From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 11:28:32 EST
George Murphy worte on Feb 3 2002 or there abouts:
>Glenn -
> Probably nothing new for you here but some on the lsit may
>be intersted in a 2
>page overview of the debate about possible Neanderthal-modern
>human relationships by
>Karen Wright, ""Neanderthals Like Us"" in the March 2002 _Discover_,
>pp.26-27.
Like human gestation, I was unable to get the article here in Scotland. I
recently made a trip back to the States and was able to obtain a copy of
that issue at a used book store. Having read it I wanted to make a comment
about some of those, like Ian Tattersall who holds that Neanderthals were
not like us and didn't interbreed with us. The article, discussing his
views says:
The first humans with modern features appeared in Africa more than 100,000
years ago; 40,000 years ago H. sapiens called CroMagons made it to Europe.
Cro-Magnons had stone-shaping techniques and symbolic art that were
dramatically different from anything found in previous Stone Age cultures.
They adorned themselves with necklaces bracelets, and beads, painted cave
walls, and played drums and flutes. Their campsites and graves became more
elaborate. Judging from the artifacts of the Upper Paleolithic, our
ancestors had discovered life beyond the next mastodon brisket.î
ěIn contrast, Neanderthal culture was more about grim subsistence.
Neanderthals were the sole survivors of hominids that moved into Europe half
a million years ago. They didnít have bone needles or shell beads, they didn
ít paint or play music, and their burials were no-nonsense affairs. Itís
easy to imagine that they didnít stand a chance once the Cro-Magnons showed
up. The last Neanderthal fossils come from sites in southern Spain and
Portugal; theyíre about 28,000 years old.î Karen Wright, "Neanderthals Like
Us," Discover, March 2002, p. 26
The thing which bothers me most about this view point is the stubborn
refusal to deal with actual data, just like the young-earthers. The claim
above that Neanderthals had no beads, didn't paint, didn't play music and
had 'no-nonsense' burials {taken to mean no ritual or grave goods] is simply
false. Indeed Wright's article itself corrects one of these falsehoods(no
beads or jewellry:
ěSingle-origin theorists say the bones are all within the
normal limits of
H. sapiens variation. Meanwhile, archaeologists are questioning their
assumptions about the Neanderthal lifestyle. In particular, it has become
less clear exactly who invented the Upper Paleolithic. One assemblage in
France, dated between 39,000 and 34,000 years ago, has bone and shell
pendants, carved teeth and beads, as well as finely worked tools like the
Cro-Magnons used. But the only bones found with this technology are
Neanderthal." Karen Wright, "Neanderthals Like Us," Discover, March 2002, p.
26
see also The Neanderthal's Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers by Juan
Luis Arsuaga, Andy Klatt (Translator), Juan Carlos Sastre (Illustrator)
Neanderthals did paint. Indeed Neanderthal ancestors are a believed to have
engaged in body painting and art. Red Ochre, a coloring used in body
painting by many modern primitives has been found in association with
hominids for over 400,000 years.
At Terra Amata, there are traces of ochre pieces worn from use. (Richard E.
Leakey, The Making of Mankind, (New York:
E. P. Dutton, 1981) p. 124)
" But engraving and carving apparently have a longer
history. For instance, there is a pendant made from a reindeer's
foot bone marked with a zig-zag motif from the Bacho Kiro site in
Bulgaria stems from the same period. And from a 50,000-year-old
site at Tata, Hungary, comes an intriguing object: a mammoth
molar tooth that has been carved, shaped and worn smooth with
use. On at least one occasion it had also been coloured red with
ochre. 'Here,' says Marshack,'the artisan planned for a 'non-
utilitarian' symbolic object.' The oldest engraved object so far
discovered and dated takes us back to an incredible 300,000
years, to the site of Pech de l'aze in France. There in 1969,
Francois Bordes discovered an ox rib that had been engraved with
a series of double arcs. The motif, once again, is a frequent
feature of the art that was to follow more than a quarter-of-a-
million years later." ~ Richard E. Leakey, The Making of Mankind,
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1981) p. 137
"Pieces of red ochre, fossil skulls, and curiously shaped stones
have also been found in the caves of the late Neanderthal. This
tendency to collect curios marks the first beginning of an
artistic sense." ~ Andre Leroi Gourhan, The Hunters of
Prehistory, transl. Claire Jacobson, (New York: Atheneum, 1989),
p. 53-54
As to Music, I would refer people to my web page
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/music.htm for a thorough and
compreshensive discussion of musical instruments long pre-dating when these
fact-ignoring Out-of-Africa folk say music began. There are Neanderthal
flute, phalange whistles, skiffles and other assorted musical instruments
from earlier times.
As for elaborate graves one should think about Regourdou.
"The diversity in the treatment of the dead would appear
upon examination in the burial place of Regourdou (Dordogne)
where a young adult male was found at one end of a stone-lined
pit, with what is thought to be carefully arranged bones of a
brown bear at the other; or of the Shanidar Cave in Iraq, where
the body of one of the nine Neandertals discovered was supposedly
buried within a pit lined with pine boughs and covered with
flowers, according to the interpretation provided by pollen
analysis." ~ Michael Barbaza, "From the Middle Paleolithic to the
Epipaleolithic in the Old World," in Jean Guilaine, Prehistory,,
(New York: Facts on File, 1991), p. 59-60
or Le Moustier where the body was sprinkled with red ochre:
"Most important, the very fact that so many Neandertal
skeletons had turned up over the years indicated that they had
been buried intentionally. At Le Moustier in southern France, a
young man's body was found sprinkled with red ochre and buried in
a flexed position, as if in sleep. His head rested on a pillow
of flints, and burned wild cattle bones were scattered about as
if in offering." ~ James Shreeve, The Neandertal Enigma, (New
York: William Morrow and Co., 1995), p. 53
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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