<<What about the evidence for a Shaman's cape found in a Neanderthal grave?>>
Oh, you mean the evidence that you once said had a body underneath it? But
when we looked, turned out only to be these leopard bones? Bones which two
guys say "suggests" it was worn as a "costume" (gosh, those guys must be GOOD.
To figure out it was a costume and not a blanket or just a dead animal!)
So, yes, what ABOUT that "evidence"? It only proves my point. Where you have
an extremely weak, singular set of bones that "suggests" several
possibilities, I have a sudden, recent explosion of unambiguous shaman-art.
You really want to go before Judge Judy with this?
<<Jim, There is very little distinction between what Neanderthal man did and
what middle Aurignacian man did.>>
The real question I raised with you is the qualitative difference between the
Upper Paleolithic and its precursors. What do you think of this from your
friend Mr. Shreeve [p. 270]:
"No amount of precedent-pointing can explain the astonishing increase in the
sheer volume of culture in the Upper Paleolithic and what that increase
relfects in the lives of people. A handful of pierced teeth and beads have
indeed been found in several late Neandertal sites. But what connection do
these isolated curiosities have to the torrent of personal ornaments showered
across France and Germany in the Aurignacian, right at the beginning of the
Upper Paleolithic? How can they explain the ornamental munificence of Sunghir,
a grave site near Moscow about the same age as Dolni Vestonice, where the
bodies of three people were festooned with doezens of bracelets, necklaces,
painted pendants, and TEN THOUSAND ivory beads? According to Randy White, an
archaeologist at New York University, each of those beads took about an hour
to make. That equals ten thousand hours of labor, all to decorate three
corpses and lay them in the ground. The Neandertals buried their dead, but
they did not devote much time and attention to the act. Sunghir does not
represent a little more of the same. IT IS A DIFFERENT QUALITY OF CULTURE
ALTOGETHER." [My emphasis]
I agree with Shreeve and disagree with you about the qualitative difference.
Jim