Neanderthals were ancient mariners

New Scientist ^ | 2-29-2012 | Michael Marshall

[Renfield]

IT LOOKS like Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago - though not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers.

Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow....

[Renfield]

Ping...

[WayneS]

Yes, but did they have a “Rime”?

[null and void]

Naaah. Neanderthals, no rime or reason...

[count-your-change]

Even later studies by distinguished scholars at prominent universities have determined that the Neanderthal built rudimentary gliders and flew from island to island.

But these went extinct when they became known as NeanderFALLS.

[BenLurkin]

It’s beginning to look as though they were superior to humans, until they were interbred out of existence.

They certainly had a larger volume brain case.

[RavenLooneyToon]

Adding to the doldrums of unreliable flight, was back then, acquiring insurance was a very complicated process, few cavemen, if any, could do it.

[patton]

Who says we are extinct? My redheaded kids are not extinct.

Sort of conservative, tho. Not sure that they believe in fire.

[Boogieman]

No, they rode on the backs of dolphins.

[varmintman]

Until very lately if somebody had ever asked me what Neanderthals looked like I'd have pointed them to Jay Matternes' reconstructions, but all of that has changed lately.

This is what Neanderthals actually looked like:

Image courtesy of www.themandus.org

Vendramini's website

I would say that some of our thinking on the subject of Neanderthals needs to change.....

[DManA]

My next door neightbor, Og, has a unibrow, protruding eye ridges and wears animal skins.

Works in the IT department at Best Buy.

[katana]

Since their cranial capacity was larger than ours (albeit distributed differently) and there’s evidence they were aware of an afterlife I have no problem believing they were anything but “stupid brutes”.

[katana]

Since you mention Best Buy I take back what I said about “stupid”.

[Maelstorm]

The Mediterran Basin being dry land is not beyond possibility. Scientists do not believe that it has been so in recent history at least not during the time of Neanderthals but I suspect they are wrong on this count. There are several indicators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis

“At the narrowest part of the Straits, there are mountains placed to form barriers to the entrance on either side, Abyla in Africa, and Calpe in Europe, the boundaries formerly of the Labours of Hercules. Hence it is that the inhabitants have called them the Columns of that god; they also believe that they were dug through by him; upon which the sea, which was before excluded, gained admission, and so changed the face of nature.[36]”

[count-your-change]

Tough to bury the old “apeman” ideas.

[varmintman]

Neanderthal DNA was roughly halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee. Moreover, as Vendramini points out, their skulls are completely good matches for ape profiles and very bad matches for ours:

Image courtesy of www.themandus.org

Neanderthals and all other hominids were glorified apes.

[Jewbacca]

“It’s beginning to look as though they were superior to humans, until they were interbred out of existence.”

They did not specialize. Their women were almost as large as their men and (from the injuries) participated in hunting.

As a result, they had lower birth rates and lower survivability of children.

[Scythian]

There is no such thing as evolution, there’s just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live ...

[varmintman]

Microevolution is real enough but microevolution won’t begin to get anybody from any sort of an ape or hominid to humans and macroevolution, which is what the theory of evolution is about, is a bunch of BS which is incompatible with modern mathematics and probability theory.

[count-your-change]

And some other study will claim chip DNA is actually closer to human DNA than that of Neanderthals. Lots of theories, all of them new and irrefutable until they become old and refuted.

[allmendream]

Neanderthal DNA is much more similar to modern humans than to a chimpanzee. Indeed, all non-African humans have 1-4% Neanderthal ancestry.

Humans are, zoologically speaking, apes. The two apes closest in DNA are humans and chimpanzees. The ‘odd man out’ of the ape group is actually the orangutan - not us. Orangutans are more genetically distinct from the other apes than we are.

[varmintman]

View from the front:

Image courtesy of www.themandus.org

If nothing else this guy ought to have a total lock on horror movies for the next ten years. Anybody with brains and talent ought to be able to make a fairly good living out of that one.

[FrogMom]

I thought we were closer to Bonobo’s than chimps.

[allmendream]

Bonobos are chimps and the data shows we share a common ancestor with both groups at the same time. A person is equally related to both of their cousins - even if their cousins are not identical twins - and even if one cousin looks or acts more similar.

Bonobo chimps and Pan chimps live on the opposite side of a river. It is exactly what one would expect if there were once only one population of chimps, and then the river changed course and ran through the middle of their population. Chimps don't swim or otherwise cross rivers - so just as languages diverge between two groups kept apart - genetic differences accumulated and the two populations diverged in DNA and habits (most notably with bonobo chimps being sex maniacs!).

[allmendream]

Bonobos are chimps and the data shows we share a common ancestor with both groups at the same time. A person is equally related to both of their cousins - even if their cousins are not identical twins - and even if one cousin looks or acts more similar.

Bonobo chimps and Pan chimps live on the opposite side of a river. It is exactly what one would expect if there were once only one population of chimps, and then the river changed course and ran through the middle of their population. Chimps don't swim or otherwise cross rivers - so just as languages diverge between two groups kept apart - genetic differences accumulated and the two populations diverged in DNA and habits (most notably with bonobo chimps being sex maniacs!).

[varmintman]

Vendramini’s claim is totally simple and logical. Neanderthals kept their basic primate appearance (what you’d expect from their DNA being halfway between ours and that of chimpanzees); became total carnivores in the European ice age; developed the long dense fur coats which all ice age animals had and without which nothing would have lasted forty seconds in the European ice age; developed big eyes for nocturnal predation activity, explaining the eye sockets being twice the size of ours; lost the big canines of apes after they developed knives and cutting tools.

[patton]

My oldest became an EVMS manager, younger kid is majoring in maths.

Dummies.

Not.

[DManA]

One of my kids has kind of red hair too. Smart as a whip. Two distinct eyebrows too.

[blueunicorn6]

Neanderthals swimming across the Mediterranean......no way.....all that hair would clog up the Strait of Gibraltar and there’s not enough drain cleaner in the world to clear out that kind of mess.

[conservaterian]

They were marooned on those islands when the Costa Isinka ran aground there.

[DManA]

what you’d expect from their DNA being halfway between ours and that of chimpanzees

If, as is claimed, Neanderthals and humans could mate and produce fertile children than we are the same animal. All differences are superficial.

[allmendream]

Lions and Tigers can produce fertile offspring. Are they the same animal with all differences being superficial, or are they genetically and morphologically and behaviorally distinct species?

[varmintman]

Take a look at those images above and let me know if you’d want to mate with anything which looked like that....

[null and void]

What makes you think you’d get a choice?

[BenLurkin]

Funny, but he doesn't look like he could build a boat. But he probably did ... in order to to show off his girlfriend.

[BenLurkin]

They were very fastidious...

[blam]

"...the islands weren't islands at the time..."

That's been a contention of mine for some time. The Med was severly dessicated during the Ice Age and was refilled between 12-7k years ago. Once the Med was refilled, the Black Sea refilled.

Refugees from 'all over the world' were talking about rising water everywhere.

Noah decides to build an ark.

[BenLurkin]

[varmintman]

Eyes aren’t big enough...

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Renfield. Note: this topic is from March 2012. I managed to miss this ping. The Neandertal Enigma by James Shreeve in local libraries Frayer'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] To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Starstruck]

Take a look at those images above and let me know if you’d want to mate with anything which looked like that....

That's a question for the old Laz.

[null and void]

just sayin'...

[bigheadfred]

Neanderthals swimming across the Mediterranean......no way.....all that hair would clog up the Strait of Gibraltar and there’s not enough drain cleaner in the world to clear out that kind of mess.

Almost, close, not exactly, really close but not quite.

All that neanderthal hair did close off the Strait. The resulting high water overcame the main power crystal in Atlantis.

The explosion wiped out everything. No more neanderthals. No more Atlantis. No more hairball.

In fact, the only survivors were 1.5 people in africa, 3 in Lapland, and 2 sacred black chickens.

[BroJoeK]

varmintman comparing Neanderthal skull to homo sapiens:
"Neanderthal DNA was roughly halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee.
Moreover, as Vendramini points out, their skulls are completely good matches for ape profiles and very bad matches for ours:"

What a bunch of nonsense.
Here are the real skulls.
Note that chimpanzees are item A, while very small progressions -- micro evolution -- take us to Neanderthals, from oldest to youngest, items J, K and L, before homo sapien sapiens, items M and N.

Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

• (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
• (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
• (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
• (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
• (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
• (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
• (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
• (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
• (I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
• (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
• (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
• (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
• (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
• (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

[bigheadfred]

Noah decides to build an ark.

Oral traditions replaced by the written word. And ever one knows book lernin' RULES.

Now we're going to talk about inbreeding...

[marsh2]

Are you the guy with the weird hair?

[null and void]

Nah, I don’t have anywhere near that much hair.

[Condor51]

(you rang?) ;-)