Posted on 08/13/2006 4:11:37 PM PDT by blam
Sleep with Neanderthals? Apparently we (homo Sapiens) did
By Faye Flam
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Though it's been 150 years since mysteriously humanlike bones first turned up in Germany's Neander Valley, the find continues to shake our collective sense of human identity.
Neanderthals are humanity's closest relatives, with brains at least as big as ours, and yet we don't know whether we should include them as members of our own species.
No longer does science consider them our direct ancestors but some suspect Neanderthals and modern homo Sapiens interbred during the 20,000 some-odd years we co-existed in Europe. The archaeological record doesn't tell us one way or another, but earlier, researchers announced they would seek more clues by scraping DNA from Neanderthal bones and teeth.
The question of sex with Neanderthals speaks to our understanding of ourselves, our origins and our uniqueness. If this other type of human being wasn't like us, what was he like?
As I started researching this issue, I found myself staring at a picture of a nude Neanderthal man — a forensic sculpture created by Duke University paleoanthropologist Steve Churchill that was published last year in the journal Science. The model, based on a skeleton found at La Ferrassie in France, is mesmerizing in its combination of familiarity and alienness.
To be honest, he's really not half bad looking. He's got a good, muscular body, and while he's nobody's idea of handsome, that could be forgiven if he had a nice personality or I was starving and he offered to throw some rhino steaks on the fire for me.
We're not talking about the stoop-shouldered, hairy, apelike Neanderthal of popular culture. There's no evidence they were hairier than modern people, says anthropologist Harold Dibble, a curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
A clue as to where I clients come from?
This explains a lot of things I was wondering about.
What's the big deal? Their descendants are now sleeping with sheep and other barnyard animals.
Your statement is a blatent, unsupported assertion and therefore deserves nothing more than my reply.
Speaking to willful ignorance is like teaching a pig to dance.
This I certify to be a true Reuters photo...all the others were fakes...!
A real "Coyote Date" Some guys will sleep with anything.
Word of advice: if you want to pontificate on what is and is not good science, learn to spell the word.
Otherwise, people may not take you seriesly. And that would be a hugh mistake.
W.K.
aping: to copy closely but often clumsily and ineptly
Neanderthals?
What has gotten your knickers into such a twist?
Allergies and sinus infections, I have! Thanks for preparing me for things to come. Ringworms! Just dandy.
In this equation it quite likely doesn't matter what human guys will sleep with; it matters what human girls will sleep with. That's the conceptual hurdle that a lot of people seem to have difficulty vaulting over. In order for the progeny to end up in human communities, then what you almost certainly have to have human women sleep with Neanderthal men. If what you have is human men ravishing Neanderthal women, the progeny are gonna end up back over in the Neanderthal community, and needless to mention all those went dead.
Then, assuming you have human women sleep with Neanderthal men (and willing to raise the hybrid progeny) what you also need is Neanderthal men willing to sleep with human women, and we can hardly assume that would be the case. If you want an analogy, take the common chimp and the bonobo chimp: the two closely related subspecies nonetheless have radically different sexual behaviors.
You spout nonsense. Please grow up.
If you have a contention, backed with facts and logic, fine. Platitudes are a waste of time and electrons.
This was not a statement of assertion but a supposition; nor was it blatant; note the operative words "may be". So your are actually incorrect in your assumption. Have a good evening.
W.K.
Additionally let me help you! "blatent" is spelled blatant.
I suspect not enough fiber.
You are correct. They have found Neanderthal in Israel (near Carmel) that dated to about 92,000 years, and also Homo Sapiens Sapiens that dated about 102,000 years - we were contemporaneous with them (NOT descended from them!) Apparently, they were Hunter Gatherers and limited intelligently, while the Homo Sapiens Sapiens were farmers and more family oriented and had a better language and intelligence. Why Neanderthal died out, and we did not is a mystery to Anthropologists...
I'll let gunner (red hat) field that question.
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