I always thought that they were an ancestor...I...guess not.
I guess we could think of them as, a very distant cousin.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080504/sc_af...25gCuwI0mVFeQoB

I am very sceptical about the whole human evolution. I think they are withholding information due to political controversy, and maybe even outright lying. There is to many things that just don't ad up.

If that is true then I suspect that we may have killed them all outright...mass extermination or genocide...so to speak...

I had a collection of Time Life books I loved to read when I was a kid. One of these fantastic books was written way before science was taken over by PC dictatorship. It stated within one of these fantastic, yet possibly wrong books, that we humans descended from Cro-Magnon, and we had interbred with Neanderthal, which genes sometimes show up as undesirable birth defects, or the interbreeding lead to other sub-species of the modern human. And yes, this book gave a list of the "sub-species" with possible Neanderthal roots. I will not list them due to all problems that might proceed and arguments that will arise. Interbreeding makes more sense than a mass genocide of Neanderthal. (Also, there are many traits in todays modern human that have both Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal traits that are positive, like the larger brain cavity of the Neanderthal.) It takes too much effort to track down and kill an entire race when your stomach rumbles and your kids are starving for meat. If our ancestors were so shallow to do this, there would be only one color of people, not the plethora of different races there are today.

No, we are a different race. But the shocker was in that we are related even if different. Or was some time ago. The extent of difference presents a distinct problem. Evolution is by no means all wrong, but like creationism, it is a dogma of a different religion.

Funny enough I just came form a post on genetic manipulation, that is closer to what really happened then both Evolution or Creationism.

However there should be no doubt that past Earth races mated with the current race. If you can sort out the genetic encoding you will find many races are packed into this one. Not just Neanderthals. The key here is in how much of the other race's influence exists in the modern human. Evolution makes the mistake of thinking that modern humans "evolved" from an earlier race, but that is not true, the modern race we call human is not from an evolutionary step. It was added to this planet in an event that devastated Earth's existing races.

This may sound far out but realize that Creationism and Evolutionary Theory are just as far out there as what I am proposing. I mean come on, God created man in a day? Man is the chance mixture of trillions of combinations of amino acids? There is just as much fact supporting what I am saying (if not more) then what these other theories put forward. The main difference being that if humanity was added at a point in Earth's time line from a different planet, well there goes the pride of being original. Not to mention an implication of our connection to a race of aliens. And lets not leave out the mentioning that what I am suggesting is not the start of humanity but simply a point in a much longer human history.

Then there are the Neanderthals. They have their own history, added to the planet as well. Horses were added, trees, this planet is quite the hordge podge.

How is this an article of evolution being wrong?

It has LONG been known that neanderthals were not dirrect ancestors because we know our direct ancestors lived concurrently with them. The only debate even when I was in university was whether there was some interbreeding or not.

There is "just as much much fact" supporting your idea as the 100,000 papers published in the past 30 years on evolution? Great. Start listing them. You know, you should be up for the Nobel Prize.

And by they way.. yes..if you look at the modern genetic coding of humans you WILL find genes in common with our ancestors. Of course. If you could read our genes as a story..if you knew the code.. you would read about all the creatures and environments that led to us currently. And 1 million years in the future should something be still extent from out we are now.. our code will be left in them.

If you dont believe you are a mixture of amino acids...you are simply in denial of body chemistry.

Lol, what a post.

I am afraid you misunderstood me. You see I don't believe Evolution is all wrong. You will just have to take it in faith that creationism is not all wrong either. You see neither is 100% wrong. But they are not 100% right either.

Take a good look at those papers of yours and you will read about all the facts that evolution is your origin. I have read many too. I concur that they are indeed facts and do support what is presented.

On the other hand you have creationism. It's origin is a bit poorly documented with verifiable evidence but it is not all wrong either. You see stories have a habit of making their way down through the ages in a distorted form. Many true events can be traced to existing stories but you will rarely find them accurate. Creationism is in error in that they think God created man a few thousand years ago and that is his origin. It is not. It was a change to the race of man that has been remembered in a distorted form. It is real even if not as described and greatly altered from the original account not to mention way off when it comes to when it happened.

Evolution on the other hand is traceable at this time. The people of old didn't have DNA or other methods to put what happened to words. So you don't get the same story. Yet they are not in total disagreement. They just describe what happened in different words and situations.

Is evolution false? No way! Do the facts of evolution shed more light on man's history? Yes! The facts of evolution do not prove Evolution to the extent you are assured it is proven. In fact what constitutes Evolution changes quite often. It is going to have to change because it is not correct. It is more accurate then what we have had so far. But it is still not correct. Thus it is forced to change as new evidence points out that Evolutionary theory has missing key events and outright wrong assumptions yet contains more facts then man is accustom to or creationism could ever offer. Events in man's history played a key rolls in the fate of man as a race. That these events are beyond us right now does not make them unimportant or Evolutionary Thoery true.

I have to take on faith that creationism is not all wrong? And THAT is exactly what is wrong with your post. See, I believe in science. Not in "belief" or "faith".

Lovely little condescending "what a post" comment..followed by the revelation that you know (presumably based on faith) far more than anyone on the topic.

Evolutionary theory doesnt contain any "events". It describes a PROCESS that through natural and sexual selection the most fit living organism in any given population in any given environment will pass on more of its genetic material than less fit organisms. What is wrong in that? What is "missing"? What is being changed? Yes, there are some changes in details.. for example, there is some debate over the role of neutral mutations, the rate of even "punctuated equilibrium" and so on.

You seem to be confusing the present time line of human evolution with evolutionary theory.

Yes, the time line of human evolution is constantly being updated. When I was in university Homo habilis was considered a direct ancestor..that seems unlikely now. As I mentioned earlier, when I was in university there was still some debate on whether Neandertals had interbred with our ancestors.

The hominid time line is proving a difficult one to work out precisely because we have so much data now. Yet you claim to have as much data supporting your idea that humans were genetically manipulated. And I say again, if you have the evidence you will soon be up for the Nobel Prize. Im excited to see your papers.

I apologize for asking you to take anything in faith. It seems reasonable of you to not want to and I respect that.

You can disreguard that comment. I was just ising it for what it is that I wanted to say, but there is no real importance in it.

My comment was probably a bit snide.. I just dont have any truck with "faith". I make just one exception.. every year I have faith that the Seahawks will win the Superbowl. You can see where THAT faith has gotten me. lol

I never say in my posts "I know what really happened in history", because I am sure I don't. Evolution is onto something. Religious text once were. As any subjects do, they can change. Even Science has the ability to slip from fact. Religion has already done this.

Older writings (and here I am not talking only about religious writings) are as close as we can come to in understanding what the people of yesterday had to say about the time and ideas of their day.

These writings are subject to the understanding with witch they were written, any editing the record may have undergone (religious text are edited like mad for some reason) and last, our ability to see what the writer was talking about when he used the language.

There is not doubt these people of old had different ideas to our own. For example: I had trouble grasping that the Greek army had a fitness test required for any man to enroll in their commissioned army. That test was that the applicant had to be able to jump his own height. Today that would make for a very small army made mostly of basketball players.

In Greek art, sometimes the men are depicted as golden in color. Most anyone I asked said it was an artistic touch and they the people were not fact golden. However they were. The men would apply an oil to themselves that server to protect themselves by making them slippery that gave them a golden sheen when in combat.

This stuff goes on and on. It was a different world, but lets not underestimate them and say they were just savages. When they talk of giants that walked the Earth they were not being over dramatic. We know that now that we have uncovard the remains of the giants. I am not saying what they wrote is word for word, but ask yourself, how would a dramatic event in their time be recorded? What would it look like to us, a different people, different language thousands of years later?

i thought they died out because they could plan ahead or farm.so in time of enviromental change,they couldn't store food,or gather and died out in the ice age.the debate of where we come from is gonna go on and on.

You realize they survived longer then any other recorded subspecies of humans. Adapted to live in heated and frozen environments. No, they did not die off because they couldn't adapt, that was the one thing they proved they could do.

so what happened,did they interbreed and lose the classic neanderthals,or were they killed off by another species of sapien.was gradual or immediate decline before extinction.who knows?

regarding evolution you should read about it on www.harunyahya.com.

thats just a false theory that the science elite of today desperatly tries to hold on to,but sooner or later they will have to give it up.There are too many prooves against it(those that you know about but the big ones are the ones that the average person doesnt know)

This post has been edited by Mella: May 10 2008, 07:03 PM

Mella..its not the "science elite" (what does that mean anyway?) that "clings" to evoultion. Evolution is essentially scientific fact. I encourage you to read about in a science setting.

We call “Neanderthal” any fossil man (genus Homo) that shows enough anatomy-specific characteristics (apomorphs) that are retained in order to define this sub-species. In other words, it is the gradual transition from one form (erectus) to another (neanderthalensis), and proof (if need be) that it is no longer a true speciation but a relation – a plesiomorphies:apomorphies ratio expressed in reversed order.

Thusly defined, Neanderthals have been found between 100-35 Kyrs, from Portugal to central Asia – those in Asia being both more recent and less ‘neanderthalised’ than, say, the ones found in Europe c. 100 Kyrs in Saccopastore, Bañolas, or in the Delauney cave at La Chaise de Vourthon. We think that the expansion (or migration) of these fossil men has been done from East to West – where we found them in Israel, Libanon, Iraq, Iran, in the Caucasian Range, and Uzbekhistan – and during the Riss-Würm interglacial stage. We also think that the destiny of the Neanderthals closely relates to the origins of modern humans. Why? Fossil evidence indicates that modern humans (H. sapiens) first evolved in sub-Saharan Africa sometime prior to 100 Kya (100,000 years ago). Afterwards, they spread northward after 40 Kya, displacing or absorbing local archaic human populations. As a result, the southwest Asian, Central Asian, and central European Neanderthals were absorbed into those modern human populations and contributed genetically to the subsequent early modern human populations of those regions. Even in Western Europe there is fossil evidence for interbreeding between late Neanderthal and early modern humans.

Fossil evidence from hundreds of sites they created depicts an accurate view of their behavioural patterns. The Neanderthals appear to have lived in relatively small groups, moving frequently on the landscape but reusing the same locations often. Most of their early tool kits are described as those of a Palaeolithic technological complex called the Mousterian/Middle Paleolithic industry. Their way of life changes after about 40 Kya, when Neanderthals in Europe began making a variety of more-advanced (Upper Paleolithic) tools from bone and stone that were frequently set in with a handle. They also made personal ornaments: clearly showing that they were truly capable of complex technological and social behaviours. This is all the more important as the earliest modern humans left behind an archaeological record that is essentially indistinguishable from that of the Neanderthals. Neanderthals were the first human group to survive in northern latitudes during the cold (glacial) phases of the Pleistocene. They had domesticated fire, as evidenced by concentrations of charcoal and reddened earth found at their sites. They were the first humans to bury their dead intentionally, usually in simple graves. They also occasionally created simple forms of personal decoration such as pierced pendants. The remains of all older individuals show signs of serious wounds, sprains, or breaks, suggesting a high frequency of traumatic injury. Yet, they were able to keep severely injured individuals alive, in some cases for decades. This reflects a more advanced social organization.

Victors write history. In my humble opinion, too many anthropologists associate a population of Homo sapiens with a more efficient social organization, a new technology, the emergence of art, and of course, the invention of symbolic language. Well, it is just too good to be true, too beautiful to be scientific. There are so many shadow areas... First - the emergence of Homo sapiens, which we all are today. Second – granted, we would probably never know how Homo neanderthalensis talked. But fact is there were exchanges between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens. And these exchanges could not have happened without some kind of language. Excuse me but I have difficulty in understanding exchanges without language... Third - the mystery surrounding the "disappearance/absorption" of Homo neanderthalensis some 35 Kya. And so on. However, we just can’t deny the ‘outburst of symbolic thought’ that came with Homo sapiens. Nor can’t we deny its technological inventions, navigation for example. To what end did these Palaeolithic men go to Australia, then to America, and later on to the Oceanic islands? There were no demographic boom, no problems of survival, nothing. There were just no reasons at all... – except maybe the emergence of language and its functions. To go to Australia, to go beyond the horizon, you need something more than just craft or ships, something that carries someone away, something so ravishing that it ‘transports’ men and women. I think that the expansion of Homo sapiens towards new worlds, and all the changes that occurred in the Neolithic, and today’s conquest of Mars, they all come from our visceral need of telling tales. I think that our Prehistory and our History come from the tales told by our ancestors.

Something to ponder over for the future of our Earth...

Well, unfortunately Im counted in that group of anthropologists that credit modern humans with more efficient social organization and a myriad of other tools. Clearly H. sapiens didnt go around hunting down each individual Neandertal, and yet clearly H. sapiens completely replaced Neandertal in every environmental niche it lived in eventually. They outbred, out competed Neandertals completely, which they simply wouldnt have done without being more efficient. And it wasnt even close. There were no pockets that Neandertals managed to hang onto for an extra few thousand years..there were no areas where they achieved long lasting, peaceful co existance. DNA has now ruled out absorbtion.. Neandertals were outright replaced.

From our vantage point now looking back some people say the technological achievements were roughly the same, but thats ignoring the details. Compare the stone tools of H. neadertalis with H. sapiens...compare clothing.. compare just anything and you cant escape the feeling that H. neandertalis was inescapably behind.

I would also dispute the "fact" that there exchanges of any type. Its possible. It has been put forward. But there are other explanations. It is possible H. neandertal aquired H. sapien goods by raiding (just as technologically inferior societies have always done when neighbored by tech savvy cultures). They could have followed H. sapien camps and areas when H. sapiens moved on and scavanged.

As for motivation of human migration.. I leave that for another thread.

The picture painted by the fossil record is much more complex than that. And on this one, I’m taking sides with Erik Trinkaus, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Nuria García, João Zilhão, Pascal Picq, and Yves Coppens, to name just a few who like me are seeing things differently. There are too many shadow areas.

Morphologically speaking, the distinctions between H. sapiens and H. neandertalensis are easy to make.

Culturally-wise, it’s quite another story. There’s no distinction at all: they made and used the same tools. Tools that were more and more elaborated and sophisticated, thanks to a new procedure of flaking stones, the Levalloisian technique. This procedure makes use of a prepared core, and the entire tool-making process needs a complex recursive sequence to be done correctly. The Levalloisian technique was widely employed for flake production in Mousterian lithic industries in Europe, and western Asia. H. neanderthalensis made shelters and had the same hunting techniques than H. sapiens.

There were exchanges between them. And H. neanderthalensis talked, no doubt about that. There’s no reason that they talked the same way as we did now, sounds might have been entirely different, but they did talk.

Well, I have come to mistrust any interpretation that seeks only one thing, to belittle in any way H. neanderthalensis. Archaeological evidence suggests just that. And this evidence “speaks” about the technical and cultural activities of H. neanderthalensis, and there are no reasons at all to think that they did not possess a language.

Here we found an inacceptable defect of the occidental culture, a legacy from the racist 19th century anthropology, which pretends that occidental languages are more elaborated and more complex than the languages spoken by primitive peoples. Modern linguistics shows by contrast that not a single actual language family is less complex than another. And linguists are talking about modern language families… Imagine the situation when talking about Neandethalians…

Even if we agree with the thesis – a reductionist and contestable one – that wants to portray H. neanderthalensis as borrowers of techniques and of their late taste for ornaments, how could have they spread all these ‘borrowings’ into all his populations without language??

Actual research focuses on genetic exchanges between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens. Great! But no one asks the question of the existence (or non-existence) of a kind of pidgin-language between these men… It beats me!

Most cordially,
Allison

Yes yes yes.. we can line up our supporters into two different lines all day but that doesnt make the issue any clearer.

You are assuming Neandertals speach was just as sophisticated..when in fact you know that the judgement is still out on whether they were able to fully speak at all and what form that speach might have taken. And while all modern languages are equally evolved, are you really projecting MODERN speach with the speach from what was most likely the dawn of speech ability in humans? You feel there was no development process at all? No intermediates?

Im not pretending "occidental" lanaguages are superior to anything. Im saying that within a relatively short period of Cro-Magnons PERMANENT arrival in Neanderthal homelands, the Neanderthal was gone. Neanderthals passed on NO mitochondrial DNA. Whether they borrowed or didnt borrow techniques later.. I dont know..but you dont find it a bit of coincidence that Neanderthal culture undergoes a revoultion right about the time Cro Magnons arrive on the scene? Thats some coincidence.

You accuse basically those that say modern humans were more fit for the environment basically of racism (speciesism)..but the facts speak for themselves. Neandertal died out. If you dont agree it was because he was less fit linguistically, intellectually, culturally..then how do you explain it?

or do you cling to the idea that Neandertals interbred, contradicting multiple studies of their DNA?