Neanderthal murder ping.
The world’s first “hate crime”. Where’s Al Sharpton when you really needed him?
Reparations?
This wouldn’t have happened had Neanderthals had spear control laws.
How do we know a modern human threw the spear? Did it have a luggage tag on it or something?
It wasn’t me! I was sleeping in bed with my sweetheart... Just ask her! Hey Honey? Honey?
Okay, they have a skeleton with damage to a rib. Period.
From that they deduce that it was made by a projectile rather than a spear whose wielder held on to the spear as he thrust. They deduce by experimenting with dead pig carcasses. But remember that they have no soft tissue to examine—they are going by the mark left on the bone by a projectile as compared to the mark left on the bone by a hand-held spear.
On the bone of a modern pig.
Having decided that it was a projectile, then they deduce that the projector of the projectile had to have been a human rather than a Neanderthal because, humans had learned to use spear throwers and Neanderthals had not.
Notice that the question is not the nature of the weapon’s head—in either case it’s assumed to be a spear point. The issue is whether it was hurled or held and thrust.
That’s an awful lot to deduce from a single rib with a mark on it.
It could be true, of course. But it’s a huge theory based on very tiny evidence.
If I tried this sort of thing with historical arguments about something in, say, the high Middle Ages or something during the Thirty Years War, deducing this sort of momentous sociological theory about this or that group’s relations with some other group and did it on this slim a foundation of forensic evidence, I’d be laughed out of the court of historical scholarship.
But they get away with this because, after all, we’re never going to have much more evidence—we’re stuck with a single rib with a mark on it.
The more honest thing to do would be to say, “we just don’t know.”
But if they did that, their whole discipline of “evolutionary anthropology” would go up in smoke.
I don’t mind them playing around with speculative theories. I just despise the journalists and popularizers who treat this now as established fact: early humans killed off the po’ widdle Neanderthals” “Big bad human meanies are always killing of po widdle defenseless critters.”
Time travel—so easy, even a modern man can do it?
additional:
Prehistoric cold case shows hints of interspecies homicide
Duke University | Jul 20, 2009 | Unknown
Posted on 07/20/2009 2:43:00 PM PDT by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2296945/posts
related sidebars, from the archives:
Were Neanderthals stoned to death by modern humans?
New Scientist | Thursday, November 20, 2008 | Ewen Callaway
Posted on 11/20/2008 6:21:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2135699/posts
Neanderthal Weaponry Lacked Projectile Advantage
Discovery | Jan. 14, 2009 | Jennifer Viegas
Posted on 01/15/2009 5:18:56 PM PST by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2165443/posts
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Gods |
Thanks rdl6989.To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.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] |
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