I e-mailed Trinkaus today and got a reply. He told me that the
thoracohumeral muscle insertions are not totally diagnostic but are
supportive of Neanderthal ancestry. However, he did state that there is a
clear "difference particularly in the development of the pectoralis major
insertion on the humerus". This difference is found among Neanderthal
children as well as adults. Thus this muscle attachment is diagnostic of
Neanderthal ancestry.
The article clearly notes this on the child:
"The left humerus has clear diaphyseal torsion and a prominent ridge along
the pectoralis major insertion leading up to the anterior greater tubercle.
There is rugosity for the pectoralis major attachment, and the ridge
creates a marked intertubercular sulcus and an anterolateral to
posteromedial elongation of the diaphyseal cross section." Cidalia Duarte,
Joao Mauricio, Paul P. Pettitt, Pedro Souto, Erik Trinkaus, Hans van der
Plicht, and Joao Zilhao, "The Early Upper Paleolithic Human Skeleton from
the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and Modern Human Emergence in Iberia,"
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, USA, 96(1999):13:7604-7609.
(http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/199906/0225.html) and from this muscle
attachment, the child must have had Neanderthal parentage.
There is another report concerning the arrival of Homo erectus on the
isolated island of Flores in Indonesia. Michael Morwood et al, in
Antiquity reported on their excavations of 1997 and 1998. They write:
"In summary, our work has yielded unambiguous and relatively precise dates
for the arrival of H. erectus on Flores by 840,000 years BP. Stone
artefacts do not seem to occur in deposits slightly older." M. J. Morwood
et al, "Archaeological and Palaeontological Research in Central Flores,
East Indonesia: results of Fieldwork 1997-1998," Antiquity,
73(1999):273-286, p. 284
**
"Even at times of low sea level, when Sumatra, Java and Bali were
connected to mainland Southeast Asia, at least two sea crossings were
required to reach Flores. The first of these deep-water barriers, between
the islands of Bali and Lombok, is about 25 km wide and constitutes a major
biogeographical boundary, the Wallace Line. Prior to human intervention,
only animals capable of crossing substantial water barriers by swimming,
flying or rafting on flotsam were able to establish populations on Flores
(e.g. elephants, rats). In fact, the impoverished nature of the fauna on
the island in the Early and Middle Pleistocene rules out the possibility of
temporary landbridges from continental Southeast Asia. The presence of
hominids on Flores in the Early Pleistocene therefore provides the oldest
inferred date for human maritime technology anywhere in the world.
Elsewhere, dates for such capabilities are much more recent. These findings
indicate that the intelligence and technological capabilities of H. erectus
may have been seriously underestimated. An accumulating body of evidence
from elsewhere supports this conclusion (e.g. Thieme 1997).
"The complex logistic organization needed for people to build water-craft
capable of transporting a biologically and socially viable group across
significant water barriers, also implies that people had language.
Previously the organizational and linguistic capacity required for sea
voyaging was thought to be the prerogative of modern humans and to have
only appeared in the late Pleistocene. It now seems that humans had this
capacity 840,000 years ago." M. J. Morwood et al, "Archaeological and
Palaeontological Research in Central Flores, East Indonesia: results of
Fieldwork 1997-1998," Antiquity, 73(1999):273-286, p. 285,286
For those who might not know, Theime's article (referenced above) was the
discovery of a 400,000 year old wooden spear that is balanced just like a
modern olympic javelin. That required lots of intelligence to make.
It is time that Christian apologists begin to come to grips with the data
that is there relating us to fossil men of very different morphology.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution