In “DNA reveals Neanderthal extinction clues” (BBC News February 27, 2012),
Paul Rincon reports on the recent finding that Neanderthals died out in Europe about 50,000 years ago ( covered here, noting the severely degraded DNA used):
“The fact that Neanderthals in Europe were nearly extinct, but then recovered, and that all this took place long before they came into contact with modern humans, came as a complete surprise,” said lead author Love Dalen, from the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.
“This indicates that the Neanderthals may have been more sensitive to the dramatic climate changes that took place in the last Ice Age than was previously thought.”
What’s really interesting is the graphic. The artist, far from trying to portray the Neanderthal as a brute beast, shows him wearing a shell amulet, sporting (tribal?) chest stripes, and looking alert and intelligent. It seems more likely somehow.
This adjustment does not bode well for Darwinism because Darwinism needs a half ape Neanderthal (evidence of the ascent of man and all that). A Neanderthal that you wish was a guide at the local hunting lodge is more likely to make the rest of us feel stupid and inadequate than feel that we are one with the chimpanzees.
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