Neanderthals

[Moontanman]

I would like to use this thread as a place to discuss Neanderthals and their relationship to us. Questions like how close to us were they, are they part of us now and how human were they. Here are few links to get the discussion started.

 

Science News / Tools With Handles Even More Ancient

 

More Human-Neandertal Mixing Evidence Uncovered

 

The Emerging Fate Of The Neandertals

 

How Modern Were European Neanderthals?

 

Redating Of The Latest Neandertals In Europe

[questor]

If the Neandertals were a separate branch from Sapiens, when did the split occur and where did each group originate?

[Turtle]

If the Neandertals were a separate branch from Sapiens, when did the split occur and where did each group originate?

 

Honestly! Didn't even bother to read the links MoonTan posted did you!? :) Search your questions on Google or somer other engine perhaps? No!? Really? :) Get to your specifics and don't play coy. :rolleyes:

 

If the Neanderthals were a separate branch from Sapiens, when did the split occur and where did each group originate? - Google Search

 

How Modern Were European Neanderthals?

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28' date=' 2006) — Neandertals were much more like modern humans than had been previously thought, according to a re-examination of finds from one of the most famous palaeolithic sites in Europe by Bristol University archaeologist, Professor Joao Zilhao, and his French colleagues.

...

Professor Zilhao said: "This discovery, along with research on the rock strata at other cave sites, has huge implications for how we view the European Neandertals and, more widely, human evolution. The differences between Neandertals and modern humans may be much less than had been previously thought, suggesting that human cognition and symbolic thinking may date back to before the two sub-species split around 400,000 years ago." [/quote']

[questor]

Maybe you didn't understand my question. If there was a common ancestor of the N's and the S's 400,000 years ago--which primate was it? If the N's were in Europe, where were the S's during that time and which excavations show that fact? It seems that Sapiens appeared suddenly around 70,000 years ago. Where was he until then?

[Moontanman]

Maybe you didn't understand my question. If there was a common ancestor of the N's and the S's 400,000 years ago--which primate was it? If the N's were in Europe, where were the S's during that time and which excavations show that fact? It seems that Sapiens appeared suddenly around 70,000 years ago. Where was he until then?

 

What you are asking is a little simplistic questor, first of all the ancestor was a hominid, a specialized type of primate. Homo habilis was close to being their common ancestor but Homo habilis didn't just suddenly diverge into the two species there were intermediate steps as well. Most modern sources put Homo sapiens back to around 150,000 years ago. Neanderthals would be a bit further at around 300,000 years ago. some say both groups didn't appear until about half that. The split that would eventually lead to the two species was further back than that. Neanderthals had more than one ancestor after the split and so did Sapiens. Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo rhodesiensis were before Neanderthals, this means it's incorrect to think of a common ancestor that gave rise directly to either hominid. I think i remember reading the two linages probably diverged around 600,000 years ago.

[questor]

Moon, my information shows heidelbergensis as a direct progenitor of Neandertal and Sapiens about 400,000 years ago.There seems to have been three other hominids living in the same period as Sapiens: Erectus, Neanderthalensis, and Floresiensis. They all went extinct, what do you think of that? If you are interested in this subject and can entertain opposing views, go to Darwinism Refuted.com. I won't make further comment upon this site except i found it quite interesting.

[Moontanman]

Moon, my information shows heidelbergensis as a direct progenitor of Neandertal and Sapiens about 400,000 years ago.There seems to have been three other hominids living in the same period as Sapiens: Erectus, Neanderthalensis, and Floresiensis. They all went extinct, what do you think of that? If you are interested in this subject and can entertain opposing views, go to Darwinism Refuted.com. I won't make further comment upon this site except i found it quite interesting.

 

If you can't see the flaws offered as proof on that site I don't see how we can discuss this at all. There were lots of different hominids living at various times, why is this relevant? Yes they went extinct, why is this relevant? Do think that once an anatomically modern human was born all the other hominids dropped dead? At any one time in the past there were several different versions of hominids alive, sometimes even in the same areas. this is not relevant to evolution any more than several types of any other creatures living at the same time. As for this site, it shows termites from 25 million years ago as proof that evolution is false. It actually does a good job showing evolution is real, an animal that is well adapted to it's environment doesn't change. Evolution doesn't say animals change just because they are old, they only change if environmental pressures cause them to change. some animals are so well adapted they either change very slowly or not at all. sharks, sturgeons, lampreys, horse shoe crabs are all examples this. If an animals has a form that works extremely well they do not change. Evolution can not only work both forward and backward it can also stand still. My take on the ancestors of Neanderthals is disputable in it's details, I wasn't trying to be absolutely accurate I was trying to show how evolution works, Neanderthals did not spring into existence over night they had ancestors as well. tracing back those ancestors will show sapiens had ancestors too both linages diverged before they were neanderthals or sapiens. If you want i can go back and try to get the details exact, but you find there is some variation thought about how these hominids came together, some even believe that Homo sapiens sapiens is a hybrid of Homo sapiens and Homo Neanderthalis. The record isn't clear on the details and the closer you try to see the details the more fuzzy they become. It's not written down clearly enough to know which hominid at exactly what time became who or hybridized with who but the broad strokes are very clear and the smaller strokes become clearer all the time as research continues.

[modest]

Moon, my information shows heidelbergensis as a direct progenitor of Neandertal and Sapiens about 400,000 years ago.

 

According to wiki:

According to the "

Recent Out of Africa

" theory, similar "Archaic Homo sapiens" found in

Africa

(ie.

Homo sapiens idaltu

only 160,000 years old), existing in Africa as a part of the operation of the

Saharan pump

, and not the European forms of Homo heidelbergensis, are thought to be direct ancestors of modern

Homo sapiens

.

 

Homo heidelbergensis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Also, as MTM notes, heidelbergensis is not so much a single species. The transition from one successful and prevalent species to another is a messy affair. Heidelbergensis refers to a range of hominids that changed over time.

 

Homo heidelbergensis is the species name now given to a range of specimens from about 800,000 years ago to the appearance of anatomically modern Homo sapiens (the species to which we belong)...

 

Additional finds of early humans with morphological attributes of both modern humans and Homo erectus have shown that the transition from early and middle Pleistocene forms and the morphology of modern humankind was not a neat transition that could be easily explained.

 

For many years, scientists placed any problematic specimens displaying mixtures of "erectus-like" and "modern" traits into a confusing category: "Archaic" Homo sapiens (basically meaning any Homo sapiens that didn't look quite modern). Recently, it has been proposed to separate these individuals into a distinct species. For this purpose, the Mauer mandible, and the species name Homo heidelbergensis has seniority.

 

Human Ancestors Hall: Homo heidelbergensis

 

There seems to have been three other hominids living in the same period as Sapiens: Erectus, Neanderthalensis, and Floresiensis. They all went extinct, what do you think of that?

 

There were many more than 4 hominids living in that time as there are today. That three of them went extinct is... well... not at all abnormal. Species go extinct all the time. As far as living in the same area... lions and cheetahs live side by side—so what? :shrug: You are failing to imply whatever it is you think you're implying.

 

~modest

[Turtle]

... You are failing to imply whatever it is you think you're implying.

 

~modest

 

I got it right away, but he dodged my assail by saying I misunderstood. :doh: So, cutting to the chase, it's creationism he's all about. :)

 

Here's some bio of the author of the site Quentor recommends for open minds [boldenation mine]:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

August 2007

 

Harun Yahya is a pen name used by Mr. Adnan Oktar.

 

Born in Ankara in 1956, Adnan Oktar is a prominent Turkish intellectual. Completely devoted to moral values and dedicated to communicating the sacred values he cherishes to other people, Oktar started his intellectual struggle in 1979 during his education at Mimar Sinan University's Academy of Fine Arts. During his university years, he carried out detailed research into the prevalent materialistic philosophies and ideologies around him, to the extent of becoming even more knowledgeable about them than their advocates. As a result of his accumulation of knowledge, he has written various books on the fallacy of the theory of evolution. His dedicated intellectual effort against Darwinism and materialism has grown out to be a worldwide phenomenon. Quoting from the 22 April 2000 issue of New Scientist, Mr. Oktar became an "international hero" in communicating the fallacy of the theory of evolution and the fact of creation. ...Harun Yahya - The Author

[Moontanman]

This creationist stuff never goes away, they have no need to be accurate or up to date. I saw a show the other day "the view" where they were trying to discuss evolution and the pet Conservative started spouting all kinds of nonsense trying to make her point of if you have a watch then you have to have a watch maker. i could have refuted her with ease but no one else there could so i am sure she scored lots of points for the creationist scientists everywhere.

[Turtle]

This creationist stuff never goes away, they have no need to be accurate or up to date. I saw a show the other day "the view" where they were trying to discuss evolution and the pet Conservative started spouting all kinds of nonsense trying to make her point of if you have a watch then you have to have a watch maker. i could have refuted her with ease but no one else there could so i am sure she scored lots of points for the creationist scientists everywhere.

 

Let the record show that we challenged the creationist stuff with good reason. :D

 

I didn't see any mention in the listed links about the first find of a hyoid bone with a Neanderthal skeleton, so thought I'd broach it. It settled some arguments, i.e. Neanderthals couldn't speak because they didn't have a hyoid bone (a mistaken conclusion on the basis of not having found one before), but raised others as the soft tissues also involved in speech don't fossilize. Here we goes then. :hihi:

 

Neandertals and Speech

You may not have thought about the answer to that question' date=' but many anthropologists have. The discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid bone in Kebara Cave in Israel has made some anthropologists believe that Neanderthals were capable of complex speech like modern humans. Others believe that the debate over Neanderthals and speech will never end because the soft tissue of the vocal tract cannot fossilize. ...[/quote']

[Moontanman]

Feel free to post as many links as you want, Neanderthals are a very interesting and debatable subject. I think the hyoid bone deal was interesting because it seemed to indicate Neanderthals would have high pitched voices. Not what most of us would think about when we imagine a Neanderthal!

[questor]

add linkMoon, I do not know why you care about the Neanderthal other than passing interest. Why is he more interesting than Cro Magnon for instance. What interests me is how all the hominids came to be. It's hard to believe we evolved from a lemur.

Here is the interesting topic to me --evolution itself. Since this is your thread you may want it discussed on a separate thread, or you give your denouement of this article.

 

According to the theory of evolution, every species has emerged from a predecessor. One species which existed previously turned into something else over time, and all species have come into being in this way. According to the theory, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years.

 

If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring. For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms."

 

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin accepted this fact and explained:

 

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.39

 

Even Darwin himself was aware of the absence of such transitional forms. He hoped that they would be found in the future. Despite his optimism, he realized that these missing intermediate forms were the biggest stumbling-block for his theory. That is why he wrote the following in the chapter of the The Origin of Species entitled "Difficulties on Theory":

 

…''Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.40''

http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_species_03.html

[Moontanman]

add linkMoon, I do not know why you care about the Neanderthal other than passing interest. Why is he more interesting than Cro Magnon for instance. What interests me is how all the hominids came to be. It's hard to believe we evolved from a lemur.

Here is the interesting topic to me --evolution itself. Since this is your thread you may want it discussed on a separate thread, or you give your denouement of this article.

 

Neanderthals fascinate me because of their humanity, they were as human as us, in some ways they were better than us. It's fascination to think of what happened to them, why they are no longer around and if we might have hybridized with them.

 

According to the theory of evolution, every species has emerged from a predecessor. One species which existed previously turned into something else over time, and all species have come into being in this way. According to the theory, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years.

 

No, this is called gradualism, it is now known that evolution can and often does proceed in quick, almost overnight from a geological stand point, steps. While Darwin did indeed think that species were only changed gradually over huge time spans we know know this not the truth and that the process can be fast. thousands of years vs millions of years.

 

If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring. For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms."

 

A great many of these transitional forms have been found, your source is misleading when it says they have not. The key here is to remember that the odds of an animal being fossilised is very low. I'm not sure about the odds but one in a million wouldn't be too far off the mark. To expect lots of trasitional forms to be fossilized when they don't exist for long periods of time is a little bit unreasonable, even so they do get fossilized.

 

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin accepted this fact and explained:

 

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.39

 

Even Darwin himself was aware of the absence of such transitional forms. He hoped that they would be found in the future. Despite his optimism, he realized that these missing intermediate forms were the biggest stumbling-block for his theory. That is why he wrote the following in the chapter of the The Origin of Species entitled "Difficulties on Theory":

 

No, gradualism has been refuted so to has your argument.

 

…''Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.40''[>quote]

Darwinism Refuted.com

 

No, gradualism has been refuted so to has your argument.

[freeztar]

add linkMoon, I do not know why you care about the Neanderthal other than passing interest. Why is he more interesting than Cro Magnon for instance. What interests me is how all the hominids came to be. It's hard to believe we evolved from a lemur.

Here is the interesting topic to me --evolution itself. Since this is your thread you may want it discussed on a separate thread, or you give your denouement of this article.

 

 

Darwinism Refuted.com

 

Questor, the topic of this thread is "Neanderthals". If you would like to discuss evolutionary theory, then please do it in an appropriate thread.

 

That said, I fell obligated to refute the gross misconception in the quoted text.

Darwin's quote came before many transitional fossils were found. He would certainly change his tune if he could see the wealth of fossil record that we have today.

 

Have a look here:

List of transitional fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Furthermore, a fossil of *every* creature that has ever lived is an impossibility when you consider geological processes over time. The probability of fossils forming is low and requires specific conditions. It's actually quite amazing that we have recovered so many fossils.

[Moontanman]

I think it's sad that so many people fall prey to these sites that purport to refute evolution. They are never real science, Always cherry pick their information often out of out dated theories and when that doesn't work they lie. It's really sad, it's despicable that otherwise intelligent people are fooled by this stuff. The very intent is to fool people, there is no intent to show any real data, just to win, the truth is irrelevant, convincing the masses is the goal and anything goes to meet that goal.

[modest]

It's hard to believe we evolved from a lemur.

 

We didn’t evolve from a lemur. We evolved from an animal that lived 65 million years ago similar to carpolestes simpsoniand which probably looked something like a modern lemur.

 

The material you quote is not worth the bandwidth.

 

For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had.

 

Amphibians :shrug:

 

The person who wrote this either didn't know there is a whole class of animal that has fish-like and reptile-like traits or they assumed the reader was so ignorant as to not know what an amphibian is.

 

Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed.

 

And these are called dinosaurs. I believe we've found some in the fossil record since Darwin's time. :naughty:

 

~modest