Dissing Neandertals still goes on, despite new discoveries

Gentle Readers:

I came acorss this post Via a review in Salon, of Brian Fagan's book Cro-Magnon. I must say that Dr. Fagan is a well-respected archaeologist and a good writer who has written many books very good books on various aspects of archaeology. I should also mention that I meant to blog this post several days ago, but have not, for various reasons(partly to do with the now-seasonable weather after a very crappy month of May. In any case, the reviewer seems to think the book is already out of date. And I tend to agree with him.

First, the term "Cro-Magnon". It is popularly used as a standin for early "modern" humans living in Eurasia, who are scientifically named Homo(sapiens)sapiens. But scientists prefer "early moern human" or "Early modern European" to "Cro-Magnon", simply because the latter term is much more inclusive. Furthermore there are no apparent "modern" human fossils found coterminous with the later Neandertals(Homo(sapiens)neanderthalensis. Though the Chauvet Cave painings are generally considered to be the work of "modern" humans, there have been no fossils found, that would prove this, one way or another, at least not in most parts of the world where Neandertals and "moderns" apparently coexisted. There are still big arguments about this, with some workers even thinking Chauvet Cave was decorated by Neandertas, but this can't be proven either. Be that as it may, it appears that Dr. Fagan feels that Neandertals were, somehow, just not smart enough to compete(whatever that might mean in the context) with "modern" humans. Why? Because, in his view, "modern" humans had cave art and Neandertals didn't.Wow! He also thinks they were totally separate"species" that died out, perhaps because "modern" humans "preyed" on them. The only trouble with that idea(aside from the fact that Fagan has had this notion for a rather long time, though in other works, he did't dwell on it), is that at the Max Planck Institute, in Leipzig, Gerrmany, Svante Pääbo and his team have been extracting Neandertal genomes for years.

They started first with mitochondrial DNA, which in Neandertals, appeared to be quite different from "modern" humen mtDNA. This led Pääbp amd his team to conclued, in 1997, that, yeah, Neandertals were definitely quite different from outselves. But wait! The moment Pääbo and his team announced this, studies came out from other geneticists suggesting that it wasn't quite that simple. Among other things, modern chimpanzee subspecies, have greater differences in their mtDNA than did Neandertals.

Then there were the archaeological studies over the years between 1997 and 2010, that suggested very strongly that Neandertal behavior seems to have been very similar to ours in a number of areas, given that they mostly occupied different areas, and had different materials and potential food available to them. In a place calld Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, some 60,000 years ago, they were catching reindeer/caribou in a similar fashion(but without guns and snowmobiles or other transportation devices), in very much the same basic way that certain Alaska natives do in Central Alaska: they essentially herded them, or "met" them as they were crossing a stream(just as modern caribou do in Alaska) in order to get to forests to live through the winter(and breed). Fall is mating season among Rangifer tarandus, and it is also the time they migrate from open tundra to forests with deep, protected snow to keep wolves and other predators away. They are also at their best at that season, and provide a lot of food. Neandertals must surely have noticed their migratory habits and took advantage of this to plan their hunts, just like tradtional "modern" humans do.

Then there's a cave in Jordan called Tor Faraj, where Neandertals lived, patterned their living space in that humble cave, built fires near their sleeping areas to keep them warm at night, and so onIthey seem to have done that in various caves in Spain, too). Also, some 60,000 years ago or so, they were using birch pitch to make glue so they could better haft their tools(including "thrusting" spears which they mostly apparently used. Other workers discovered that, later on, Neandertals were associated with the so-called "Chatelperronian" style of tool making(and symbolic objects like necklaces or pendants. Some of these imply that Neandertals understood symbolism just as well as "modern" humans did. This strikes me as being very sophisticated indeed. And the archaeologist Francisco d'Errico claims that they came up with this "Chatelperronian" style independent of any "modern" humams. Others pooh-poohed him, claiming that the Neandertals "only imitated" what they saw on "moderns". This is one of the stupider conclusions I've seen, because aside from imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, it takes anunderstanding of symbols and like characteristics, to be able to imitate anything. But then, people used to think that the native people of Australia were stupid, too, yet they knew to used some materials from the invading Europeans, for their own use on weapons, which strikes me, at least, as extremely smart.

Finally, in 2010, João Zilhão, found a stash of shells of some deep sea mussel in a cave in Spain. It was a Neandertal cave, and the shells had been decorated with a mixture of red hematite, ochre, and some slightly sparkly substance. The shells, in other words, were painted a kind of peachy orange, and strung through natural holes, for some probable symbolic purpose. Remnants of some shells seem to have been used as mixing cups for this purpose. Some West African people used to do things like this. Maybe they still do.

But that wasn't all. By 2010, Svante Pääbo and his team started in on sequencing the nuclear Neandertal genome. It is not yet compliete, but the results were a complete surprise: People who ended up in regions other than sub-Saharan Africa have some 1-4% "Neandertal" genes! Sub-Saharan Africans don't, but that hasn't stopped them from contributing to the gene pools of the rest of the world, one way or another, including, of course, the fact that they seem to have given us the modern "morph", which is the glue that holds all the world's populations together, IMO. We can no longer deny our kinship with Neandertals, a misunderstood prehistoric group, if there every was one. In fact, they are what I like to call a "despised group"; nobody in their right mind, supposedly, would claim kinship with them. One paleoanthropologist(whose psssible identity I won't reveal here, in order to protect the guilty), thinks Neandertals were so ugly and stupid he actually said he was glad he was different from them! But even "despised groups" are now asking for their human rights, and if Neandertals were still around, I am sure they would be, too. Unfortunately, they are a prehistoric despised group, which is not around any more, at least not as a distinct type, so they can't. That is one of the reasons, aside from the fact that they are strong presences in my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals, I write about them a lot. My aim is to make them respectable.

Having said all of this, it is quite apparent that Brian Fagan has no interest whatever and checking to see if his theories are correct. He doesn't appear to care if Neandertals are respectable or not. But many people do.The views presented in Cro-Magnon now seem wildly out of date, according to the reviewer, and I tend to agree with him. Whether or not Neandertals are Homo sapiens neanderthalensis or just Homo neanderthalensis, it is increasingly obvious that they seem to have thought like us, made the same kinds of decisions(given the respective contexts) as us, and generally behaved in ways quite similar to ourselves, mich as wolves and coyotes have similar habits(coyotes even form packs, where undisturbed) --and they have been known to mate! Three-qaurters of all "wolves" around the Great Lakes area have "coyote" gene sequences, and there are "coyotes" in New England and southeastern Canada, that have "wolf" genes. What does that make them? I don't know, but I have come to the conclusion that the genus Homo, starting at least with Homo erectus, were all capable of interbreeding, as this very same reviewer seems to be suggesting.

So Brian Fagan might want to consider two possible courses of action(or maybe both of them at the same time). First, he might want to try to open his mind a bit and get over his(and a lot of other people's) fixation on the (mostly anatomical IMO differences between Neandertals and ourselves, and he might also want to consider not involving himself in a subfield about which he very obviously knows almost nothing, except "recieved wisdom" that will, most likely, turn out to be quite mistaken.
Annne G

Neandertals dried mammoth meat and made snug clothes(duh!)

Alas, this particular news got *buried" by another piece of news about the "earliest" flute(where a "Venus" of similar age was found).  This was so exciting, because it is apparently "proof" of how sophisticated "modern" humans are supposed to have been.  I'm sure this was an interesting discovery, all right. And it's good that people are discussing it on various venues.  But. However.  This story suggests something at once exciting and depressing.  Exciting, because if it bears out, it shows that (a) Neandertals could plan for long trips, (b) they knew how to smoke and dry food for preservation and (c) they could make perfectly good, warm, snug clothing -- necessary in the sort of climate they lived in.  They have been denied all of these capacities by various workers, who don't want to acknowledge that, however related they might have been to "us", Neandertals had brains.  And they used them.

 

Here is the picture that accompanies the article

It's not entirely accurate, but it shows the possible clothing Neandertals could have worn, perhaps even while hunting mammoths!

Anne G

Women in Paleoanthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology

I don't normally step outside of the boundaries I've set for myself on this blog, namely my writing journey and writing in general, subjects related to medieval England(particularly late Anglo-Saxon times and a little bit beyond), and anything related to Neandertals.  The reason for this is, I want to keep this blog focused on that which is related to my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals.  I once had another blog which was supposed  to focus on stereotypes and Neandertals, but became entirely unfocused, and I ended up not having time to do anything with it.  Ugh.  I deleted that blog, and started over. with this one.

 

But every so often, I stumble across something so compelling, at least to me,and so important, that although it's not strictly within my sphere, I feel I must write about it, or at least briefly comment. Such is the case with a recent Greg Laden blog, which is generally about women in the field of paleoanthropology  and more specifically about Barbara Isaac, the wife of the late Glynn Isaac, the Africanist prehistorian.   This kind of information is important to me, even if it doesn't directly affect the material I read, as ongoing background research for my writing(s).  Paleoanthropology and prehistoric archaeology have long been, and in some quarters still are, considered primarily "male" fields. I remember being told, in my student days, that I would not be allowed to go on a local field trip to hunt for arrowheads and other Native American artifacts, by a professor of some note, whose name I remember well after all these years, but which will not pass my cyberlips.  He apparently just couldn't "handle" the idea of a woman being there. And I was to naive at the time to complain about it to anyone who might have been able to do something.  But in fairness to myself, I was pretty young and tender at the time. 

 

Still, something of this ethos lingers in the image of scientists and fieldworkers, especially in fields like paleoanthropology and prehistoric archaeology,of these workers being primarily male. It is also fair to say that a lot has improved in recent years, and this is why it is important to acknowledge the often unsung contributions  of women like Barbara Isaac, as Greg Laden does so well in his blog.  She faithfully helped her husband Glynn in the field for many years, then, after he passed away, she continued to contribute to the field, in other ways, large and small.  Arranging  with various authorities, through contacts she had accumulated over the years, to put the Georgian site of Dmanisi on the archaeological map was one of her more important here.

 

So I urge any interested parties to read Greg Laden's blog and find out more than I can possibly say.  His blog is often very informative on a number of subjects, especially doing archaeology and anthropology in the field, and he is very supportive of his female colleagues.  I hope it broadens the understanding of paleoanthropology, and the fieldwork involved, among the interested.

Anne G

I've found still another fantastic anthropology/paleoanthropology blog!

Today, I'd like to introduce Ethan Fulwood's  The Caveman's Corner . Like me, he is self-taught in the intricacies of human evolution and anthropology, and I suppose, like me, he started from scratch.  He is also majoring in anthropology, which is what I did when in my misspent youth. Be that as it may, if this blog is any indication of his talent, when he learns more, he's really going to shine!  Welcome, Ethan Fulwood!

Anne G

Now back to prehistoric things – some of them really, really prehistoric

Maybe this item won’t seem to relate to my writing, but. . . family and friends were having dinner tonight, and people were discussing body types.  One lady said her doctor told her at one point, she had a “Rubensesque” figure.  I guess she does, in the sense that the painter Rubens liked to paint what would now be called “full-figured” women, which were then fashionable, but now are less so(though you don’t have to go back to the 17th century to find an era when “full figures” were fashionable).  In any case, at that point, I just couldn’t resist. . . .I told everyone, back in the time when my hair wasn’t gray, that I had a “Venus of Willendorf” figure. 

This is the “Venus of Willendorf”, so named because the figurine was found in or near Willendorf, Austria, in the early 1900’s. Don’t worry.  Even when I was pregnant with my daughter, I never, ever, looked like that.  Though she was supposedly a fertility figure, the reference was a joke. 

 

Then, oddly enough, I remembered an even older figurine, one of the oldest ones on recorded – it came from a place called Berekhat Ram, in the Golan Heights. 

The “Venus of Willendorf” is about 15,000 years old, mad by “modern” humans.  But the interesting thing about Berekhat Ram is, it’s about 230,000 years old!  And was probably not made by “modern” humans.  Possibly it was made by Neandertals.  Whoever made it, it was made from volcanic rock. It’s cruder in some ways, because it wasn’t carved in anything like the detail that the Venus of Willendorf was.  But nevertheless, it’s exciting, because if it’s not the earliest attempt at  deliberate modification of something for “artistic” purposes, it is one of the earliest(there are one or two others, somewhat earlier, I believe.  The piece of rock evidently suggested a woman’s profile, to the person who modified the rock, and, while this picture is not particularly good, on some photos, you can see the suggestions of arms.  There is a sort of neck, which was apparently deliberately carved in.  And because Berekhat Ram was not apparently, created by a “modern” human, it is of great interest, since this leads to the inevitable conclusion that the “esthetic sense”, for lack of a better description, very early became part of the repertoire of behaviors, along the line that eventually led to “modern” humans.

 

Perhaps, then, I should have said that I had a”Berekhat Ram” figure.  But neither I, nor anybody else at the time, knew Berekhat Ram existed. . . .

Anne G

An addition to the “anthropological” side of my novelistic research

I’ve just gotten through adding Hominin.net to my list of “anthropology and prehistory” links.  For those interested in that side of my ongoing researches, it’s quite comprehensive.  If you’re really interested, you can even download some pdfs – for free!  That doesn’t happen every day with these kinds of research papers.  I should know.  I have a lot of them, but no direct access.  Anyway, it’s there for anyone to enjoy, or use.

Anne G

Happy 100th, La Chapelle aux Saintes!

The Anthrosite blog has an entry about La Chapelle aux Saintes, the Neandertal fossil which is famous for having spawned a lot of erroneous pictures of bent-kneed, slack-jawed, apish people in fur "clothing" that probably would have killed them off the first Paleolithic winter they tried to wear such garments. The fossil, an "old" man(at least by Neandertal standards in that era), was discovered by two brothers, both Catholic priests, on a bicycle trip in the summer of 1908, through southwestern France. There is a picture :

He was described as having been buried, and the picture above shows this quite clearly. Furthermore, someone must have cared for him in some way, before he died, since he had only a few teeth left. He was also arthritic, but this was not noticed or noted until fifty years after his discovery. Unfortunately, this oversight resulted in some pretty ridiculous portrayals of Neandertals, but I'll go into this in another post. Interestingly, it also spawned more "reasonable" reconstructions as well, but that's also for another post.

Anyway, if any reader happens to be in southwestern France between July 25 and August 8, they might want to drop by and at the very least, view the fossil, which will be on display. There are also a bunch of lectures and presentations during this time.

Anne G

Peche de l'Aze

The Afarensis blog(a worthwhile read, all on its own), had a post on what it called "interesting paleoanthropoligcal sites" yesterday. Due to a problem I had with the Compose Mode here(since solved), I wasn't able to post this, but there are links in the blog post to the archaeological sites of Sunghir, Russia and Peche de l'Aze Peche del'Aze is an especially important Neandertal site for two reasons: first, it appears to have been occupied over a long period of time, whether or continuously or not, and second, for the tool types found in some of its occupational layers.

These tool types are called "asinopodean" and are what archaeologists call "microtools" They are, as one would expect from their designation, rather small, flaked tools. These are of a type usually associated with "modern" humans, however and the archaeologists who are currently superivising the digs there, seem to think such tools may be present at other Neandertal sites, but either overlooked or unrecognized. In any case, there are a variety of these scrapers and "denticulated" tools, presumably used for a variety of tasks. There are a number of pictures, too, at the dig site. Here is one of them:

Note the tool that has a sharp point in the middle of the bottom row. This looks as if it might have been used as an awl or something similar --- perhaps to punch holes in skins for garmeents(n0, I don't think Neandertals wore fur kilts all the time, despite whatever pictures you might have seen) or to make skin bags for carrying, etc. If you look closely, some of the tools have notched "denticulate" appearances, as if they were used for smoothing wood. I wonder what that might have been for? I can guess, but I'll let you use your imaginations!

Anne G