Thanks for the correction. Will look into a recent book on the
Neanderthals. I knew that recent publications indicated that they
were capable of art - but nothing compared to anatomically
modern human's later in the Upper Paleolithic.
The Middle/Upper Paleolithic is a tough transition to sort out.
We can imagine that Neanderthals had open air art which was never
preserved, or we can imagine that Neanderthal art is really
booty from unsuspecting anatomically modern humans. Something did happen.
Later artifacts are definitely associated
with anatomically modern humans, not Neanderthals.
As to whether humans are descendants of Neanderthals... My
impression is that excavations in Isreal show that anatomically
modern humans and Neanderthals coexisted, apparently occupying
the region at different times. Also, the mitochondiral DNA
studies suggest a weak out of Africa hypothesis. As for whether
Europeans have structural features that the Neanderthals had -
well, our faces are definitely non-Neanderthal.
My real question is how Adam being a Neanderthal fits into a
global explanation of Genesis. To me, the second chapter of Genesis
and the genealogies link Adam to a prehistoric period in
Mesopotamia. Why place him so deeply in evolutionary history?
J. Raymond Zimmer