120,000 B.P. If Neanderthal and modern types were both at Tabun before 100,000 B.P., this could back the idea that the Neanderthals and early modern humans of the Levant comprised a single indigenous population evolving toward a fully modern form.

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve

"Allan Wilson had always been described to me in superlatives, such as 'one of the real geniuses in science,' or 'the most arrogant guy I know...' [H]e apologized for putting me off so long and bluntly explained that the reason he had done so was that he did not trust me... 'The anthropological perspective on evolution is no longer valid; it has been overthrown. And yet the science writers who insist on talking to me come drenched in an anthropological perspective, and there is really no point in talking to them... It is paralytic. It prevents you from asking certain questions, and it forces you to ask others. The whole discipline invites you not to investigate.'

...A few months before my visit, Wilson had announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science... that the Neandertals were replaced because they could not speak... suggesting that a particular gene for language might have been carried in the mitochondria themselves. Since invading males would have been more likely to mate with resident females than the other way around, the offspring of sexual contact between the two groups would be 'linguistically deaf-mute,' like their Neandertal mothers. Thus disadvantaged, these 'village idiots' would face the same fate as the mothers: extinction. Only the language-endowed African lineage would continue. The language gene idea, and especially the unfortunate term 'village idiots,' elicited hoots of derision from the anti-Eve camp, and gave no joy to Wilson's colleagues." [pp 119-121]

This kind of talk is characteristic of the proponents of Replacement, which is steeped in bigotry and racism -- and always has been. Shreeve himself turns out to be an advocate of Replacement, which can be seen in semantic spin found throughout the book. Besides Replacement, the much-maligned "social Darwinism", like Darwinism itself, is likewise the product of an elitist society. Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog", while criticizing the idea that "Aryans" were a superior racial form, said:

"Physical, mental, and moral peculiarities go with blood and not with language. In the United States the negroes have spoken English for generations; but no one on that ground would call them Englishmen, or expect them to differ physically, mentally, or morally from other negroes." [Erik Trinkaus, Pat Shipman, The Neandertals pp 46-47]

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve

Frayer'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]

[Modernman]

So, I have no problem at all when someone wants to argue Garden of Eden, or even Adam and Eve. Speaking metaphorically, in some sense, they could be right.

I certainly have no problems with people using metaphor. However, we both know that when creationists on this thread refer to the Garden of Eden or Adam and Eve, they're speaking literally without any evidence to back up their claims.

[ArGee]

Doesn't explain the existance of Liberals...

DNA evidence shows conclusively that Liberals (Homo sapiens liberalis) is the result of cross breeding between an orangutan and a sponge. Thus it looks like a primate but sucks up all the resources it comes across.

Shalom.

[Modernman]

The bible

Please elaborate.

[biblewonk]

Jer 2: 26"As the thief is ashamed when he is found out, So is the house of Israel ashamed; They and their kings and their princes, and their priests and their prophets, 27Saying to a tree, "You are my father,' And to a stone, "You gave birth to me.' For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble They will say, "Arise and save us.' 28But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, If they can save you in the time of your trouble; For according to the number of your cities Are your gods, O Judah.

[VadeRetro]

You've been sucked straight in. All of those fossil horses were running around at more or less the same time and there's no way to claim any one of them is older than or ancestral to any other.

You have made a very fanciful misinterpretation of a dialogue that happened in mainstream science starting about 130 years ago and ending with George Gaylord Simpson back in the 1940s. Horse evolution, like just about everything else, is a tree structure and not a straight-line progression. For all that, it is indeed a progression through time and lots of it.

Just for instance:

Eohippus/Hyracotherium, 50 million years ago.

Merychippus, 10 million years ago.

Just one tiny part of the picture is formed by the changes in the toe bones.

Figure 6. Stages in horse evolution showing the reduction in the number of toes and foot bones. Forefeet above, hind feet below. (A) Hyracotherium, a primitive early Eocene horse with four toes in front and three behind, (B) Miohippus, an Oligocene three-toed horse, (C) Merychippus, a late Miocene form with reduced lateral toes, and (D) Equus. (From Vertebrate Paleontology by Alfred Sherwood Romer published by The University of Chicago Press, copyright © 1945, 1966 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This material may be used and shared with the fair-use provisions of US copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires both the consent of the authors and the University of Chicago Press.)

From Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record.

[Junior]

Find one post wherein I attacked religion.

[Junior]

27Saying to a tree, "You are my father,' And to a stone, "You gave birth to me.'

Can't be talking about evolution, as neither of those statements (nor anything remotely resembling them) has ever been made by evolutionists. However, it is possible he was talking about idol worship. Just a wild guess...

[VadeRetro]

Yours is better, says it all with one site. Bookmarked.

[biblewonk]

Can't be talking about evolution, as neither of those statements (nor anything remotely resembling them) has ever been made by evolutionists. However, it is possible he was talking about idol worship. Just a wild guess...

Yes they have in a general sense. It was Carl Sagan who would do his rundown of the universe from big bang to stars to heavy elements to earth to bacteria.... and say "These are a few things that hydrogen atoms do given billions and billions of years". It is the exact same kind of statement. It is saying that man comes from simpler life forms and matter.

[ZULU]

"Read this thread. "

Do I HAVE to? All 109 posts?

"The issue of whether Neanderthals did or did not contribute to the gene pool as it exists now is not exactly the same question as whether they should be considered a separate species. If the last Yanomami indian dies next year, they will have contributed nothing to future gene pools, but they're still the same species.

The question of whether the Neanderthals were a separate species is really a moot one. We define species by the (arbitrary) standard of whether members from two populations can produce viable offspring, but that's not something you can apply to extinct populations. The only answerable question is whether every individual can be unambiguously assigned to one population or the other, based upon morphology. But my understanding is that that's been the case for a long time."

The above post is from Physicist. I agree with it for the most part. Is that what you are referring to?

The part I question is the comment about arbitrariness in the use of the term "species". I don't think that is arbitrary at all. A species is a population of individuals which interbreed and produce viable offspring. The catch is in the "interbreed." Populations defined morphologically and genetically as separate species which never interbreed in nature, have been induced to interbreed in captivity and produce viable hybrid offspring. What does this do to the concept of species? I don't know.

"If I ask you about fossil dispersion, the response is entirely independent of what the bible says."

What do you mean by "fossil dispersion"? Strategraphic dispersion or geographical dispersion or temporal dispersion?

"Whether a set of bones did indeed come from one creature or species says a lot about the credibility of the researcher, and very little about the bible."

It says a lot about our understanding of the morphology of the species in question and the competency of the scientist involved. It says nothing about the basic concepts here.

As for the Bible, I said it before, its not a biology text. Its a theological text with historical overtones. Its function is to convey a moral and religious message, not digress into the evolution of species or Cosmology except in the very simplest of contexts, i.e God created the world, He made man in His image, etc. To extract the "from the dust of the earth he made him" and interpret this as meaning literally directly from a lump of clay is stretching things, at least in my mind.

"Scientific" dogma can be every bit as ruinous to science as religious dogma."

Tell me about it. True science requires an open and inquiring mind, but a critical one, and very frequently scientists are reluctant to abandon old concepts when new and better ones appear. That says more about human nature than science or the scientific method.


Again, I ask you what question can you possibly propound that seriously sheds doubt on evolution?

I think even the term "Creationist" is a poor one to describe people who try to interpret the Bible literally.
"Literalist" is probably better. Even people like me who believe in evolution, do not disbelieve in Divine Creation. We just think it was a lot more complicated than Genesis explains it. That is not to denigrate Genesis as it does a good job of explaining to a group of neolithic sheperds the most salient point - God made all of creation, He made man in His image and He created man out of something less than man is.

[cookcounty]

"Isn't this phrenology?"

Hey, ya gotta do somethin' with that grant money gusher. Best formula is to say you're working on evolution, especially human evolution. ----Thar's gold in them bones!

[Mercat]

I found some pretty strong racist stuff deeper into this website with no substantiation. I was greatly taken by the picture of the young female neanderthal but would like to know more about the science.

[RightWingAtheist]

To anyone who still denies we share a common kinship with apes, I offer the following as evidence:

[whattajoke]

Who's playing who? "Slog through 90 posts"?

No one. Now you're playing, "slog through 117 posts." The game only gets harder for us the longer you stall in actually asking one single question or bringing forth a single point for us to discuss.

I didn't bring up any points...

Yeah, we know. And that, my friend, is the "point."