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Extremely important Anthropological paper

/mortongr at flash.net/
/Wed, 27 Oct 1999 20:23:22 +0000/

There has been a potentially devastating blow to the view that Neanderthals
were not inventive. I am indebted to John Rylander for bringing my
attention to the article and David Tyler for pointing out the date on the
Velika Pecina human. An article published in the PNAS this week dated the
Neanderthals from Vindija cave of Croatia and showed that they are around
28,000 years old. THere is only one other Neanderthal dated this young--in
Spain. Until this dating, the view had been that Neanderthals had been
driven out of eastern Europe and made their last stand in Spain around
28,000 years, dying out in the face of the modern human onslaught. Modern
humans were believed to have invaded Europe from the Near East. The Velika
Pecina human, an anatomically modern human, was believed to be 34,850 years
old and was consistent with this paradigm. He was the oldest anatomically
modern human in Europe. He was found in the correct place and correct time
to be one of the earliest invaders. Then comes this article. Here is the
abstract.

Smith, F.H., Trinkaus, E., Pettitt, P.B., Karavani, I and Paunovi, M.
1999. Direct radiocarbon dates for Vindija G1 and Velika Pecina late
Pleistocene hominid remains. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
96(22):12281-12286.

"New accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates taken directly on
human remains from the Late Pleistocene sites of Vindija and Velika Peina
in the Hrvatsko Zagorje of Croatia are presented. Hominid specimens from
both sites have played critical roles in the development of current
perspectives on modern human evolutionary emergence in Europe. Dates of 28
thousand years (ka) before the present (B.P.) and 29 ka B.P. for two
specimens from Vindija G1 establish them as the most recent dated
Neandertals in the Eurasian range of these archaic humans. The human
frontal bone from Velika Peina, generally considered one of the earliest
representatives of modern humans in Europe, dated to 5 ka B.P., rendering
it no longer pertinent to discussions of modern human origins. Apart from
invalidating the only radiometrically based example of temporal overlap
between late Neandertal and early modern human fossil remains from within
any region of Europe, these dates raise the question of when early modern
humans first dispersed into Europe and have implications for the nature and
geographic patterning of biological and cultural interactions between these
populations and the Neandertals. "

The importance of the ~5 ka BP Velika Pecina human AND the late date of
Neanderthal in eastern Europe is that it destroys the current paradigm. The
Neanderthals were making their last stand in Croatia as well as in Spain
(which hardly sounds like a last stand, and now the earliest anatomically
modern human is 26,000 years BP.

"No neandertal fossil has been given a reliable date more recent than
36,000 years B. P. (St. Cesaire). A date of about 34,000 years B. P. has
been published for a frontal bone of modern form found at the European site
of Velika Pecina. After that, the oldest securely dated modern skeletal
material from Europe comes from a site near the town of Pavlov in the Czech
Republic at about 26,000 years B. P." ~ Bernard G. Campbell and James D.
Loy, Humankind Emerging, (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 463

(Zafarraya, Spain now has one dated to 28,000 years bp.)

Now, the interesting thing is that the Upper Paleolithic, the flowering of
modern mankind (supposedly) began around 40,000 years ago, yet now there
are no anatomically modern peoples found in Europe PRIOR to 26,000 years
BP, at lest 14000 years AFTER the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. What
is found are artifacts which have been ascribed to modern humans (but now
found with Neanderthal at Vindija dated at 28-29,000 years) because they
are pretty artifacts. Unless and until anthropology can find a modern
human prior to 26,000 years ago, the possibility remains very likely that
Neanderthal was the inventor of the Upper Paleolithic. Such a view, in
which Neanderthal invented the advanced stone tool techniques would explain
one of the biggest mysteries of the Aurignacian tools. That mystery is
summed up in the question: If modern humans invented the Aurignacian and
then invaded Europe, Why are Aurignacian tools first found in Bulgaria (a
Neanderthal stronghold) and not in AFrica or the Near East first? After
all, if the invader in the Near East had Aurignacian tools before the
invasion, we should find them in his staging areas first. We don't.

If the date of the Velika Pecina human is correct, that would mean:

that Neanderthal invented the Aurignacian tools which anthropologists have
traditionally said were made by modern man.

that Neanderthals carved the oldest artworks in the world, including the
Vogelherd figurines which are the first carved statues, and the Galgenburg
figurine which is a technically extremely complex art piece which required
drilling the rock out in the space between the arm and the body. Both of
these sites are in Europe and date between 32-35,000 years old.

Bednarik states,

"the Vogelherd, Galgenberg, Hohlenstein/Stadel and Tolbaga portable finds
had long indicated that extremely sophisticated art existed 32-35 000 years
ago in central Europe and Siberia. At long last, this has been confirmed
for French rock art. Jean Clottes and his team are drawing the right
conclusion from it: 'it is now probable that elaborate forms of art were
created long before the Upper Palaeolithic and that they have not yet been
found because of taphonomical problems'. There is light at the end of the
tunnel." ~ Robert G. Bednarik, "Sensational Aurignacian Art Found," The
Artefact, 18(1995):87-88, p. 88

Now, it would appear that if one wishes to remain within the confines of
what the data is today, Neanderthal was a very inventive fellow contrary to
what Christian apologists like Wilcox say (David Wilcox, "Adam, Where Are
You? Changing Paradigms in Paleoanthropology" Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith, 48(1996):2:88-96), p. 92). This new date as the potential
to change the anthropological paradigm but not in the way Wilcox
envisioned. This should also have some strong implications for what Hugh
Ross is teaching about anthropology. Will he pay attention to it?

I will say however, that anthropologists will be slow to accept the fall
of Velika Pecina because if it falls, the behavioral views many of them
have of Neanderthal must also fall with him. However, direct dating of the
fossil is hard to argue with.

I would add that those who don't like my view which makes the fossil men
our equals spiritually, should seriously reconsider their positions. The
data does not support the concept that Neanderthal was different from us.
glenn