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On 09 Nov 95 11:54:34 EST you wrote:
>Glenn writes:
GM>If the Neanderthal burials do not mean that they are fully human,
>then what does this say about the Eskimos who appear to have the same
>practice as a caribou? Surely the Neanderthal burials were more
>significant than what the Eskimos did!>>
JB>This can be cleared up by simple logic. Under this reasoning,
>Neanderthals are more human than Eskimos. I don't think so. It may
>just be that "evidence" of burials is not the indicator we would like
>it to be.
Agreed. I think that the best indicator is language:
"One of the most important factors that differentiates humans from
other species is our ability to communicate symbolically and orally
through language, an activity that, as far as we know, is specific to
humans. Chimpanzee achievements with sign language (discussed in
Chapter 11) are truly remarkable. Even when these intelligent apes
occasionally sign to other chimps, such a display in no way compares
to the crucial reliance humans place on symbolic communication.
Furthermore, what chimpanzees or any other animals achieve with human
assistance is quite different from what humans, as a species, develop
by themselves." (Nelson H. & Jurmain R., "Introduction To Physical
Anthropology", West Publishing Company: St. Paul, Fifth Edition,
1991, p12)
GM>Under the standard that you seem to be proposing, I am not sure
>that anything would qualify as human activity.>>
JB>The standard is simple. Look at Cro-Magnon man. That is human
>activity. Compare that to what came before. A tremendous gap, a
>quantum leap divides them.
Again agreed:
"Our closest ancestors and cousins, Homo erectus, the Neanderthals,
and others, possessed mental abilities of a high order, as indicated
by their range of tools and other artifacts. But only Homo sapiens
shows direct evidence for the kind of abstract reasoning, including
numerical and aesthetic modes, that we identify as distinctively
human. All indications of ice-age reckoning-the calendar sticks and
counting blades-belong to Homo sapiens. And all the ice-age art-the
cave paintings, the Venus figures, the horse- head carvings, the
reindeer bas-reliefs-was done by our species. By evidence now
available, Neanderthal knew nothing of representational art." (Gould
S.J., "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History",
Penguin: London, 1991, p320)
JB>Your view is that these activities were human, evolving into the
>modern. But listen to Tattersall:
>"Homo sapiens is emphatically NOT an organism that does what its
>prececessors did, only a little better. It is something
>very...different." ["The Fossil Trail" pg. 246, emphasis added]
JB>So, no, under the standard of modern man's activity, what you've
>cited is not hard evidence, in my opinion.
Yes. Glenn seems out of step even with modern evolutionary thinking:
"Among all the events and transformations in human evolution, the
origins of modern humans were, until recently, the easiest to account
for. Around 35,000 years ago, signs of a new, explosively energetic
culture in Europe marked the beginning of the period known as the
Upper Paleolithic. They included a highly sophisticated variety of
tools, made out of bone and antler as well as stone. Even more
important, the people making these tools- usually known as
Cro-Magnons, a name borrowed from a tiny rock shelter in southern
France where their skeletons were first found, in 1868-had discovered
a symbolic plane of existence, evident in their gorgeously painted
caves, carved animal figurines, and the beads and pendants adorning
their bodies. The Neanderthals who had inhabited Europe for tens of
thousands of years had never produced anything remotely as elaborate.
Coinciding with this cultural explosion were the first signs of the
kind of anatomy that distinguishes modern human beings: a
well-defined chin; a vertical forehead lacking pronounced browridges;
a domed braincase; and a slender, lightly built frame, among other,
more esoteric features." (Shreeve J., "The Neanderthal Peace",
Discover, September 1995, p73)
God bless.
Stephen
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