http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== *A TIMELINE FOR THE PLANET **click for** **Home Page * The Neanderthals We used to be told that the Neanderthals were stupid-looking, dark and swarthy. Some scientists still peddle this line. But to me it’s sheer prejudice. It never made any sense. These folk lived for hundreds of thousands of years in a very harsh sunless environment. Of course they weren’t stupid. Or dark. This is the latest picture of a Neanderthal. It comes from /Science/ (26.10.07) so it must be right. It gives them a pale face and ginger hair. The Neanderthals had no cod liver oil capsules. So, with sunshine in short supply, they needed pale skins just as we modern northern Europeans do, to get enough Vitamin D. Since I started following this story, I’ve been struck by the way the differences between our two peoples have gradually evaporated. Every new piece of research seems to indicate that we were increasingly alike. Now some DNA has been successfully extracted from the bones of two Neanderthals. They haven’t fully sequenced the genomes yet, but one of the first two specific genes to be retrieved shows that both specimens had pale skins and ginger hair. The other gene, FOXP2, showed something even more striking. We’ve long been told that the Neanderthals lacked the brain power or the ‘vocal tract anatomy’ to be able to speak. Well their vocal tract seems to have been different from ours, so they would have made different sounds. They may also not have been able to make such a wide range of sounds as us. But FOXP2 is one of the genes associated with speech – and these guys’ FOXP2 is exactly the same as ours. This doesn’t prove anything on its own, but it certainly says “watch this space”. (In fact the Neanderthal gene wasn’t quite the same. It was ‘functionally’ the same, but it had enough minor differences to give confidence that there hadn’t been any contamination with human material. This is a very important point, because it is incredibly easy to contaminate a sample in this way.) The Neanderthals are (thought to be?) the direct descendents of the /Homo heidelbergensis/ people, who lived in Europe around half a million years ago (more ). They get their name from the Neander Valley in Germany, where the first evidence was found. The /H. heidelbergensis/ folk were warm-climate people. So when the ice moved south again, they had to adapt quickly or die out. One group adapted quickly. All the others died out. This makes the Neanderthals unique in that they evolved in the cold of Europe, where they spent their entire existence. All the other ‘human’ species (with the possible exception of /Homo erectus/ – see above link) emerged first in Africa and spread out from there. It’s not clear when they first appeared, but it seems to be somewhere around the time that we /Homo sapiens/ emerged in warmer Africa. For want of a better date, we are using 200 ky ago for both. However the Neanderthals arose in the cold north, whereas we arose in warm Africa. In other words we were warm-adapted and the Neanderthals were cold-adapted. So for a long time there was no real competition. This map from /New Scientist/ shows the maximum extent of the Neanderthals’ range. Until around 35 ky ago, they had Europe and the Middle East to themselves. Then we moderns began to encroach on their territory. For a time we shared parts of the Middle East with them. Or perhaps we took it in turns to occupy the sites. Every time the climate warmed up, the Neanderthals migrated north, and we took over. Then when the cold returned, so did the Neanderthals. Eventually however, some 30 ky ago (according to this map) we drove them out of much of their territory. By around 25 ky ago, we had replaced them everywhere except the remote parts of the Iberian peninsula. I’ve read recently that their final stand was in a cave on Gibraltar. The Neanderthals were short, stocky and well adapted to the cold. So they occupied areas where no other species of human could live. They were extraordinarily strong, but their skeletons often show damage which shows how tough life was for them. Their brains were slightly larger than ours. But views differ as to whether they were actually as smart. Some scientists, the Neanderthal-ophiles, reckon that they were as smart as us if not smarter. Others denigrate them at every opportunity. In particular they claim that all the Neanderthals’ tool and jewellery making skills (of which there were many) were copied from us. Maybe the two groups of scientists will come together at some point. But we shouldn’t hold our breaths. The Neanderthals are normally associated with the Mousterian toolkit (more ). Modern humans are associated with the more advanced Aurignacian kit (see link). However I’ve read that, for quite a long time, we were both using the Mousterian kit. On the face of it, this seems odd. But we can make sense of it by going back to the time when we shared the Middle East. Whichever group invented anything new, will have left some examples behind when they retreated – for the other group to find when they moved back in. Both groups were already well versed in toolmaking, so it will not have taken them long to ‘reverse engineer’ anything that interested them and to make it their own. The Neanderthal family life seems to have been fairly similar to our own. They evolved ‘advanced’ culture, i.e. personal adornment, jewellery and such, at much the same time as us. But their versions differed from ours – just enough to cause scientists to argue over how far, if at all, they copied us. In particular, when we wanted to make a necklace out of animal teeth, we scraped the base of the teeth thin and then made holes in them. The Neanderthals carved a groove round the base of each tooth so that they could tie a string round it. This picture comes from /Scientific American/ (April 00). The tooth on the left is Neanderthal. The one on the right is one of ours. The increasing similarity between the Neanderthals and us brings up a rather thorny question. How much, if at all, did they interbreed with us? If they were that similar then surely they must have. And yet scientists have found no evidence so far to suggest that they did. The scientists also looked at the men’s Y chromosomes. They reckon that the were too different from ours for any interbreeding to have been possible. Other research has failed to reveal any sign of interbreeding as well. I have to say that I find this very puzzling. Let’s say a little more about talking. I’ve long felt that our ancestors, right back to the chimps, have been far better at communicating than many scientists have given them credit for (more ) – though I’m now getting the impression that the scientific community is gradually coming round to the same view. There used to be a general impression that the Neanderthals couldn’t talk, because they lacked the vocal equipment that we find necessary. Scientists are good at assuming that, if some creature can’t do something the way we do, then they can’t do it at all. But It seems certain that the Neanderthals had complex tongue control. So they would have been able to make a wide range of different sounds, even if they couldn’t speak the way we do. In any case it is surely inconceivable that they could have survived the harsh climate, /and/ carried on a complex social life /and/ produced advanced tools and ornaments without having pretty sophisticated communication skills. Richard Cowen argues, in his textbook /History of Life/, that the /Homo erectus / folk were into language – of a kind anyway – 1½ to 2 million years ago. And for broadly similar reasons. © C B Pease, February 08