> At 12:35 PM 5/25/98 -0400, Jim Bell wrote:
> >Great point! In all of the debate raging about the humanity (or not) of
> >Neanderthal, the issue clearly is the definition of humanity. Glenn and
> >others point to evidence of Neanderthal's reflective consciousness (e.g.,
> >burial sites) or "art" (such as it is) as, perforce, evidence of humanity.
> >
> >This, however, may be based on an erroneous definition of "humanity." If
> >so, the house of cards crumbles.
Glenn has given further support for his position, concluding:
"If Neanderthal didn't have the image of God, he did a fine job of
faking one." I would like to add a few comments, based on a
newspaper story.
Headline: Caring cave dwellers were early 'new men'
Author: Rajeev Syal
Source: The Sunday Times, 19 April 1998. page 15.
The article is based on a book by Richard Rudgley with the title
"Lost civilisations of the Stone Age", to be published this Autumn.
Rudgley is an Anthropologist at Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
The "caring" description is supported by the discovery in northern
Iraq of a badly disabled man (withered right side, one eye, severe
arthritis) who lived to 40. "This suggests that his community not
only accepted him but also cared for him until he was prematurely
killed by a falling rock. " This discovery was dated at 46,000 yrs.
Another evidence, this time from Italy, was of a dwarf. "...
surprising because most anthropologists believed dwarfs were
abandoned to die".
"... according to Rudgley, Stone Age man learnt to analyse the
movements of the stars and interpret the moon's cycle. Scientific
analysis of 30,000-year-old engraved bones in Africa reveals groups
of 28 notches signifying the days of the lunar month."
There's much more! Rudgley does not appear to make too much of the
different races of ancient man - although that may be the reporter's
slant on the book.
It seems to me that the more we look, the more we find evidences of
Stone Age men thinking and behaving in very human ways. Glenn is
right, IMO, to point out that this is an embarassment for Christians
who want to exclude Neanderthals, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo
erectus from the Basic Type of humanity.
Best wishes,
David J. Tyler.
*** From David J. Tyler, CDT Department, Hollings Faculty,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Telephone: 0161-247-2636 ***