This Is A Neanderthal.

[gigantor]

... Neanderthals looked like us. A lot.

 

Probably, yet even the museum that commissioned the work states clearly it is an interpretation.

 

--------

The models were made by the Dutch duo, Alfons and Adrie Kennis, in their studio in the Netherlands for our next major exhibition, Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story, opening here on 13 February.

 

 

The Kennis brothers specialise in creating scientifically accurate sculptures of ancient humans and animals. The specially commissioned models blend scientific and aesthetic interpretation uniquely. They pose proudly, faces full of character - and some speculation as to which famous personalities might have been the inspiration - and are sure to attract attention when they take pride of place in the exhibition gallery.

 

Edited May 24, 2014 by gigantor

[Guest Stan Norton]

Not to encourage or inflame pedantry but I think the aesthetics enter at the pose and character stage: anatomically these are about as spot on as it gets. Really, if there are artistic liberties they are minor and essentially irrelevant. Homo neandertalensis was our closest relative, we share ancestry and we coexisted over vast swathes of Europe and the near East for millennia. We have copious evidence of their ecology and there is no debate as to what they are. We have much learn but that ain't gonna show up anything remotely sex-mad, feline chimp like.

[JDL]

For the record, I don't prefer the Them and Us model over the establishment model.  I give them equal consideration and consider them equally flawed.

[norseman]

I think that Stan is completely correct.

What we once thought was a brutish distant cousin, is now a completely modern human, on a different evolutionary track than we were.

They can also tell from bone where muscles attached, which hand thrusted the spear, and that yes in fact Neanderthals were gingers. Even that they spoke using a hyoid bone.

[Guest thermalman]

Throw a black hat and clothing on him and you've got Amish.

[norseman]

For the record, I don't prefer the Them and Us model over the establishment model. I give them equal consideration and consider them equally flawed.

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

[Guest Stan Norton]

Norse, I'm with you man. Bonkers.

 

Anyway, here's a podcast of some actual real scientists discussing actual real evidence of our closest relatives...with that all important reading list to assist.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq1nv

[Guest]

They were lower in average IQ than the humans at the time, and were therefor wiped out.

 

The biggest problem with the model is there is no human beside it to compare it to. As picky as humans are with associations, modern humans would not be able to associate with the Neanderthal.

 

They were 'brutish'. They had lower IQ, they were more physical.

 

The picture shows a happy-neanderthal, not a really really BLUE-COLLAR worker type rough.

 

I can get a picture of a rougher modern human for gosh-sake. There is ALOT of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS in modern Anthropology nowadays. Buyer beware.

 

Neandertals did trade with Crow-Magnon or whatever human linage was around at the time. The end of the Ice-age forced more competition for resources, and Neanderthal with its flat silly head, LOST, just like the Mammoth, cave bear, saber-tooth tiger etc.

[Guest Stan Norton]

None of that is based on reality. We have no knowledge of Neanderthal IQ but can surmise from their very sophisticated material culture that they were extremely intelligent. Not brutish. That notion was dismissed decades ago and has no evidence to back it up.

 

I have a picture of my wife and kid standing next to him. He has no underwear on so I won't share it here...let's say he was small in stature but not elsewhere...

[JDL]

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

 

Were they cannibals?  Did they eat humans?  Is there not evidence of this?  i don't think they had cat-like eyes, but Neanderthal predation seems likely to me.

It seems to me that at some point headlong anthropomorphism became all the rage in anthropology.

[Incorrigible1]

There are alternative interpretations. Danny Vendramini's Them + Us: How Neanderthal predation created modern humans is one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QE9X8E/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=4O8DE5ZJINAQ&coliid=I1KL0MNWEDXVAD

 

"Them and Us begins with a radical reassessment of Neanderthal behavioral ecology. He cites new archaeological and genetic evidence to show they weren't docile omnivores, but savage, cannibalistic carnivores - top flight predators of the stone age.

Neanderthal Predation (NP) theory reveals that Neanderthals were 'apex' predators - who resided at the top of the food chain, and everything else - including humans - was their prey.

NP theory is one of those groundbreaking ideas that revolutionizes scientific thinking. It represents a quantum leap in our understanding of human origins."

 

 

[Guest Stan Norton]

Oh not you as well...yes, those stupid scientists devoting years of patient study are all wrong but the former  theatre director has nailed it at his first attempt! Good work that man.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Stan Norton

[norseman]

They did more than associate......they bred!!!

And Mongoloids and cacausoids are the result.

And we have no way to test IQ but the Neanderthal had a bigger brain case.

My opinion is that Homo sapiens were adapted to the environment Europe was changing into

[Rockape]

Whether they were more brutish or not, I've always felt Neandertal was much too human in apperance to be associated with Bigfoot, unless perhaps involving a hybridization. I believe their is another species, perhaps yet discovered, that would lend better to Bigfoot.

[Guest]

Actually, we can test relative IQ of Neanderthal. Their tools were thicker and heavier, and I have seen a show, cant find it now, where it was stated that in Spain, the Crow-Magnon people used standard 'high-ground' tactics to wipe out the remaining Neanderthals. They would fort-up in these hill areas, high ground, and let the stupid, thugish, brutish Neanderthals attack them, and that was it for the brutish, stupid Neanderthals. Mainly because of end of Ice-age competition.

 

That picture does not do justice to Neanderthals, they have flat, sloped heads and what parts of the brain are larger, the occipital lobe or something, does not translate into higher intelligence, many sea-mammals have larger than human brains.

 

This is part of the push to see Neandertals as "Just like Humans". Look at the speech laws in whatever goofy European country these clowns are comming out of. Its illegal to suggest 'modern humans' were 'different' than Neanderthal. You get put in prison for talking about illegal immigration in these countries.

Edited June 4, 2014 by salubrious
GG 7