Posted on 02/26/2006 3:25:01 AM PST by Pharmboy
So is that where the custom of giving a Diamond engagement ring came from? From carbon dating among the cave people?
How does this impact the theory of evolution then?
Not at all. I wonder why you would think that it would have some type of impact considering humans are not thought to be descended from Neanderthals. . .
And finally, it is worth noting that it is a fallacy to craft an analogy between modern post-Industrial society and the pre-urban subsistence world of the Cro-Magnon. Back then, and until relatively very recent times (about 5000 years ago) the degree of technological aptitude or cultural sophistication was all but indistinguishable between humans worldwide.
You are a bit smug about this. First you say intelligence and technolgy matter. In the next breath, you say they don't. Your readiness to throw around words like "fallacy" are a hint. Tool making is driven by necessity, not intelligence. Those who live in the garden of eden where food is plentiful and climate is not harsh can do very well without technology.
The bushman of the Kalahari dessert spend only four hours a day working to survive. The same with Amerindians deep in the Amazon Jungle. Where people compete for scarce resources, they learn each other's technology which more often than not had to do with fighting. The endless wars and competition among people of Eurasia brought them to a more advanced state of development than elsewhere. An old saying, "necessity is the mother of invention." is a good commonsense explanation of technological differences than the academic one that looks for intelligence in genetics. One would have Condolezza Rice washing floors with such a view.
There are 87,000 hits alone on Google for this subject.
The same argument shows that Kenniwick Man was just a deformed Indian.
I used my time machine to go back and "collect infromation" about the sex habits of Neanderthals and early Cro-Magnon.
I don't have a definitive answer to the lack of interbreeding, but my butt still hurts.
(/sarc)
At no point did I say that intelligence and technology don't matter. What I did was agree with you that they did not matter in the way that you incorrectly thought I had previously said that they mattered.
The Neanderthals lived in a much harsher environment than that where the early modern humans that replaced them originated.
I think so. Here's my since refuted theory (I'm giving you all of it because, despite being wrong in key details, its' a good story) The bolded paragraph is somewhat germane...
The First Man Was a Woman
I can't prove it, but I believe the first man was a woman.
Modern science has used mitochondrial DNA to track human origins back to a single female. This is the so-called Eve hypothesis.
I believe that this was the first fully human Homo Sapiens. A girl was born with a genetic 'defect' in her mitochondria. The mitochondria control the enzyme activity in the cell. This change affected her metabolism at a deep cellular level.
The first human had an altered metabolism that manifested itself in a suite of gross differences:
She lacked vibrissae, the sensory whiskers common to all other mammals.
She had full lips, not the thin line at the rim of the mouth typical of other species.
She was weak, compared to others of her kind.
Her features retained a more child-like appearance as she grew up.
But, the two most critical differences were a lack of body hair, and a monthly estrus cycle.
Why are the last two most critical?
The lack of body hair provided an interesting advantage. To understand this, let's look at cats. There is a breed of hairless cat. Instead of fur, they have a velvety skin. Their owners often comment on how affectionate their cats are. Affectionate? Not really, these cats are just COLD, they snuggle to keep warm!
Back to our first human, she sure is cuddly. She is much more desirable than her standoffish hairy sisters.
Rather than the annual fertility cycle, she is 'in heat' all of the time. Cuddly and friendly too!
Lacking muscle strength, she needed to be protected. The beginnings of love as we now understand it.
That she needed protection is deeply ingrained it the human psyche. In propaganda there are surprisingly few common themes. The enemy is depicted as snakes, spiders, octopus, and, ... and ... hairy ape-men seizing the furless women. The massive muscular King Kong is interested in the petite Fay Rae. Did you ever wonder why this resonated with the audience?
Simple. The first man was a woman...
I will add my uninformed thoughts to the others on Neanderthals.
Having survived in a northern clime for eons, they were probable furry.
There evidently are no descendants from FEMALE Neanderthals.
If females had to be taken by force (kept the race strong), and the average female Neanderthal was strong enough to sling the average horny Cro-Magnon male into the next county there would be very few successful Cro-Magnon-Neaderthal rapes.
It hasn't been a theory in scientific circles for decades. It has been thought possible that interbreeding occurred between early humans and Neanderthals, but as we've discussed in this topic that now appears unlikely to have occurred to any significant extent.
I'm afraid much of the material you can find on Google tends to lag behind the scientific cutting edge by decades (or in some cases centuries!)
Yeah, but the Neanderthalers didn't improve their tools for 100,000 years. That just ain't human...
You are a bad man.
But I guess I've told you that before...
I continue to question the validity of any comparisons to modern H. sap DNA. The comparisons should be to similarly old H. sap. DNA.
Plus the genetic differences appear not to be great enough to guarantee inter-group infertility, even at this chronological remove.
The debate was inevitable but it's certain the context of the burial (Gravettian not Mousterian) and the subsequent evidence of the cranio-facial analysis supports Schwartz and Tattersall not Trinkaus.
I don't have an opinion in this debate. I do, however, have some concerns about DNA evidence. Based on recent problems in the Houston Police Department crime lab it seems that DNA can prove whatever someone wants. Maybe there are others who are competent in DNA testing.
And how many of those hits include "not" in the actual text?
That looks very interesting. I don't have time to read it right this moment (I have to leave for a couple hours) but I will definitely plan on it later. Thanks for the ping!
So you think archaeological method and theory has not advanced in 150 years?
What cave have you been hiding in?
Signed: Coyoteman (an archaeologist)
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