'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.

[petuniasevan]

Know what I find really amazing? Someone goes out to the Great Rift Valley, digs around in an old riverbed, and finds a bit of hominid skeleton. Maybe a femur.

Then 1/2 mile away along that riverbed another researcher finds a hominid jawbone.

And a third researcher 1/4 mile the other way finds some finger bones.

Soon there is a paper out mentioning the "widely scattered remains" of a [specific name] hominid from a dry riverbed. An illustration shows the various bones and the missing pieces. Theories are put forth concerning the creature's demise.


Okay, how are these guys so SURE that these are fossils from the SAME creature? Answer: They're not sure. But it sure looks good on paper. Keeps those grants coming!

[tpaine]

Most of the fossil evidence for "pre-humans" won't even cover a coffee table, and yet the paleoanthropologists wants everyone to buy "hook, line, and sinker" that these bits and pieces respresent evidence of human evolution.

Are you saying that neanderthals were not any more human than chimps?

Now we have a computer saying that monkey bones look closer to human to these bones, AND that the DNA doesn't look right and you still won't let it go?
Interesting . . .

Yes, your reaction is quite interesting.. Are you convinced we all came out of africa at some point fairly recently?

[melsec]

Oh Cowgirl! Your just so panickity LOL. Love your list.

Mel

[Agnes Heep]

It's ridiculous to try to base this kind of conclusion on morphology alone. There are so many variations within the current human species that any number of individuals might pass for "neanderthals." And the way I learned it, speciation has to do with the ability to interbreed and produce offspring. That can be affected by a lot of factors, but I doubt very seriously if skull morphology is one of them.

[greenwolf]

Are you saying that neanderthals were not any more human than chimps?

The evidence for neanderthals seems real enough, or at least there's enough of it. The others...

The next thing in line behind the neanderthal is homo erectus which is basically an ape, and the things behind erectus are more like monkeys, i.e. they're not even as far along AS apes.

In fact there appear to be two basic KINDs of homo erectus, called 'robust' and 'gracile'; that means they're probably somehow or other the ancestors of modern gorillas and chimpanzees.

All of which tell us that there's some kind of a story there about how modern humans arose, at least a scientific story to go along with the story in Genesis, but we haven't found it yet. And all we've really ever gotten from the evolutionists so far is a bunch of stories less easy to believe than Genesis.

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[PatrickHenry]

Human Ancestors

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[realpatriot71]

Are you saying that neanderthals were not any more human than chimps?

Who knows what they are - I don't know - and I'm sure the paleoantropologists don't know. I do know they aren't human, and I'm not making anymore conjecture on the subject above and beyound that.

Yes, your reaction is quite interesting.. Are you convinced we all came out of africa at some point fairly recently?

I believe in a special creation of life on this earth by God - recently - perhaps ~6000-10000 years ago.

[TMSuchman]

I don't know about the rest of you, but my ansetors[sp] came from the Garden of Eden!

[alloysteel]

Which brings up the question: Did the Neanderthals interbreed with ancestors of modern man? I have no doubt that attempts were made, and there may have been viable offspring. These half-breeds may even have eventually bred true, which would make modern man maybe not so modern after all. Certainly some seeming throwbacks continue to appear even in the best of families.

And who knows? The crossbreeds may well have been major improvements over either of the parent stocks.

[Modernman]

I don't know about the rest of you, but my ansetors[sp] came from the Garden of Eden!

Do you have any evidence to support this claim, other than the Bible?

[Modernman]

Who knows what they are - I don't know - and I'm sure the paleoantropologists don't know. I do know they aren't human

What about the homo sapiens/neanderthal hybrids that have been recently discovered? To say neanderthals aren't exactly human is really only half the story.

[ZULU]

These researchers are fogetting they are injecting personal bias into the study.

If there were intelligent squids and they were studying Neaderthals and modern humans, its very possible that using the same kind of data, but viewing these subjects from an unbiased perspective, they would conclude the similarities between the two were so much greater than any apparent differences that they could justifiably be termed subspecies. In all other organisms, subspecies can and do interbreed and create viable, fertile offspring.

[ZULU]

I don't think he had a computer.

[Physicist]

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.

[TMSuchman]

No, I don't. Just my faith. And for my family & I that is enough.

[pax_et_bonum]

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!"

lol!

[biblewonk]

Evolution is as old as the bible. It was idolatry then and it is idolatry now.

[ZULU]

A better question would be what did those ancestors look like and where was the Garden of Eden.

Biblical fundamentalists make a fundamental error when they seek to literally interpret a tome which is full of allegory and symbolism and requires a degree of intelligent thought, in light of facts currently known, to accurately assess its meaning in many cases - especially when subjects in the Bible are not central to the theme of the book.

The Bible is a theological work with historical overtones. It is neither a history book nor a biology text.