In the past three years as reported in this blog, Neanderthal research has falsified common myths that evolved over time about how they lived, and being subjective to racism, because they were deemed as the “poor relation of the human family” who didn’t have much intelligence, also debunking claims like Neanderthals and modern humans never interbred in order to boast they were a different species than modern humans.
1) PNAS in 2008: “From Vanguard and Gorham’s caves indicates that Neanderthals used unexpectedly modern and complex subsistence strategies”
Those strategies consisted of…
a) broad use of land resources
b) use of small scale resources
c) sea fishing and hunting
d) scheduling resource use by the seasons
The behavior of Neanderthals isn’t separate from modern humans, then what is? The once brutish looking caveman considered dumb so modern humans could out compete with them (survival of the fittest) to extinction, now looks and acts more modern than ever. In 2008, it was discovered in Iberia that modern humans and ancient Neanderthals interbred. In 2010, the evidence grew stronger, Sixty percent of the Neanderthal’s genome was sequenced and here is what they had discovered…
“Although we are both hominids, the fossil record told us long ago that we differ physically from Neandertals, in various ways. But at the level of genes and the proteins that they encode, new research published online May 6 in the journal Science reveals that we differ hardly at all.”
“It also indicates that we both — Neandertals and modern humans — differ from the chimps in virtually identical ways…In short, Hannon says, “the news, so far, is not about how we differ from Neandertals, but how we are so nearly identical, in terms of proteins.”
Neanderthals made news again, but this time there was no denial of interbreeding rather boasting about it that was once shunned by such outlets as PBS who had trouble letting go of the old tales of Neanderthals!
In science daily…
“Sex with Neanderthals and another close relative — the recently discovered Denisovans — has endowed some human gene pools with beneficial versions of immune system genes, report researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in an article to be published online by the journal Science at the Science Express website on Aug. 25.”
This article also had trouble letting go with certain old tales of Neanderthals being a different species. The bottom line is this, like the newly discovered Denisovans, Neanderthals were basically human like you or me! They hunted and they communicated and they also painted like other humans. They even built tools like other modern humans did! No, they didn’t live 650,000 years ago rather they were people who migrated after the global flood, like everyone else.
Neanderthals became a pretty tight tribe who separated themselves from others except on a few occasions. Inbreeding of tribes led to accentuated features. Physical characteristics or traits could have been caused by their diet custom or a harsh environment, age, or disease. In the Book of Genesis, it states a world of distinct reproductive groups varying within their kinds which is what we observe today and is what we observed with Neanderthals and will eventually see more of it with Denisovans!