Posted on 01/06/2002 7:24:03 AM PST by blam
Neanderthals clever enough to make 'superglue'
Researchers say Neanderthals had considerable technical and intellectual skills and were as ingenious as modern humans.
German scientists say they have found Neanderthals mixed a kind of superglue to make tools.
It had to be made at a precise temperature and means the race had considerable technical and manual skills in comparison to their dullard image.
Neanderthals are thought to have first appeared around 230,000 to 300,000 years ago.
Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said the discovery is potentially very important: "It would further show that the behaviour gap between us and Neanderthals is narrower than we thought. Some may say there isn't a gap."
Independent reports that the research centres on a new analysis of two 80,000-year-old samples of blackish-brown pitch discovered in a lignite mining pit in the Harz mountains in Germany.
One of the pitch pieces bears the print of a finger and there are also imprints of a flint stone tool and wood, suggesting the pitch had served as a sort of glue to secure a wooden shaft to a flint stone blade.
The research, carried out at the Doerner-Institut in Munich, found the pitch was a birch pitch, which can be only be produced at temperatures of 300-400C.
The team, led by Professor Dietrich Mania of Freidrich-Schiller University in Jena, said: "This implies the Neanderthals did not come across these pitches by accident but must have produced them with intent."
"The pitch finds demonstrate that the Neanderthals must have possessed a high degree of technical and manual abilities, comparable to those of modern Homo sapiens.''
Story filed: 12:45 Sunday 6th January 2002
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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No, they were Homo neanderthalensis, a different species, but the same genus. It might be confusing in the current-day humans Homo sapiens are the only members of the Homo genus. Other great apes are:
Chimpanzee - Pan troglodytes
Bonobo - Pan paniscus
Eastern Gorilla - Gorilla gorilla
Western Gorilla - Gorilla beringei
Bornean Orangutan - Pongo pygmaeus
Sumatran Orangutan - Pongo abelii
Here's a taxonomy tree.
I'd like to know if you've come up with a good way to organize all this stuff, or if
you search for stuff like that 'redheads are neanderthal' article from 2001 that you linked to?
Cyanoacrylate??? Really? My interest is peaked.. .
Go ahead, pi$$ off a neanderthal at your own risk.
We have several kinds of intelligent creatures on this planet now, including parrots, dolphins, chimps, and gorillas. Koko, the first gorilla taught to sign, is said to have an IQ in the range of about 100, with an understood English vocabulary of several thousand words. All of that of course is very very far from us being related to any of those creatures, being descended from any of them via anyting resembling evolution, or anything like that at all. We are not related to apes or hominids in any way.
Welcome to "Cave Improvement" with your host, "Zug"
Hi everyone, on our last eposide, my lovely assistant "Mung" was eaten by a giant ice-weasel. So today we're going to build a rudimentary neolithic intruder alert system using coconuts, human hair and various bodily excretions...
Average height for a neanderthal was about five feet and they did not have access to steroids or modern weight training facilities. Against a modern NFL lineman, they'd lose.
It had to be made at a precise temperature and means the race had considerable technical and manual skills in comparison to their dullard image.
LOL As I read the article, the original glue comes to mind, hint: it is found within the mucous membranes of the human body.
I just knew that they were as smart as us, just a little backward. LOL
"I'd like to know if you've come up with a good way to organize all this stuff, or if
you search for stuff like that 'redheads are neanderthal' article from 2001 that you linked to?"
Sunkenciv is the organizing king...I (and others) find it and post it, SunkenCiv does all the sorting, cataloging and filing...without him, we'd be nothing.
Now, I do bookmark some of my very favorites to my profile page and to see those, click on my name then click on links on my profile page.
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