Subject: Re: A short lesson in logic
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 11:16:37 +0800
From: "Theo Bekkers" <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

Chris Ho-Stuart <> wrote

> I also think this is fascinating; but what is there to answer? Sean
> points out that Neanderthals did indeed share in common many features
> of living modern humans. But there not like many people alive today,
> in the sense of being just another racial variant within the range
> of existing human variation.

The recent ABC 'Human Origins' series postulated the theory that there
were
two migrations out of Africa. The first humans to get to Europe were or
became Neanderthal man. An ice age then cut off Euro humans from their
African cousins. Cro-magnon man then developed in south Africa and
spread
throughout Africa. 35,000 odd years ago the warming climate again
allowed
migration to Europe where cro-magnon man gradually usurped all the good
hunting grounds and meanderthal man  became extinct.

> One interesting aspect of Neanderthal skulls is that their brains
> tended to be slightly larger than ours. What this implies is quite
> uncertain. But it would be interesting to forget about judging
> Neanderthals by how closely they resemble us, and wonder how they
> might have regarded us...

A theory given in the "Children of the Earth" books by Jean Auel (Clan
of
the Cave Bear) is that Neanderthals relied on inherited knowledge. ie,
they
were born with knowledge about their surroundings (instinct in animals).
To
enable them to prosper they needed ever increasing brains to hold this
knowledge. This would have made birthing more difficult and dangerous.
The
bigger the brain-box the more dangerous the birth but the greater the
chance
of survival. A sad trade-off. Cro-magnon man gave up inherited memory
for
the ability to reason and learn from their environment. Language gave
them
the ability to teach their offspring. I know it is fiction, but this
lady
spent many years doing research on human origins before she wrote these
books.

Cheers

Theo