Question about the "neanderthals"

lucaspa · #21 5th January 2004, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider

What I'm amazed about with Cuozzo's version of events is how it is that even the skeletons of Neanderthal children show the same features he puts down to advanced age.

Karl, what specifically are you referring to? Having those specifics down will help us when we encounter Cuozzo again.

Bushido216 · #22 5th January 2004, 04:32 PM

I believe the shape of the skull, i.e., the jawline and browline being so far advanced.

Karl - Liberal Backslider · #23 6th January 2004, 05:53 AM

Originally Posted by lucaspa

Karl, what specifically are you referring to? Having those specifics down will help us when we encounter Cuozzo again.

The specifics escape me. In a nutshell, Cuozzo is claiming that the features which distinguish Neanderthal skeletons are just features of extremely advanced age - i.e. hundreds of years old - in humans

Were this so, immature Neanderthals should not show these features, but they do.

I'll try to dig up the details (if you'll excuse the pun).

lucaspa · #24 6th January 2004, 07:43 AM

Originally Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider

The specifics escape me. In a nutshell, Cuozzo is claiming that the features which distinguish Neanderthal skeletons are just features of extremely advanced age - i.e. hundreds of years old - in humans

Were this so, immature Neanderthals should not show these features, but they do.

I'll try to dig up the details (if you'll excuse the pun).

Thanks. Because Cuozzo is claiming that the juvenile Neandertals do not have the features. So we do need the details. I'll check Tattersall.

Inspired · #25 13th January 2004, 05:59 AM

All animals evolve. It is a fact that we have Cro-Magnon DNA in our cells now. We have evolved since the early days of man, we have evolved since early civilization.BUT, our evolution is not fast, it never was. Milliions upon millions of years are usually required for a full mutation and evolutionary change to become permanent. AND, mankind has not been under the same environmental stresses as our distant ancestors. Even the poorest countries have shelter ... usually. Look, though, how we adapt to our environment. In harsh Africa, darker skin to protect from the sun. In the almost sunless north Atlantic, fair skin to absorb as much sunlight as possible. Our environment changed massively over time. Species either evolved, or died. The Neanderthals were perfect for their ice age environment, but could not cut it when the ice began to recede. Species who developed in the most stable regions survived.

If a group of predominately red-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned people live on an island, almost entirely cut off from any other kind for many generations, before long, the most pervasive traits will be red hair, blue eyes, and fair skin ... can you think of an island where this might have happened?

Ireland.

lucaspa · #26 13th January 2004, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by Inspired

All animals evolve. It is a fact that we have Cro-Magnon DNA in our cells now.

Cro-Magnon, yes. They are the same species we are.

Milliions upon millions of years are usually required for a full mutation and evolutionary change to become permanent.

That's not true. If it were, we could not have evolved thru several species from the common ancestor of humans and chimps in just 7 million years. H. sapiens is no more than 200,000 years old tops. Evolution happens faster than this.

The Neanderthals were perfect for their ice age environment, but could not cut it when the ice began to recede. Species who developed in the most stable regions survived.

This is too simplistic. Neandertals went extinct before the last Ice Age even started. After all, Neandertals went extinct 30,000 years ago and the last Ice Age ended only 12,000 years ago. No, it appears that H. sapiens drove Neandertals to extinction because they were better adapted to the niche of sentient tool maker than Neandertals were.

If a group of predominately red-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned people live on an island, almost entirely cut off from any other kind for many generations, before long, the most pervasive traits will be red hair, blue eyes, and fair skin ... can you think of an island where this might have happened?

Ireland.

So? Is this evolution? Has this population changed thru time?

Bushido216 · #27 13th January 2004, 05:04 PM

It's a change in the frequency of alleles.

Polycarp1 · #28 13th January 2004, 09:24 PM

Just for the record, the Neanderthal characteristics which Ark Guy outlines (and indicates that Dr. Cuozzo saw as trends in aged people) are those of "Classic Neanderthals" who lived in Europe and adjacent Asia (e.g., western Kazakhstan) during the last (Würm or Wisconsin) glaciation. Other Neanderthals, with less emphatic characteristics, lived in the Middle East prior to this time, and are often referred to as "Levantine Neanderthals" to make the distinction between them and the later Classic, European ones.

Paleoanthropologists are strongly divided between deeming them a subspecies of Homo sapiens and a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis, quite closely related to us; the latter view seems to be gaining acceptance over the past decade or so. Standing against this is a find in Spain containing skeletons with both Neanderthal and "true human" (i.e., biologically Homo sapiens) characters, suggesting that they were the products of intergroup mating.

And, not to contradict Bushido's first post, but only "Old Man Neanderthal," the arthritic type specimen that everybody brings up, was emphatically a hunched posture. The majority of skeletons, if found articulated or when re-articulated, indicate a slightly slouched posture as compared to modern man but not truly hunched over.

It's also worth noting that at least some Neanderthals had funeral customs -- excavations of Neanderthal graves in Eastern Europe have found them with the brittle, dried remnants of flowers placed on the corpse. To me there is something singularly poignant in this.

Bushido216 · #29 13th January 2004, 10:44 PM

I can definitely be cited as having over-exaggerated, but the fact that neanderthals young and old were hunched over, alot or a little, is the point that should be taken.

As far as the rest of your post, I've come to the general consensus that when there are two theory's strongly in conflict (that have evidence for them), it's possible that the answer lies in the middle. Perhaps H. neanderthal broke off from the "main" branch, so to speak, and then re-integrated back?

lucaspa · #30 14th January 2004, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Polycarp1

Just for the record, the Neanderthal characteristics which Ark Guy outlines (and indicates that Dr. Cuozzo saw as trends in aged people) are those of "Classic Neanderthals" who lived in Europe and adjacent Asia (e.g., western Kazakhstan) during the last (Würm or Wisconsin) glaciation. Other Neanderthals, with less emphatic characteristics, lived in the Middle East prior to this time, and are often referred to as "Levantine Neanderthals" to make the distinction between them and the later Classic, European ones.

Right. Notice that, as time goes on, the neanderals become more neandertal. That is, they exhibit more specialized traits that distinguish them from H. sapiens. If there were gene flow between sapiens and neandertal, this would not be happening.

Paleoanthropologists are strongly divided between deeming them a subspecies of Homo sapiens and a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis, quite closely related to us; the latter view seems to be gaining acceptance over the past decade or so. Standing against this is a find in Spain containing skeletons with both Neanderthal and "true human" (i.e., biologically Homo sapiens) characters, suggesting that they were the products of intergroup mating.

It's one fossil. Not plural skeletons. One individual, and a kid. The characters also fall within the variability of stocky humans.
6. Ian Tattersall*, and Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Commentary Hominids and hybrids: the place of Neanderthals in human evolution PNAS 96, Issue 13, 7117-7119, June 22, 1999
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/13/7117

The DNA data is pretty much clinching it. There are simply no old DNA sequences in the sapiens genome, and those would be there if there had been significant interbreeding with neandertals that produced fertile hybrids. There may still have been the occasional rape or marriage and the production of the occasional hybrid, but it appears that, if this is so, the F1 hybrid was either sterile or less fit and did not breed back into the sapiens population.
11. A Gibbons, Modern men trace ancestry to African migrants. Science 292:1051-1052, May 11, 2001. Y chromosome of EVERY person in the study could be traced to forefathers who lived in Africa 35,000 to 89,000 years ago. "one self-described 'dedicated multiregionalist,' Vince Sarich of the University of California, Berkeley, admitted: 'I have undergone a conversion -- a sort of epiphany. There are no old Y chromosomes lineages. There are no old mtDNA lineages. Period. It was a total replacement.' " In another study, Peter Underhill and colleagues analyzed 218 markers in 1062 men from 21 populations.Primary paper is Y Ke, B Su, D Lu, L Chen, H Li, C Qi, S Marzuki, R Deka, P Underhill, C Xiao, M Shriver, J Lell, D Wallace, RS Wells, M Selestad, P Oefner, D Zhu, W Huang, R Chakraborty, Z Chen, L Jin, African Origin of modern humans in east Asia: a tale of 12,000 Y chromosomes. Science 292: 1151-1153, May 11, 2001.

It's also worth noting that at least some Neanderthals had funeral customs -- excavations of Neanderthal graves in Eastern Europe have found them with the brittle, dried remnants of flowers placed on the corpse. To me there is something singularly poignant in this.

And very troubling for creationists. It indicates that neandertals had an idea of an afterlife. That makes them just like humans theologically but not humans.