Neanderthals

[rossum]

OK, I’ll explain it to you. The so-called Neanderthalls were people just like us.

Why “so-called”? They are a well defined group with characteristics specific to that group. What is your definition of “people just like us”? We know that their DNA was different to ours so presumably your definition of “people” does not include DNA.

Had the Chinese been wiped out thousands of years ago, people today whould be speculating about them.

Chinese DNA is within the range of other existing human DNA. No need to make up the example of Chinese, the Tasmanians would do just as well, and their DNA was also within human range.

Your problem is in believing in evolution.

Belief or not in evolution has nothing to do with DNA results, a creationist would get the same results from the same tests.

If you believe that we “evolved” from some simian creature, you try to figure where did the “Neanderthalls” fit in. If you accept the idea that we were created, and that all humanity originated from two individuals, it’s obvious that the “Neanderthalls” were destroyed in the Flood that evolutionists don’t believe in.

There is no evidence whatsoever for a global flood in the timescale required by a literal interpretation of Genesis. The evidence comes from geology as well as from DNA - there are nowhere near enough genetic bottlenecks in land animals.

In you want to drag the Church into a fight about the material world, and the flood would have been material if it had happened, then the Church would lose. On material questions science is pretty much unbeatable. However, the Catholic Church has learned from its history and studiously avoids such fights with science. You would do well to follow it in this.

rossum

 

[AndyF]

If we take for granted the theory of evolution, then Neanderthals would come in thus:

The process of evolution produced, at one point, man. Up until such time, whatever those creatures that were predecessors of man in the evolutionary chain were simply more advanced animals.

At one point, some being that is identifiable as human came into existence. Now this first creature that was identifiably human was given something else, that being a rational soul. This creature was in God’s image. Those coming before were not.

C’Mon.

Their burial ceremony shows they felt remorse. There are all sorts of indicators they cared for each other and were intelligent and self aware, clearly making them different than animals. For instance they surrounded the body with flowers. They cared for the old. In fact an elderly male(40ish) was so battered and mauled throughout his life providing for his kind, that he could not sustain himself. Others cared for him and made sure he was not left behind because of his wounds.

If we were place them out of the human sphere because of their physical attributes we would need to disgard their human traits as well. Carried further, if these traits are God sent for the human purpose then we are rejecting God.

AndyF

 

[Thing]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Cough…cough… found these photos of neanderthal skull from Israel, said to myself, three views of same skull, …just asking for reconstruction.
Not saying this is how he actually looked but how he could certainly look.
(I added the glasses - they were not on the skull)

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Neanderthals were soulless and Adam and Eve were the first two homo sapiens.

 

[Thing]

Neanderthals, just looking at their skulls and at a recreation of a face were obviously human, and at least one neanderthal [above] would easily go unnoticed on the red line or green line today. Perhaps they were just in the vanguard of human movement from africa into southern europe and simply became isolated, like the celts in ireland. Perhaps humans in africa continued to vary in their genetic composition from the neanderthal line by mixing with every race on the african continent before following the neanderthals into europe.
To me the neanderthal face looks kinda roman or transalpine, I don’t see why they could not have interbred and assimilated. They may have been a very small group of people, travel in europe being virtually impossible until not so long ago. Maybe some are still with us…

 

[The_Barbarian]

Later Neandertals were much less like us. The earlier ones weren’t that different, but although they lived in the same area as modern humans for a long time, they seem to have rarely if ever interbred, and lived a different sort of life.

But I think Adam and Eve preceded the split between modern humans and Neandertals. Their behavior seems to indicate the sort of things that humans do.