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
No mistake there. Prior to the Neanderthals an even more primitive race developed the first duct tape. The only surviving descendants have found their niche in modern society on PBS. Have you ever seen the Red Green Show?
Adena Skulls found in Ohio. These large headed people were reputed to have had two rows of teeth.(hyperdontia). They were wiped out by the invading American Indians from the west. These skulls are in the Ohio State Archaeological Museum in Columbus, Ohio. (females were 170 cm and males were 180.7 cm tall)
The bottom one looks like my ex-.... never mind. :)
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I think you meant to say "interbred."
tee-hee.
Actually, that just proves that they were not likely our maternal ancestors, since mtDNA is contributed exclusively by mom.
I don't know what Neanderthal ladies looked like, but it probably would be more likely that Neandethal guys impregnated Cro-Magnon women than the other way around.
Just a thought.
If so, the Cro-Magnon women might have had trouble getting their large-headed offspring down the birth canal.
But of a different shape and constitution.
Remember the sloping forehead? Our cerebrums are much larger -- an advantage in reasoning capacity.
The Neanderthal brain was said to be more developed than ours with respect to nerve functions, leading to a probable advantage in instinctual responses.
When they are born, our children have much to learn. Neanderthal children may have inherited most of their "knowledge".
Good point. Of all the primates, humans are the only ones that birth with the childs head facing to the rear (of the mother) to accommodate the large head. This feature makes it difficult for the human mother to assist in the delivery of her child, unlike other primate mothers.
Wait, there's more!
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