Is Bigfoot Related To Neanderthal?

[Guest vilnoori]

They have found spear points associated with Neanderthals. I remember reading that they were more suitable as thrusting spears but generally cruder than the ones associated with modern humans. They also apparently used hafting according to wiki. They would have to attach the spear points somehow.

That example looks too small to be a spear tip, look at the size of it. If anything it could be an arrowhead, except that bow hunting was not yet invented. My best guess is that it was used as a skinning blade. Some of the so called spear tips look like awls, also. So this is debatable. They could have been used as blades or awls.

Neanderthals would be a perfect example of an animal that would learn to deflect a blow by acrobatics. They hunted rhinos and other large animals. The cars necessarily killing bigfoot argument made me think of them. They would probably have been experts at dodging and taking blows from charging animals. Their injuries support that idea and a rhino would be a lot like a speeding car if the driver was gunning for you.

Neanderthals were probably way too closely related to modern humans to be a likely ancestor of bigfoot. We know that they were only a few hundred thousand years removed from modern humans. The guy in the video made some good points but he ignored some facts and his conclusions are probably greatly exaggerated.

But perhaps they are a possible Almas--they seem to be more human-like, if you read the accounts. They certainly are smaller than descriptive accounts of North American sasquatches.

The teeth of the Neanderthals are also worn apparently from stretching and working animal skins in their mouths so they apparently wore cloths. That probably makes any long hair cold adaptations less likely.

However they would have lacked the special adaptations our subspecies have for distance running or endurance hunting and possibly had more hair coverage due to the cold weather. Their trapezius muscles surely were much more pronounced and came up much higher, like people describe in some sasquatch sightings. They did not have "cloths" but probably wore furs and possibly sewed in a rudimentary way, using bone needles and awls to pierce the skins. There are indeed some sasquatch sightings that posit fur is worn. How would we distinguish between furs worn and furs on a naturally furry person like that? It even could account for the pointy heads of some, a fur "hoodie." I'm just speculating here.

I made a slight enlargement and minor modifications of MK's head turn Gif. The comparison of the prognathism or jutting jaw seems less than some habilis reconstructions. That doesn't mean that much by itself but the overall features of the skull and face does seem to match early Homo pretty well. Bigfoot could have evolved from a latter erectus which don't have quite the amount of prognathism.

Rather than hinging your argument on a single controversial film that might have been a hoax I think it is more useful to look at many artist reconstructions based on witness acounts (maybe someone can provide a link to some good ones). They nearly all show much less prognathism than is present in habilines, and show the robustness and the "snow goggle" skull shape of some H. erectus and Neanderthals. Even some PNW NA ritual masks of "tzonaqua" or wild woman of the woods show the reduced prognathism and exaggerated brow-cheekbone area that gives the snow goggle effect. I find that really interesting.

As always, I enjoy your contributions Bob. Still not convinced on the hafting/spear argument though.

[BobZenor]

It was just easier to illustrate my argument with a picture. It didn't seem as appropriate with a bunch of illustration or siting reports because someone would introduce some description of them looking like gorillas. It does seem to me that a large majority of sitings and illustrations could have made the point just as well. The features are fairly consistent with early Homo. That flat but technically protruding nose, based mostly on siting reports and not the film, is a significant example because it first appeared in early Homo assuming the anatomists have that interpretation right. Gimlim described it that way if I am not mistaken. There was two points in showing Patty/habilis comparison. First it shows that she is remarkably consistent with an early Homo in certain features and not much earlier. The second was to make people realize that habilis wasn't that human looking in its features. There might be some that show less prognathism but it isn't a unique interpretation. I argue that habilis was a collection of hominids and it is likely that one of them is closer to erectus than the others. That follows because habilis lived with erectus in Africa so if they were their ancestors, then some had to be closer. Otherwise erectus and habilis are just cousins which I think is quite likely. Living together in East Africa is strong evidence that they weren't very closely related. You could easily go back well over 2 million years to get a common ancestor. They lived together 1.5 million years ago and that is not much time for speciation without geographic isolation to occur.

Another habilis. He might be the same skull from a different artist.

Edited December 17, 2010 by BobZenor

[Guest]

I think the neanderthal looked more like the aborigines who obviously mingled at an earlier date with cro-magnon. Look at these great pictures that include some pretty fantastic sculptures of the native people.

http://astronkyttaron.heavenforum.com/forum-f25/topic-t1166.htm

[Guest]

Lots of good points made here. A question...Vilnoori;you say: "However they would have lacked the special adaptations our subspecies have for distance running or endurance hunting"...I'm curious, how do you figure that? According to Lieberman's hypothosis the suite of traits associated with and supportive of endurance running and they seems to have been present in h. erectus, which is presumed to be ancestral to both h. sapiens and h. neandertal. Cheers.

[Guest vilnoori]

There are a lot of different hominins in the H. erectus grouping.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus#Descendants_and_subspecies

The most humanlike postcranial (below the head) remains are those of Turkana boy, technically a H. ergaster, but generally placed into the larger H. erectus group. This approximately 8 to 12 year-old boy would have been almost 6 feet tall at maturity. Looking at the skull it is difficult to believe that it is not that of a full-grown man, because it is so robust, bony, or chunky, and reconstructions often show this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Homo_erectus.J I really wonder what he would have looked like full grown, with all the effects of sexual maturity. I would not be at all surprised if he looked rather like a sasquatch, with pointy head, huge jaw, huge traps muscles, etc.

Homo ergaster is considered to be in the direct lineage of modern humans. However, Asian H. erectus is debatable and is considered by many to be a completely different creature. We don't have many postcranial remains (Java man's are lost and/or debatable).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus#Classification_and_special_distinction

H. ergaster has been found only within Africa, and the same can be said for the tiny H. habilis (only about 4 ft. tall).

H. floresiensis and georgicus are the only small (homo) fossil hominins found outside of Africa, and both are very small as well. Both are very archaic structurally, remeniscent of habilines or even australopithecines, though georgicus has similarities to H. erectus (though much smaller).

This is what makes me think Asian H. erectus is sasquatch:

1. proximity. They were in Asia during the right time, when sea levels were low enough to create land bridges.

2. The lower prognathism (jutting jaw). Most artistic renditions do not show the jaw and teeth forward of the forehead or nose, but rather below it.

3. more protruding nose. Habilines and australopithecines did not have a bone at the base of the nose which identifies a protruding nose but erectus did (look at Broken Hill skull for a good example)

4. the so called "ski goggle effect" of the prominent brow ridges and the cheek bones. Again, Broken Hill is a good example. This characteristic persists in Neanderthals as well, but not most modern humans. Maybe Nicolay Valuev, LOL!

5. the height matches better. African Habilines were tiny. Asian H. erectus were quite large comparatively.

6. the dearth of tool use in many digs. Sounds familiar?

Regarding the endurance hunting angle, the adaptation seems to have occurred in H. erectus because prehuman species below that do not show it and only very early African ones do. We unfortunately don't have enough postcranial remains (heck, remains period) to show where and when H. erectus developed it. It could very well be that a branch of H. erectus left Africa and went into Asia very early, before the adaptation occurred--at least we get the impression from the sasquatch prints we have that they don't have the spring-loading that our feet have, the arch is much different.

Edited December 18, 2010 by vilnoori

[Guest vilnoori]

I think the neanderthal looked more like the aborigines who obviously mingled at an earlier date with cro-magnon. Look at these great pictures that include some pretty fantastic sculptures of the native people.

http://astronkyttaron.heavenforum.com/forum-f25/topic-t1166.htm

Interesting. Notice the similarity between these pics and the descriptions of sasquatches. I'm thinking of the deep set eyes, prominent brow ridges and cheek bones, "deep cheek furrows" caused by prognathicism (forward jutting jaw), and they're even pretty hairy! However, they do lack the heavy build and occipital bun of neanderthals. Maybe they are hybrids?

Edited December 18, 2010 by vilnoori

[Guest vilnoori]

This is pretty cool, much in the same vein:

http://canovanograms.tripod.com/pintubi1/

[Guest]

So fascinating, thank you all. Jodie, awesome. Vil thanks. Writing more this weekend and get caught up then. The idea of hybrids may come into play. Plus the fact we well may not have resurected all fossils directly involved in our interrogations..and how that may figure into the overall scheme of things. Add the massive individual variation that populations exhibit and the complexities sure may take awhile to lay on the table.

Edited December 18, 2010 by treeknocker

[Guest]

Interesting. Notice the similarity between these pics and the descriptions of sasquatches. I'm thinking of the deep set eyes, prominent brow ridges and cheek bones, "deep cheek furrows" caused by prognathicism (forward jutting jaw), and they're even pretty hairy! However, they do lack the heavy build and occipital bun of neanderthals. Maybe they are hybrids?

I think anything you see today is a hybrid, it's possible that neanderthal hybrids were more widely spread than we thought? To me the aborigines would not have had the opportunity to back breed as those in Europe or Asia due to the land bridge between Australia disappearing at the end of the last ice age. They may be an earlier version of the interbreeding process with a whole set of other traits expressed in their isolated population. To my knowledge no one has looked at the aborigines to see how their genetic profile compares to the neanderthal. There is a lot of racial tension in Australia so I doubt anyone would write a paper on this at the moment thinking of it as something that could be used in a derogatory way.

My take on this is that no matter what genetic research finds, both cro-magnon and neanderthal lacked certain characteristics that might make survival optimal. The interbreeding was an improvement for both species and what you have is hybrid vigor in modern day humans no matter what various traits express. The only negative expressions I can see in our society from this are the disorders that are attached to the neanderthal genes that were listed in the original article I posted.

[Guest vilnoori]

I think anything you see today is a hybrid, it's possible that neanderthal hybrids were more widely spread than we thought? To me the aborigines would not have had the opportunity to back breed as those in Europe or Asia due to the land bridge between Australia disappearing at the end of the last ice age. They may be an earlier version of the interbreeding process with a whole set of other traits expressed in their isolated population. To my knowledge no one has looked at the aborigines to see how their genetic profile compares to the neanderthal. There is a lot of racial tension in Australia so I doubt anyone would write a paper on this at the moment thinking of it as something that could be used in a derogatory way.

My take on this is that no matter what genetic research finds, both cro-magnon and neanderthal lacked certain characteristics that might make survival optimal. The interbreeding was an improvement for both species and what you have is hybrid vigor in modern day humans no matter what various traits express. The only negative expressions I can see in our society from this are the disorders that are attached to the neanderthal genes that were listed in the original article I posted.

That paper I linked posited the idea that the Australoids are actually hybridized from modern humans and Homo erectus "soloensis" which dates back only 30,000 years or so. This is still freshly breaking Anthropological news.

If indeed H. erectus can be proved to be as recent as 30,000 years its another pro point in the idea that sasquatches derive from Asian H. erectus! Neanderthals are then out of the game, since they basically dead-ended in Europe--though I believe there were some in Northern Eurasia (Croatia etc.).

[Guest]

This is pretty cool, much in the same vein:

http://canovanograms.tripod.com/pintubi1/

Went back and read it. I am not a big fan of the "out of africa" only theory. To me, I wouldn't be at all surprised that homo erectus lived in Australia up until as recently as 30,000 years ago. At one time, Australia was connected to India and the Indians say that their civilization goes back as far as 50,000 years B.C. If India is the oldest civilization, wouldn't it make sense that Java would be considered a possible birthplace of man for us? Depending on which population you look at would determine when and how that happened and probably can't be generalized for the entire world. Time will tell though.

Scroll down to the NASA picture of the supposed man made bridge found between India and Sri Lanka that is 1,750,000 years old. I guess it's one of those artifacts that ought not be there that everyone calls a "straw man fallacy" ( you know I despise that word don't you?)

ttp://www.hinduism.co.za/oldest.htm

[Guest vilnoori]

Mmmm...I agree with the out of africa theory. Maybe biased since I grew up there... But also as a biologist, Africa has the most mammalian diversity, has been the least changed by climate/continental shifts, has the most different types of fossil hominins, and has the oldest living lineage of humans genetically (the San, or Bushmen tribes) and has the most human genetic diversity as well. Most scientists are pretty strongly in favour of it, with good reason...and those that aren't seem to have nationalistic reasons (the Chinese notably) that are not really based on good science. However, there is no reason why hybridization with older lineages could not have occurred anywhere along the way, and almost certainly did. Neanderthals with Europeans (with clearly hybrid types existing in the Near East), Aboriginals and H. erectus in SE Asia...

Edited December 19, 2010 by vilnoori

[BobZenor]

I think the argument for modern humans being out of Africa is very strongly made. There is also a very good argument for a wave leaving Africa about 2 million and about 700,000 years ago. The older migration seems to have left some hominins that lived in Asia until very recently. There is also the likelihood of floresiensis being more distantly related so you probably need to push that 2 million years back some. We know that georgicus fossils were found from individuals that lived in Asia not much after that. The size of the habilis isn't really much of an argument. They are thought to have evolved into Turkana boy who was thought by the development in his young bones that he would be over 6 feet tall as an adult. I agree with Vilnoori that he would logically be even more massively built as an adult. There were little habilis found near him and also the smallest erectus known (I believe) was found to live at the same time in eastern Africa. Either he isn't that closely related to the habilis or he grew really fast. Personally I think they likely got much larger when they stopped sleeping in trees. That probably keep the habilis smaller. Getting larger is easy for mammals. They need to adjust the size of bones and joints if the change is dramatic but that is also easy for mammals to do. Larger animals need relatively larger bones.

The difference in the foot probably isn't that profound. We have the MT joint. Most of us just have the tendons tying the foot into an arch. The joint flexes and the tendons add spring. It certainly wouldn't take much for one of the erectus to lose the arch and gain flexibility in the joint especially if it was done near the time that the arch supposedly evolved in the first place which is somewhat controversial. I have heard that it evolved in erectus, which would mean that some didn't have it, and I believe that some have evidence of it existing in some of the Australopithecus. Them all being facultative bipeds, before erectus, makes me doubt they had much of an arch though.

[Guest]

I think the argument for modern humans being out of Africa is very strongly made. There is also a very good argument for a wave leaving Africa about 2 million and about 700,000 years ago. The older migration seems to have left some hominins that lived in Asia until very recently. There is also the likelihood of floresiensis being more distantly related so you probably need to push that 2 million years back some. We know that georgicus fossils were found from individuals that lived in Asia not much after that. The size of the habilis isn't really much of an argument. They are thought to have evolved into Turkana boy who was thought by the development in his young bones that he would be over 6 feet tall as an adult. I agree with Vilnoori that he would logically be even more massively built as an adult. There were little habilis found near him and also the smallest erectus known (I believe) was found to live at the same time in eastern Africa. Either he isn't that closely related to the habilis or he grew really fast. Personally I think they likely got much larger when they stopped sleeping in trees. That probably keep the habilis smaller. Getting larger is easy for mammals. They need to adjust the size of bones and joints if the change is dramatic but that is also easy for mammals to do. Larger animals need relatively larger bones.

The difference in the foot probably isn't that profound. We have the MT joint. Most of us just have the tendons tying the foot into an arch. The joint flexes and the tendons add spring. It certainly wouldn't take much for one of the erectus to lose the arch and gain flexibility in the joint especially if it was done near the time that the arch supposedly evolved in the first place which is somewhat controversial. I have heard that it evolved in erectus, which would mean that some didn't have it, and I believe that some have evidence of it existing in some of the Australopithecus. Them all being facultative bipeds, before erectus, makes me doubt they had much of an arch though.

Thanks Bob, you answered the questions I was going to ask before I got back over here to ask them.

[Guest wvanative]

I remember a story on TV news a few years ago, I'm guessing 15 to 20 years ago, of a skeleton found in a cave above a french village. They had found DNA and had taken a sample of everyone's DNA in the village to compare. It was found to match one person that turned out to be the Principal of the school of that town. I believe the skeleton was of a Neanderthal and the principal was a direct relative of the man found in the cave. They made a big deal of the whole thing and did the announcement of it live on TV at the school.

Just wondering if anyone remembers this?

WVaNative