Neanderthal research (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, May 13, 2011, 23:33 (4734 days ago) @ David Turell

Carbon dating out by as much as 33%.... say it ain't so. Either way, good article and thanks for sharing. The one thing that still bothers me about the whole Neanderthal thing is that if mankind has been around in some for for 40k years, and we have gone from cave dwellers to modern man in (supposedly) about 6-8k years, what did we do for the previous 32K+ years... sit around and throw rocks at each other? I don't think so...
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> Well, mankind in Europe for 40 K, and 150 K in Africa. I think the use of the Big Brain took some time and further development, now that we know the brain is so plastic.-Sorry, I don't really buy it. We know that they were capable of complicated skill sets for a large portion of that time frame, and certainly more than the 40K that they were in Europe. I set that as a limit for myself because it was sufficient to point out the ridiculousness of the concept while still leaving room for arguments like the one you presented.-Also, we have seen 0 evidence that there has been any significant brain development, none. Not a shred. So that argument doesn't even hold water with the evidence that we do have. For as far back as we have been able to study homo sapiens and our ancestors, all we have to go on is some rather speculative concepts based on skull formation. Nothing more.