Neanderthal, Discovery Erodes Differences
October 11th, 2011
Charles Darwin never mentions the 1856 fossil discovery in the Neander Valley limestone quarry located in Germany in The Origin of Species in 1859 nor in any of the six subsequent editions. Even in The Descent of Man, Darwin did not endorse the Neanderthals as a potential ancestral transitional link to humans.
In fact, the discovery was a problem since the Neanderthal skulls are larger than human skulls. Darwin had argued that the advancement of evolution proceeded through “slight, successive changes”.
The Neanderthal fossils created a dilemma for Darwin, how could a larger brain precede a smaller brain? Darwin cautiously noted, that “it must be admitted that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the famous one of Neanderthal, are well developed and capacious [large]”. For Darwin, the Neanderthal skulls were too large to have preceded humans.
As the fossil evidence for the Neanderthals continued to be discovered throughout Europe, the evidence seemed to point to the Neanderthals as a big game hunter transitional species leading to humans. With the goal of discovering our human evolutionary ancestors, the possibility that the Neanderthals represented a previously unknown ethnic group of humans was marginalized within the evolution industry.
During the twentieth century, at stake is whether the Neanderthals are a transitional species different from modern humans, or simply a human ethnic group.
Darwin, as we know now, was right to be cautious. Technology is answering the question. Just last year, a team lead by Svante Pääbo of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany eroded the genetic difference between the Neanderthals and modern humans after publishing the full Neanderthal genome.
Commenting on the findings, John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, told BBC News that “They’re us. We’re them.”
“[T]he really surprising thing for many of us,” noted Professor Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at London’s Natural History Museum, “is the implication that there has been some interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans in the past.” Since different species cannot interbreed, the Neanderthals can no longer be considered a transitional species.
Gregory Hannon of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Laurel Hollow in New York concluded that the “publication of the full Neanderthal genome is a watershed event, a major historical achievement.” Genetic evidence is clear−the Neanderthals are not genetically distinct from modern humans.
This past week, Bruce L. Hardy of Kenyon College in Ohio and Marie-Hélène Moncel of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris has further eroded the differences between the Neanderthals and modern Humans using anthropological evidence.
In the journal PLoS ONE this past week, Hardy and Moncel in the article “Neanderthal Use of Fish, Mammals, Birds, Starchy Plants and Wood 125-250,000 Years Ago”, further dispels anthropological differences between the Neanderthals and Humans.
Hardy and Moncel dispels the Neanderthal big game hunter myth: the “Neanderthals are most often portrayed as big game hunters who derived the vast majority of their diet from large terrestrial herbivores while birds, fish and plants are seen as relatively unimportant or beyond the capabilities of Neanderthals.”
At the fossil site in Payre, France, after evaluating 182 Neanderthal plant, fish and bird processing tools based in the wear and adhering biological residues on the tools, Hardy and Moncel concluded that contrary to the once popular big game hunted paradigm, the Neanderthal diet “was quite diverse, including plants, large and small animals, fish, and possibly birds.”
“Neanderthals practiced what has been considered exclusively modern human behavior”, Hardy and Moncel concluded. In other words, the diet of the Neanderthal is not different from modern Human.
These discoveries using previously unknown technologies continue to erode the differences rather than supporting the concept that the Neanderthals are an ancestral transitional link to human. The evolution industry is now tasked with discovering a better potential ancestral transitional link to humans.
The fact of evolution is: there is no consensus on what species is will become the next potential transitional link candidate. Evidence for the Neanderthal as a transitional link to modern Humans has now been eroded to the edge of extinction.
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We are part neanderthal for sure, but it does not imply that the so call “evolution industry” is wrong. I am not a religious person, but if you read the biblical genesis and change days for eras you are describing the evolution sequence exactly as Darwin pointed it. People, read the bible and also other sacred books in a literal manner, but sacred books are written in a symbolic way and symbols change their meaning with time. Darwin was just a scientist that never had anything to do with racism or social darwinism.
Greetings – H.G.
Thanks for your feedback. Would definitely agree that Darwin did not explicitly support either racism or what we now call social Darwinism. When Karl Marx asked for Darwin’s permission to dedicate Das Kapital to him, Darwin declined. Darwin did implicitly supported racism. The full title of The Origin is “On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life” the key words being “the preservation of favoured races”. Sadly, Marx, Engels, Hitler, Lenin, and Mao took that concept at face value. Darwin continues to be highly revered in the Communist movement in China – even today.
On the topic of “day”, the word for “day” used in Genesis is translated as “ium”. In Genesis 2:2 “and he rested on the seventh day” – with the word “day” translated from “ium”. For “day” to imply an “era” in Genesis, the translation would have to be consistent. In Exoduss 2:13 it is written, “And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting,” in Genesis 2:2 and Exodus 2:13 the word day – “ium” is exactly the same. You can see the problem if “day” is consistently interpreted as “era”. It wouldn’t make any sense to insert “era” for “day” in Genesiss and not in Exodus.
This is why changing the text in Genesis, while it might make sense can lead to unexpected and illogical consequences elsewhere. If the “symbolic” path is accepted, then one could say that Jesus was just “symbolic”. Would you agree that the evidence for Jesus is historical, i.e., literal, not symbolic?
I think you are confusing concepts. “the preservation of favoured races” means “favoured” by the environment. For example darker people are favoured in a tropical weather and lighter people in colder climates. Aztec and Mayans did not have horses or any other animal to be used in transportation; but Incas had llamas and alpacas, they were more favoured to travel long distances. Incas were better fed than Mayas and Aztecs.
There are people/countries/races that believe they are “choosen”, “specially blessed” or “exceptional” and that is taken by a racist statement in most part of the world. However, people that make those “racists” statements are thinking about religious behavior and not racism.
Honestly, I just cannot understand people that take sacred books in a literal manner, whithout considering that those books originated 2 or 3 thousands years ago and were originally written in an old form of language not spoken today. Translation, traducction, specially in times previous to printing (1400) changes things. Also, symbols. Symbolic language change with time.
The bible is a collection of old myths originated, in what is now known as the Middle East. What is really worthy about judaism is the 10 commands. What is really worthy about Christiany is “do not do onto others what you would not like people do to you” (sorry I do remember the concept, but not the literal wording), what is really worthy about islam is value of generosity (again I do not remember the literal wording, just the concept).
I believe Neanderthal and Homo Sappiens mixed and most of us are the result of that mixing. I just have 3 more ribs (small), short legs, red hair, “rare” dental roots, just like Neanderthals.
However, I do not mix religion and science and I do not acuse Darwin of things that he never meant.
Greetings – H.G.!
For sure, the environment plays an integral part of Darwin’s theory. Part of the environment, however, includes other species. Darwin perceived that species are in competition with each other. In The Origin of Species, Darwin wrote: “The theory of natural selection is grounded on the belief that each new variety and ultimately each new species, is produced and maintained by having some advantage over those with which it come into competition; and the consequent extinction of less-favoured forms almost inevitably follows.”
Darwin attributes extinction to natural selection: “Natural selection, as has just been remarked, leads to divergence of character and to much extinction of the less improved and intermediate forms of life.”
Again, “Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” Darwin did not exclude competition within and between species.
Although Darwin was appalled by slavery and supported the abolitionist movement, he aligned with a non-equality position between humans. His position on this is less prominent in The Origin than in The Descent of Man. Less advanced along with more advanced species would be expected as a natural consequence of biological evolution.
Modern science is an extension with Western Civilization – that was based on a Judeo-Christian foundation. The Scientific Method that laid the foundation for the Scientific Revolution was developed as an extension of this Judeo-Christian foundation. The father of the Scientific Method was Francis Bacon – a Christian. At the time in Christian circles, nature was known as the laboratory of theology. Carl Linneus, the founder of modern biology, was also a Christian. In fact, most of the major fields of science were founded upon a Judeo-Christian foundation. Science is a perfect complement to the Bible.
Isaac Newton, recognized as the most important scientist of all time by recent polls, during his lifetime was more popular for his expertise on the books of Daniel and Revelation – than he was for his scientific discoveries. Is there a specific myth you are thinking about.
On your “do unto” comment – is great. The “do unto” concept is the only reason why capitalism, also known as financial Darwinism, has not lead to tyranny in modern civilization. We definitely need the “do unto” concept.
Let science and truth live forever.
Dear Richard:
Sorry for my English, I am french.
Yes you are right! Darwin was an excellent scientist and he was not a racist, he was an abolicionist.
All of those christian scientists that you mentioned, learned from old philosophers that were not christians. Modern science is an extension of old believe, coming from greek philosophers (before christianity), and even from non western philosophers like arabs civilizations. Ancients Arabs discovered the number zero, prior to western. In the American Continent, Mayas discovered the number zero before than in Europe.
I was raised a Christian, and I go to church every Sunday, but I do not mix religion with science. Let me tell you that in the Middle East, existed the same belief of the “shepper son of a god and a virgin” and his name was Dumezil, much before the birth of Christ. Same thing in the Americas, Quetzacoalt simbolized by the plumed serpent (the mix of heaven and earth) was the son of a god and a virgin. The mayans and Incas had a similar believf.
Religion is more than mythology, is doctrine. That why I am telling you that the most important thing about Judaism is the 10 Commaments, the most important thing about Christianity is the empathy (you do not do onto others as…) and the most important thing about Islam is generosity and the religious avoidance of greed.
As a matter of fact, when Europe was in the “dark ages”, the Middle East was the center of scientific thought!
We do not know where we are coming from so religion give us some explanation. However, the most important thing about religion is the teaching of cooperation & understanding among human beings. To teach cooperation and understanding, religions use myths. Old myths.
Greetings – H.G!
You said: All of those christian scientists that you mentioned, learned from old philosophers that were not christians.
I Say: Actually, Darwin never called himself a scientist – because he was acutely aware that he violated the standard of the Scientific Method.
You said: Modern science is an extension of old believe, coming from greek philosophers (before christianity), and even from non western philosophers like arabs civilizations. Ancients Arabs discovered the number zero, prior to western. In the American Continent, Mayas discovered the number zero before than in Europe.
I say: Modern Science – using inductive reasoning exclusively – was not formally established in Western Civilization by Francis Bacon in during the seventh century. Probably the most recognized Greek philosopher today was Aristotle. However, it was Aristotle that promoted a geo-centric universe. This concept was not reversed until Copernicus and Galileo. Since the Greeks used deductive reasoning – not inductive reasoning they cannot be considered to be Modern Scientists.
You said: I was raised a Christian, and I go to church every Sunday, but I do not mix religion with science. Let me tell you that in the Middle East, existed the same belief of the “shepper son of a god and a virgin” and his name was Dumezil, much before the birth of Christ. Same thing in the Americas, Quetzacoalt simbolized by the plumed serpent (the mix of heaven and earth) was the son of a god and a virgin. The mayans and Incas had a similar believf.
I say: Actually, mother and child counterfeit legends can be traced to earlier times – during the Babylonian Empire. Since Christians through the centuries believe that the study of nature is the laboratory of theology, they have been the founders of most scientific disciplines – like Newton/Physics, Linneus/Biology – etc.
You said: Religion is more than mythology, is doctrine. That why I am telling you that the most important thing about Judaism is the 10 Commaments, the most important thing about Christianity is the empathy (you do not do onto others as…) and the most important thing about Islam is generosity and the religious avoidance of greed.
I say: In France, are there many hospitals started by Muslims? The establishment of hospitals serves as a good measure of “generosity” and “avoidance of greed.” In the US, hospitals founded by Muslims are non-existent.
You said: As a matter of fact, when Europe was in the “dark ages”, the Middle East was the center of scientific thought! We do not know where we are coming from so religion give us some explanation. However, the most important thing about religion is the teaching of cooperation & understanding among human beings. To teach cooperation and understanding, religions use myths. Old myths.
I say: Are you saying that myths should be used to promote the truth? Science is all about discovering the truth.
On another topic, I saw an interesting documentary on Pierre Laval yesterday. What do you think about him?