Posted on 06/14/2007 5:56:19 PM PDT by blam
Neanderthals 'were ahead of their time'
Last Updated: 2:42am BST 14/06/2007
Big, brutish and stupid - it's a commonly held view that our prehistoric predecessors were as wild and unsophisticated as the animals they hunted.
Neanderthal man was 'as smart as we are'
But Neanderthal man was not as slow-witted as he looked and was in reality as smart as we are, an archaeologist claims.
They were actually innovators who used different forms of tools to adapt to the ecological challenges posed by harsh habitats as they spread through Europe. Although our ancestors have become the butt of jokes about people who are stupid or unenlightened, they were years ahead of their time.
Dr Terry Hopkinson, of Leicester University, said Neanderthals were far from behaviourally static and incorporated different forms of tool construction into a single technique.
He said: "There has been a consensus that the modern human mind turned on like a light switch about 50,000 years ago, only in Africa."
But the modern traits accompanying the change such as abstract art, the use of grindstones and elongated stone blades, and big-game hunting began to accumulate in Africa from 300,000 years ago.
Archaeological finds from across Europe also show the Neanderthals fused two forms of tool-making called the faconnage and the debitage techniques. Neanderthals had previously been thought of as incapable of innovation, said Dr Hopkinson, as it was assumed to be something unique to Homo sapiens.
This is a reconstructed face from what is believed to be a Neanderthal - Modern Human hybrid. (Re-constructed from a skull/skeleton found in Portugal)
They died out because Europe got too cold for bananas to grow.
Why am I reminded of this story?
We are meaner and nastier, and hold grudges longer? Plus we breed like rats under most circumstances.
Scientists are what...schmart?
This theory only works if beer was not yet invented.
>If “Neanderthals” were stronger and smarter than we, Why are we the survivors?<
Poor immigration laws?
I just had to ask....
perhaps they are...
I hope that really happened.
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer'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]
by James Shreeve
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here's one!
“Dumb” animals can learn *our* language well enough to associate a specific action/object/command/concept with them, yet we have not a single clue what *they* are saying.
[cue Twilight Zone music]....;]
It's a joke, a very funny joke but a joke. You can look it up on Snopes or some other debunking website.
“.....The mating of a female Neanderthal with a modern human male was unlikely because she would find him gracile and he would find her robust.....”
Ever spent much time in a trailer park? This kind of thing happens every day.
As an acquaintance of mine said, concerning a mutual friend, who was skinny and dating a “robust” woman (whom he later married),
“If she don’ weigh more ‘n’ he do, he don’ wan’ ‘er!”
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