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If you start with the assumption that Neanderthals looked human and apply a human-based forensic overlay to Neanderthal remains, you end up with a Neanderthal that looks pretty human. If you start with the assumption that Neanderthals looked more like chimps and apply a chimp=based forensic overlay to Neanderthal remains, you end up with a Neanderthal that looks more like the Us and Them model. Both approaches start with one key factor. An assumption.

Uhhhhh.... Equally? The us and them model is on par with David Icke's lizard conspiracy theory. Bumpkis !

The only "silly" thing I see here is the refusal to acknowledge actual, real evidence gathered in such a time-honored, noncontroversial way: via an audio recording device. Oh, and sillier still: Trying to impugn the character of the people who gather the evidence, because you don't like the evidence. (Oh, I'm sorry, there's still another one: Putting words in the mouth of someone else, making connections they themselves never made, and then ridiculing them for the words you put there.) It's fine to withhold judgment, if you're not sure of something. But to pass judgment on something before you DO know the whole story -- to declare there's no possibility of something there's a strong possibility of -- is an obvious failure of instinct and reason.

So Stan, are you saying you are unable to separate the theories of a person who makes a recording from the recording itself? That's too bad. That will hamper your ability to make progress as a scientist, and in life in general. And why would you conclude, from the existing recordings of BF speaking Spanish, that they all speak only one dialect of Spanish? Do all Spanish-speaking people speak only one dialect? And as to your complete bafflement about where they learned Spanish, and from whom, I have some ideas that might help you with that. You are familiar with the stories of the indigenous peoples here on this continent, are you not? In particular, the stories about how some BF lived alongside them and were their trading partners, yes? So you see that it is not a huge leap to think that the BF might also have lived alongside the Spanish, when the Spanish arrived here in the 1400s. (They might not have lived openly alongside the Spanish, but they didn't always live openly alongside the indigenous peoples, either, and yet still somehow learned to speak their languages.) So maybe -- just maybe -- the BF learned Spanish from Spanish-speaking people.

I believe you are well informed regarding fields of study that rely heavily on assumption, inference, and hypothesis and very up to date on all of the latest, greatest, and most current assumptions, inferences, and hypotheses. I also note that the suffix "ology" means "the study of". I am certain that you and I could go back through the history of data collected and publications on Neanderthals and identify how old assumptions, inferences, and hypotheses have been regularly replaced by new ones decade by decade. To be truly accurate, this thread should be titled "This is an interpretation by *********** of a Neanderthal's appearance."

Okay, explain this then. A Neanderthal skull has huge eye orbits compared to a human skull, and their mid-line is positioned differently in the skull than in a human skull. With such distinctive differences in eye size and positioning, why do the eyes in the human-based recreation look as small as human eyes and why are they positioned like human eyes? You start with the ASSUMPTION that human forensic reconstruction techniques can be applied to Neanderthal remains, and you get something recognizably human. There's enough variance in the DNA to allow for significant differences, and material culture provides little other than to indicate that they were much stronger than we. Their bones are conclusively Homo, but their skull is significantly different from ours, and we know that they sustained regular orthopedic injury. Being Homo, does not mean being indistinguishable from Homo Sapiens. Assumption and fact are two different things.

The same evidence that Bipto says is woodape evidence. I'm anti kill and that's my perogative. What Bipto and NAWAC does is on them, but because of what I see in the evidence and when I'm challenged to point it out I will and it would be my duty to do so if I thought they might "technically" commit murder out of ignorance. ( Maybe there is a defense in that, but counting on it is foolish) Some people would blame me for not proving they are genus homo for goodness sakes, and try to put their blood on my hands. It doesn't work that way.....but that really is bigfootery for you. Everyone owns up to what "they" do out there and they have no one to blame but themselves for it. If I'm wrong then no foul, If I'm right then I've done my part in it.

speech is a wholey human capacity and it's evident in many accounts of bigfoot, You are ignoring that and dismissing it by citing it's not proven, well neither is anything else in your own subjective pile of circumstantial evidence. You just see what "you" want in spite of what the evidence clearly demonstrates.