Posted on 12/11/2008 2:34:06 AM PST by SunkenCiv
It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process. However, Middle Paleolithic, presumably Neandertal, assemblages persisted for another 8,000 years in Iberia. It has been unclear whether these late Middle Paleolithic Iberian assemblages were made by Neandertals, and what the nature of those humans might have been. New research... is based on a study of human fossils found during the past decade at the Sima de la Palomas, Murcia, Spain by Michael Walker, professor at Universidad de Murcia, and colleagues, and published by Michael Walker, Erik Trinkaus, professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues. The human fossils from the upper levels of the Sima de las Palomas are anatomically clearly Neandertals, and they are now securely dated to 40,000 years ago. They therefore establish the late persistence of Neandertals in this southwestern cul-de-sac of Europe. This reinforces the conclusion that the Neandertals were not merely swept away by advancing modern humans. The behavioral differences between these human groups must have been more subtle than the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic technological contrasts might imply.
(Excerpt) Read more at newswise.com ...
New Evidence of Early Humans Unearthed in Russia's NorthStone tools, animal bones and an incised mammoth tusk found in Russia's frigid far north have provided what archaeologists say is the first evidence that modern humans or Neanderthals lived in the Arctic more than 30,000 years ago, at least 15,000 years earlier than previously thought... The tusk was carbon-dated at about 36,600 years old. Plant remains found among the artifacts were dated at 30,000 to 31,000 years... The discoverers said they could not determine from the few stone artifacts whether the site was occupied by Neanderthals, hominids who by then had a long history as hunters in Europe and western Asia, or some of the first anatomically modern humans to reach Europe... If these toolmakers were Neanderthals, the findings suggested that these human relatives, who became extinct after 30,000 years ago, were more capable and adaptable than they are generally given credit for. Living in the Arctic climate presumably required higher levels of technology and social organization... If they were modern humans, then the surprise is that they had penetrated so far north in such a short time. There has been no firm evidence for modern humans in Europe before about 35,000 years ago. It had generally been thought that the northernmost part of Eurasia was not occupied by humans until the final stage of the last ice age, some 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, when the world's climate began to moderate.
by John Noble Wilford
September 6, 2001
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
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Nice, see all we have to do is forget about certain things and we shall all be rewarded, we get our funds, we shant debunk the most debunkable, and we gets our dough. Tooth of an ancient pig, or oughtright stupidity.
Is this science? No.
“But none of the alleged ‘ancestors of us all’ fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe.” [pp 126-127]”
So, the folk who stayed behind in Europe are descended from Neanderthals, and the rest of us are descended from modern humans?
That explains a lot.
“The Neanderthal or Neandertal, is an extinct member of the Homo genus that is known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia.
The Neandertal was named after theologian Joachim Neander, who lived nearby in Düsseldorf in the late 17th century. “Neander” is a classicized form of the common German surname Neumann. In turn, Neanderthals were named after “Neander Valley”, where the first Neanderthal remains were found. The term Neanderthal Man was coined in 1863 by Anglo-Irish geologist William King.
First reconstruction of Neanderthal manThe original German pronunciation (regardless of spelling) is with the sound /t/. In American English, the term is commonly anglicised to /th/ as in thin, though scientists usually use /t/, and the latter, non-anglicised, pronunciation (followed by the German long a) is preferred in British English.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertal_man
On November 16, 2006, Science Daily published an interview that suggested that Neanderthals and ancient humans probably did not interbreed. Edward M. Rubin, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), sequenced a fraction (0.00002) of genomic nuclear DNA (nDNA) from a 38,000-year-old Vindia Neanderthal femur bone. They calculated the common ancestor to be about 353,000 years ago, and a complete separation of the ancestors of the species about 188,000 years ago. Their results show the genomes of modern humans and Neanderthals are at least 99.5% identical, but despite this genetic similarity, and despite the two species having coexisted in the same geographic region for thousands of years, Rubin and his team did not find any evidence of any significant crossbreeding between the two. Rubin said, “While unable to definitively conclude that interbreeding between the two species of humans did not occur, analysis of the nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal suggests the low likelihood of it having occurred at any appreciable level.”
A main proponent of the interbreeding hypothesis is Erik Trinkaus of Washington University. In a 2006 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trinkaus and his co-authors report a possibility that Neanderthals and humans did interbreed. The study claims to settle the extinction controversy; according to researchers, the human and neanderthal populations blended together through sexual reproduction. Trinkaus states, “Extinction through absorption is a common phenomenon.” and “From my perspective, the replacement vs. continuity debate that raged through the 1990s is now dead”. Erik Trinkaus thinks he sees evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans in some fossils like the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a child found in Lagar Velho in Portugal.
Recently, Richard E. Green et al. from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology published the full sequence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and suggested that “Neandertals had a long-term effective population size smaller than that of modern humans.” While reporting in Nature Journal about the same publication, James Morgan asserted that the mtDNA sequence contained clues that Neanderthals lived in “small and isolated populations, and probably did not interbreed with their human neighbours.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertal_man
Well then, the neanderthal thing must not be the “root cause” of the stay behinds in Europe waffling so consistently between abject passivity and total militant authoritarianism.
I will now update my assumption off the neander thing and onto “must be something in the water”.
The first question is whether or not Cro-Magnon, or the early modern people who migrated into Europe, and Neanderthal people could actually mate and produce healthy, viable offspring. We may not know the answer to that for a long time (if ever). If they could mate, then I would find it hard to believe that they did not, given that the two groups overlapped each other in time and geography. That would explain why certain Neanderthal-like traits still persist in the European gene pool.
Such as?
mostly facial features in some people...I knew a fellow who would look just like a textbook neanderthal if he grew his facial hair out
I’ve seen those ridged-nose features, bony eye-sockets, unibrows, blue eyes, curved foreheads, etc., on Indians (subcontinental) too.
These features are so spread out, one really can’t say if they were of neanderthal-origin. And the genetic evidence seemingly supports this.
These were fashionably late Neandertals.
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