Re: Neanderthal Flute

Glenn Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Fri, 10 Apr 1998 12:09:46 -0500

At 12:55 PM 4/10/98 -0400, Jim Bell wrote:
>
>
>Message text written by Glenn Morton
>
>" It would
>appear that on current evidence that Neanderthal was the inventor of the
>Upper Paleolithic explosion."
>
>
>-------------------- End Original Message --------------------
>
>I dunno, this seems like a pretty far reaching conclusion based on very
>sketchy evidence. I really don't think the anthropological world is ready
>to roll over on this one and believe that Neanderthals were flute playing,
>God-fearing blade-makers who watched public television.
>
Well it seems strange to me that you so willingly accept (obviously for
theological reasons) the view that only modern man invented the Upper
paleolithic culture. The earliest aurignacian as I noted is dated to
43-38,000 years BP. The earliest diagnostic anatomically modern human body
in Europe dates to 33,000 years. You believe that anatomically modern man
invented the Paleolithic when there isn't any actual body remains proving
that he was in Europe when the Upper Paleolithic was invented. Smith writes
of the site at Velika Pecina:

"The hominid specimen is from Stratum j, which correlates
either with the late Podhradem interstadial or (most likely) with
the basal Middle Wurm stadial, consistent with an age of more
than 34,000 years. (Stratum i, immediately above, has yielded a
radiocarbon date of 33,850 +/-520 B.P. The assemblage from
Stratum j probably represents an early phase of the Aurignacian.
This is the earliest Upper Paleolithic hominid specimen in
South-Central Europe associated this closely with a radiocarbon
date." ~Fred H. Smith, "Upper Pleistocene Hominid Evolution in
South-Central Europe: A Review of the Evidence and Analysis of
Trends," Current Anthropology, 23(1982):6:667-703, p. 680

As near as I can tell this still is the case. I searched long and hard
trying to find the date of the oldest dated anatomically modern man in
europe and you know what? Most books are absolutely silent about this
issue. One guy has said that the Baco Kiro remains from level 11 are
anatomically modern, but the remains are so fragmentary that they can't be
specified in either direction. And apparently there is some doubt as to
whether or not the date is applicable to the fossil.(see Fred H. Smith,
"Upper Pleistocene Hominid Evolution in South-Central Europe: A Review of
the Evidence and Analysis of Trends," Current Anthropology,
23(1982):6:667-703, p. 682)

So, what we have here is the Aurignacian appearing first in Spain, far from
the invading anatomically modern H. sapiens, and no definitive H. sapiens
remains until nearly 10,000 years AFTER the invention of the Aurignacian,
and the association of Neanderthals with some of the earliest Aurignacian
cultural materials. I think I could sell a jury on the concept that
Neanderthal was guilty of inventing the aurignacian and that H. sapiens
isn't, because he wasn't there and Neanderthal was.

Obviously, future discovery may change all this, but it won't change the
fact that neanderthals were found with Upper Paleolithic cultural materials
at level G1 in Vindija Cave, Croatia.

glenn

Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man

and

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm