(urth) Neanderthals

[Stuart Hamm]

Howdy,
  I seem to remember a thread about the evolution of Neanderthals a while back. Last week I attended a talk at the Bohemian Grove by Don Johanson, director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change...and the guy who found "Lucy".. called "Did your Wife Marry a Neanderthal"
  It was fascinating and funny, and I took some notes and thought I'd pass on what the current thinking seems to be.
  Homosapiens and Neanderthals and The Asian man (Please excuse my lack of proper scientific terms, I'm a Bass player Jim, not a Doctor...) from Heidelberg Man in Africa. Left Africa @ 1.7 Million years ago. Neanderthals got caught in a European Ice Age and were Isolated @ 500,000 years where they Evolved into, well what they evolved into due to the climate etc.
  Home Sapiens came to Europe 40,000 years ago.Didn't seem to think they killed the N's, didn't need to. They were just more advanced with better tools and simply pushed the less adaptable N's out of the way until the only place left for them to go was Gibraltar, where they went extinct @25000 years ago (not sure on that #). The 2 species couldn't have mated, or if they did the offspring would be infertile.
  He said to expect a big news release this Fall, hinting it had to do with the leap from H  Man to H Sapien. Current speculation being the "Creative Explosion" happened in South Africa @ 70,000 years ago, but new evidence may put it much earlier.
  The Q & A was interesting. Some of his Colleagues/Rivals in the field were there, and a point of contention to this theory is that if HS's came to Europe 40,000 years ago with dark skin and brown eyes, is that sufficient time to evolve into  Blond Blue Eyed HS's by the time we have the first record of such individuals. He had no good answer.
  What else, N's were cannibals, buried their dead, had some tools and use of fire.
  Off to the UK for a week Ta Ta
   
  Stuart
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