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MasterCaneman -> RE: Gods of the New Millennium (2/10/2014 8:03:23 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake
There is a startling difference between Neanderthal and Sapiens. Big gut, conical ribs, heavy bones armored head suddenly changes to a modest gut, a cylindrical ribs, light bones and a fat head. The total effect is a distinct morphological discontinuity.
But.
We have to keep in mind the few data points involved and the sweep of time. About 6500 or 7000 generations ago, we looked like this.
[image]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Skhul.JPG[/image]
This fellow is Skhul 5. And he is 100,000. You can see he has the forehead, brows, and jaw of Neanderthal. But his cheekbones look just like ours. And quite unlike a Neanderthal. This is one of those "missing link" fossils that we are always hearing don't exist. At this time, hearing from Mr Alford. And as much respect as I have for the profession of Accounting, I note that Mr Alford is no longer counted among their number. Not exactly an accolade.
Again, point taken, but it could also mean only evidence of crossbreeding between the sub-species. If I am not mistaken (anthropology is not my strong suit), there were no less that three distinct human sub species on Earth around that time (Sapiens, Neandertal, and Erectus), and based upon my experiences, we're all susceptible to the '3 AM Syndrome'. The fact is, there are examples of anatomically correct H.Sapiens that are 200,000 years old. My assertion is that they may have created a civilization and technology base that is now lost to time. Or not.
But while the seemingly overnight evolution of H. Sapiens may seem as if there were another hand in it, consider this argument that was postulated: mankind has practiced genetic engineering for thousands of years. Food crops, dogs, livestock are one example, and it's not a big step to see them applying the same techniques to themselves. Let's say a Neolithic farmer who already knows that if you breed a cow or goat with desirable characteristics with another with different desirable characteristics may yield offspring with them, why not another human?
Blonde hair and blue eyes are supposedly a very recent mutation in our species, or so it's been said. Let's say some nameless Neolithic farmer's wives delivered a child with a strange new hair color. It pleased him, and when that child was of age, he discovered that there was another child born in a village with unearthly blue eyes. "Now that would be something to see!" he thinks. Arrangements are made for when they're ready, they are wed, and along comes a another example that carries both genes. The rest is up to time and luck, but now we have a substantial fraction of our species with blonde hair/blue eyes. (and for that we thank said nameless Neolithic farmer).
The point is, we can't take these scattered data points (yet) and conclusively say this occurred at this point along the timeline, because our ancestors have muddied the waters very well before we've reached the point we can properly study the evidence. In places, the lineage will run true because of limited or no contact with other species, in others, there may have been contact with all three at the same time. Two fossils laid down at the same exact moment in time therefore might show one species with only what we consider modern traits, while the second could show influence from two or more sub-species. And using DNA as a roadmap has it's limitations. The last article I read says that the H. Sapiens genome can only be read back roughly 150K years, or something like that, which puts limits on how much influence on possible cross-breeding occurred.
But as I said, I'm a 'nuts and bolts' guy, and I stand by what I said earlier about artifacts, their decay, dissolution, and destruction making it hard to determine if there were no 'assistance' at all, the 'space brothers', or some unknown and unnamed culture whose achievements are lost in time.
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