Posted on 01/27/2004 8:08:04 AM PST by 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.
No, not really, actual "bone evidence" of these "pre-humans" are few and far between and consist most of a chip of "skull" here or a peice of "fermur" there. You want to base your understanding of "human evolution" on a chip here or a bone there - go ahead.
It was a simple statement. What did you not understand?
I see :-) Then I dismiss you as well. Go in peace.
This is mostly true but not totally. The Lagar Velho child was originally thought to be a hybrid. Some now argue that it only shows that very young Neanderthals were less robust-looking and different from us than the adults. There are also some specimens from 90-100kya, the Skuhl site in Israel, which are overall classified as early modern. Nevertheless, one or two have some "Neanderthalish" features which may result from then-current crossbreeding with Neanderthals or may just represent "atavistic" variations within that population.
DNA studies with nuclear DNA would be best, but nuclear DNA is much harder to recover than mtDNA.
Oh come on, please bring on papers and arguments from Hovind. I could use a good laugh today.
Done, way back at post 26.
Two of the most annoying things about this whole debate:
First, question evolution and the response is never to address the points brought up but to burn a bible. Many times, the points have nothing to do with the bible, but are valid scientific questions.
Second, the use of the bible as a basis for scientific truth. The bible is simply not meant as a basis for science.
Your coffee table must be a lot bigger than mine.
Correct. The Bible is not a science textbook, and should not be used as such. However, Creation (which science studies), should point back to a Creator and His Word, the Bible. And to a person of faith, Creation does point back to a Creator. Unfrotunately, evolution as a means to origins intentionally uses the "unknown" to promote a specific theory, which works out beautifully because nothing can be shown confidently correct nor incorrect. The theory behind evolution is merely conjecture based on the objective evidence we have today - however - God is never considered, therefore evolution MUST come up with a way for life to have evolved from mere chemicals to rational, thinking minds. What's interesting here is that in order to begin a theory like this, one must first reject a Creator, then comes the conjecture. The devious thing about the theory is that once in place it can then be used to persuade those who believe, not to believe. Evolution attacks faith every chance it gets when ironically it has to be taken on faith itself by its own believers.
Yes, he himself refers to Adam. That would either make him misinformed and finite in his knowledge and therefore less than God or it would make him a liar.
I refer to the "Boy Who Cried Wolf." That doesn't necessarily mean the young fellow actually existed. References to Adam could simply be a method of illustrating a point that would be recognizeable to His listeners.
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