Posted on 09/20/2006 3:49:12 PM PDT by JTN
Their very name has become a byword for all that is brutish, stupid and crude. In the popular imagination, these were the violent, shambling, grunting apemen of legend. If you accuse someone of being a Neanderthal, you are not paying them a compliment.
But Neanderthal Man, who represented one of the oddest and most mysterious chapters in the history of humanity, has been undergoing something of a makeover in recent years.
We now know that these extinct cousins were not the brutes of legend but a sophisticated and intelligent species, capable of creating fire, fashioning delicate tools, burying their dead and perhaps even making music.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Maybe Joey Porter............
Have fun with this Martin.
*****
Start a thread.......... it's got some meat.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/wtae/20060920/lo_wtae/9896141
Police: Steelers Joey Porter's Dogs Killed Miniature Horse
Whole point being that eventually all will acknowledge that Neanderthals are as much human as you or I, they are not another genus. So much for the CERTAIN proclamations that they were an extinct evolutionary branch of homo. Our silly skull reconstructions are so eurocentric as to exclude other skull shapes from other areas of the world. You whould see some of the headshapes from the backwoods in L.A.!
The Singing Neanderthals (The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body)
They showed no improvement in tools and culture after 250,000 years according to science channel so I think they were just apes. DNA shows that they were related to no other creature on earth so where does this cousin stuff come from? They were not related to humans.
Neanderthals had evolved beyond simply dragging their knuckles on the ground. So being called a "Neanderthal" is actually a tad less derogatory than being called a "Knuckle-dragger".
Less derogatory = complimentary.
What the heck, I'll take what I can get.
"RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe."
"Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that the so-called “ginger gene” which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100,000 years old."
"They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200,000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago."
Cool! Sounds like a fascinating read. I wonder which part of the brain controls our response to music...perhaps one of those areas which was larger in the Neanderthals, and music had a stronger role in their communication than spoken language or visual symbols?
</wild speculation> ;)
I have a great mango salsa recipe. It's quite tastey!
susie
I am back from a meeting and I found my place in this thread easily. That why I use placemarkers.
And, now, on with the thread...
Check out the mtDNA results.
Thanks, but I have to pass.
you scare me boy...
Neanderthals are the ones who failed to make the cut, to join the homo sapiens genetic team. Some of their ancestors survived though, to become socialists, terrorists, demagogues, nazis, and Democrats.
Go here for many articles on Neanderthals. Read them and you'll know more than me.(ahem)
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