Neanderthal research (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, July 29, 2011, 16:53 (4657 days ago) @ David Turell

Although Neanderthals live in the public imagination as hulking and slow-witted "Alley Oops," Trinkaus and others say there is no reason to believe they were any less intelligent than the newly arrived "modern humans." Neanderthals were stockier and had larger brows, sharper teeth and more jutting jaws, but their brain capacity appears to have been no different than that of the newcomers.-
Ok.. So here we have a group that was every bit as intelligent as 'Humans', that have been around for an additional 400,000 years(that we know of), and interbred with modern 'humans'. What does it sound like humans at that time were the Asians of today? Smaller physiologically, more technologically advanced, a much larger population base, and richer cultural identification? --"Now, he says, researchers believe that Neanderthals "were highly intelligent, able to adapt to a wide variety of ecologicalzones, and capable of developing highly functional tools to help them do so. They were quite accomplished."-
oh.. and now we have gone from 60k to 100k years for the emergence of humans...sheesh-"In contrast, we modern humans have only been around for 100,000 years or so and moved into colder, temperate regions only in the past 40,000 years."-"Yet other stone tools were used for woodworking; among the very few wooden artifacts associated with Neanderthal sites are objects that resemble spears, plates and pegs."-Everything in that article points to Neanderthals and Homo Sapians being different tribes, not different species. It will be interesting to see what is uncovered over more time.