Sunday, September 26, 2010

Neandertals as Advanced as Early Modern Humans?

This is something that I have thought for years. In contrast to the preceding story that I posted, it has been advanced that Neandertals were every bit as capable as modern humans. In Science Daily, the author quotes anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore and writes:
Riel-Salvatore identified projectile points, ochre, bone tools, ornaments and possible evidence of fishing and small game hunting at Uluzzian archeological sites throughout southern Italy. Such innovations are not traditionally associated with Neanderthals, strongly suggesting that they evolved independently, possibly due to dramatic changes in climate. More importantly, they emerged in an area geographically separated from modern humans.

"My conclusion is that if the Uluzzian is a Neanderthal culture it suggests that contacts with modern humans are not necessary to explain the origin of this new behavior. This stands in contrast to the ideas of the past 50 years that Neanderthals had to be acculturated to humans to come up with this technology," he said. "When we show Neanderthals could innovate on their own it casts them in a new light. It `humanizes' them if you will."
There are three "adaptive" technologies found in Europe at the Neandertal/early modern nexus: the Uluzzian, in Italy, the Szeletian in Hungary and the Chatelperronian in France. These have traditionally been interpreted as attempts by Neandertals to acculturate the technologies of the incoming moderns. Recent evidence has suggested, however, that, at least in the case of the Chatelperronian (also Castelperronean), the Neandertals and modern humans either coexisted at the site or occupied the same site at different times. The technology is sort of a modern/Neandertal hybrid. Interestingly, the same problem occurs in the Near East, where it is clear that the Neandertals and early moderns in the area were using the same tool types—the Levantine Mousterian. The only difference between the sites is that the early moderns appear to have used a higher percentage of knives.

As more information continues to come to light, including the recent revelation that Neandertals contributed to the modern human genome, it becomes harder to relegate them to the class of intellectually inferior species. It also becomes clear that the reasons for their disappearance (volcanoes aside) are complex.

Now playing: Todd Rundgren - Where Does The Time Go?
via FoxyTunes


  1. Given that this post contains some great "ah ha!" fodder for YECs, what say you to the claim that Neanderthals were just plain ol' humans, image of God and all? Ham says "Yea!" Ross says "Nay!" I say "Ah, who bloody knows anymore!" I think the line is becoming increasingly blurry. Before the creationist quote mine canary passes out, what do you think?

  2. The biological anthropologist Dave Frayer once said that, while there are certain Neandertal traits that are present in early modern humans to some degree, there is not a single person alive who has the entire suite of Neandertal traits. The creationists and, to a large extent, Hugh Ross and company are confusing the concepts of "chronospecies" and "evolutionary species." When we look around, we see chronospecies because we have a snapshot in time. There is increasing evidence that Homo sapiens had two evolutionary species and that there was at least some degree of continuity between them. Some would argue a great deal. We also tend to treat Neandertals as a uniform group, when in fact they occupied the landscape for a good 100 thousand years. The early ones were more like their Homo erectus antecedents, the later ones more like their modern human descendents, in terms of behavior and morphology. It seems that this shift to a modern morphology is at least the partial result of some gene flow between the two groups and positive selection for the less cold-adapted traits. It is no accident that the earliest moderns appear in Europe around the same time as the interglacial period of the last glaciation.

    So, yeah, it isn't nearly as simplistic as either side would have it.

  3. So, did you ever read Gerald Schroeder's ~The Science of God~?

    I'm a little more than half through it, and I must say it is very fascinating. He has a lot to say about biological evolution, so you would probably find it interesting.

  4. Charles, I did read the book. I had a post about it here. I was quite intrigued by his arguments about time dilation. Sadly, I do not have the necessary physics background to evaluate them carefully. The wheels fall of the wagon when he gets to biology, though. He does not seem to understand how evolution happens and does not appear to have educated himself about the fossil record. Had he stuck to the physics, the book would have been much better.

  5. Thanks, I'll go read your post.