Neanderthals and Early Humans May Not Have Mingled Much

NY Times ^ | May 9, 2011 | Nicholas Wade

[Pharmboy]

An improvement in the dating of fossils suggests that the Neanderthals, a heavily muscled, thick-boned human species adapted to living in ice age Europe, perished almost immediately on contact with the modern humans who started to enter Europe from the Near East about 44,000 years ago. Until now bones from several Neanderthal sites have been dated to as young as 29,000 years ago, suggesting there was extensive overlap between the two human species. This raised the question of whether there had been interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals, an issue that is still not resolved. RSS Feed RSS Get Science News From The New York Times »

But researchers report that tests using an improved method of radiocarbon dating, based on a new way to exclude contaminants, show that most, and maybe all, Neanderthal bones in Europe are or will be found to be at least 39,000 years old. Thomas F. G. Higham, a specialist in radiocarbon dating at Oxford University, and Ron Pinhasi, an archaeologist at University College Cork in Ireland, have dated the bones of a Neanderthal child less than 2 years old whose remains were found in the Mezmaiskaya Cave in the northern Caucasus Mountains. A second Neanderthal baby, found in a lower layer in the cave, was previously dated back 29,000 years.

[LiteKeeper]

Neanderthals were early humans.

[SunkenCiv]

Earlier, anyway. The irrational bias(es) against Neandertal which persists probably originated with Virchow:

The Future of the Past: Archaeology in the 21st Century by Eberhard Zangger

[W]hen the headteacher Johann Karl Fuhlrott discovered the bones of a Neanderthal in a cave near Dusseldorf in 1856... Rudolf Virchow, President of the Deutsche Gessellschaft fur Anthropologie... who personally promoted the principle 'always practise honesty and stand by the facts whatever happens' -- endorsed the interpretation that the Neanderthal was a bow-legged, Mongolian Cossack with rickets, who had been lucky enough to survive multiple head injuries, but who, during a campaign by Russian forces against France in 1814, had been wounded, and (stark naked) had crawled into a cave, where he had died. Thirty years passed before the specialists recognised their mistake. [pp 288-289]

[stuartcr]

I wasn’t aware that the first tribe to discover religion went on to take over the whole world. Where can I find proof of this? Thanks in advance.

[GraceG]

If Neanderthal Women looked like Helen Thomas this would explain it....

[Reeses]

I wasn’t aware that the first tribe to discover religion went on to take over the whole world. Where can I find proof of this? Thanks in advance.

Page 60 on covers it. Particularly read the second paragraph on page 62:

Supernatural selection: how religion evolved

[stuartcr]

How do you know Mr. Rossano is correct?

[Reeses]

I don’t know with certainty that he is correct but he makes sense given the available circumstantial evidence. Some of that evidence is available in the living. For example from anywhere on Earth people are quarrelsome and have a remarkable ability to reject evidence in conflict with their already made up minds. Those talents are useful for catalyzing human evolution and for maintaining a religious faith.

[stuartcr]

While not proof, circumstantial evidence can be fun and useful, especially for college professors that write books.