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The Well-Tailored Neanderthal; Or, They Walk Among Us!

I always thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger resembled a modern day neanderthal.
Norfolk jokes aside, there's a higher amount than average of North Norfolk people with big jutting foreheads and jawbones where I live although I'm not convinced there's a neanderthal connection. I've got a bit of a jutting forehead myself and have gotten used to people thinking I'm frowning sometimes, I try to just joke it off with "I'm not frowning, I'm just ugly" .. my forehead has been described as a little bit Schwarznegger like, I'd prefer to have his muscles and his money though.
 
I watched the Rendlesham Forest Incident 2015 movie a couple of nights ago. Not bad, although the old found footage genre is getting a bit tired. Check out the trailer. One of the guys has pretty impressive brow-ridges (especially when you see him in profile in the car).

 
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Arnold looks like the pop culture version of a stone age man, rather than a neanderthal.
No brow ridges, no sloping forehead and certainly no receding chin.
 
"I have even seen people native to the UK (AFAIK) who have some of these characteristics, and could almost pass as Neanderthal."

And Ron Perlman didn't need much make-up in Quest For Fire!

View attachment 3144

I listened to the DVD audio commentary for QfF many moons ago, and Ron Perlman was on it, describing himself as "the first Jewish caveman"(!).
 
I've been following any and every update concerning Australian Aboriginality for a few decades now, OR, It intensified back in the mid eighties after being accepted at the University of New England to study archaeology and paleoanthropology. During my time there I realised that there was/is a hipster like attitude concerning early dating of Aborigines in this country.

It was well known that the stratigraphical delineation surrounding the finds at Lake Willandra had collapsed, due to the constant and consistent movement of the surrounding material of the sand hills where the remains are sited, and that the usual techniques for dating were considered haphazard and a large area of doubt must be expected due to contamination, and the senesence of C14 dating for that length of time.

There are other methods of dating which could give a more accurate date, but due to the remains being locked away from human gaze, and the need to consider certain cultural sensitivities, the remains have not had more than a searching glance since about 1992.

I suppose that what we can glean from the situation is that humanity lived there for some considerable time, the climate for that area, at the time, was more benign, they possibly lived alongside local megafauna, evidence indicates that they were Homo sapien with religious beliefs, specific burial traditions including cremation which would indicate a group culture of some sophistication and a lithic technology that was abundant. The physical evidence from the remains indicated osteoarthritic wear in the lumbar area, and significant wear on the teeth indicating a possible age of fifty years upon its death. Subsequent studies using the length of limb bones to estimate LM3's height, suggest a height of 196 centimetres -77 inches or 6 ft 5 inches.
 
Now you got me intrigued as to what a hipster attitude for dating remains is. Do all the fossil remains date back to a time before fossils were cool?
 
Now you got me intrigued as to what a hipster attitude for dating remains is. Do all the fossil remains date back to a time before fossils were cool?

There is/was a certain arrogance within the UNE and a cavalier attitude to establish an earliest as possible dating for remains from the Willandra Lakes. It was almost as if the aboriginal remains and their age added kudos to these archaeologists integrity [ i.e. the archaeologists 'owned' this stage of humanity, instead of the remains being more significant than the archaeolgists career], rather than the remains objectively establishing the significance of culture for these people at that time, and the tracing of the DNA to further establish connectivity of origins.

These young turks could have approached the remains, with more humility and respect, that had been found at the Willandra Lakes sites.


Just my thoughts and opinions though.
 
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If europeans have around 4% neanderthal DNA and other groups don't, how was this missed by the Human Genome Project? It seems a fairly large percentage, not something to be lost in measurement uncertainties.
 
Perhaps it was just taken as a trait common to the group that has it. And it wasn't until they sequenced the Neandertal genome that they realised what it was. Besides it's up to about 5%, the levels vary.

Same for the Denisovans.
 
I've been following any and every update concerning Australian Aboriginality for a few decades now, OR, It intensified back in the mid eighties after being accepted at the University of New England to study archaeology and paleoanthropology. During my time there I realised that there was/is a hipster like attitude concerning early dating of Aborigines in this country.

It was well known that the stratigraphical delineation surrounding the finds at Lake Willandra had collapsed, due to the constant and consistent movement of the surrounding material of the sand hills where the remains are sited, and that the usual techniques for dating were considered haphazard and a large area of doubt must be expected due to contamination, and the senesence of C14 dating for that length of time.

There are other methods of dating which could give a more accurate date, but due to the remains being locked away from human gaze, and the need to consider certain cultural sensitivities, the remains have not had more than a searching glance since about 1992.

I suppose that what we can glean from the situation is that humanity lived there for some considerable time, the climate for that area, at the time, was more benign, they possibly lived alongside local megafauna, evidence indicates that they were Homo sapien with religious beliefs, specific burial traditions including cremation which would indicate a group culture of some sophistication and a lithic technology that was abundant. The physical evidence from the remains indicated osteoarthritic wear in the lumbar area, and significant wear on the teeth indicating a possible age of fifty years upon its death. Subsequent studies using the length of limb bones to estimate LM3's height, suggest a height of 196 centimetres -77 inches or 6 ft 5 inches.

I do intend to learn more about this. Can you recommend any books on the subject?

My particular interest, aside from the obviously fascinating remains themselves, is whether the first Australians were present at the same time as the megafuana.
 
I can't recomend any books OR, but there is evidence of MegaFauna remains in either the same horizon as humanity, or being dated when it was known that Aborigines were in Australia

http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=190


http://austhrutime.com/marsupial_megafauna_extinction.htm


http://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@sci/@eesc/documents/doc/uow014698.pdf


http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10496


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379115300809


Here's a photo of skeletal megafaunal remains eroding out of the base of Lake Mungo [Willandra lakes].


IMG_0053.jpg
 
Thank you very much for those. I can't imagine being able to visit a place where you could see bones like that coming out of the ground. It's incredible.

It's not easy being a marsupial fanatic in Europe.
 
THE most amazing place that I've ever been OR, especially after espying the large paw print [ABC?], up over on the 'wall of china' - which is the white Lunette in the background of the above photo, and ancient lithic evidence everywhere...


IMG_0047.jpg


An Adze, and yes, it was that colour.
 
Wow. Wonder what type of rock that is? Looks glassy and volcanic.
 
I think it's quartzite Mytho - not too sure. Its origins/signature have been traced to the Brisbane area and was supposed to have been traded by a mob from Brisbane, prehistorically.

What intrigues me about this stone is that, for some reason, this mob from Brisbane would walk 1500 Kilometres to Lake Mungo to trade with the mob from Lake Mungo , and then back to Brisbane, another 1500 kilometres - what on earth were they trading it for to make them travel 3000 kilometres all up, and what was the significance behind the blue stone to the Lake Mungo People?

Was it an item they traded, or was it the significance of travelling to the Lake Mungo area - this is in relation to the spirituality shown when they interred their dead, so was lake Mungo similar to Jerusalem, or Mecca - or am I reading too much into it...
 
Maybe Mungo was a Scarborough Fair equivalent?
Somewhere where tribes could meet, and people could meet a prospective wife or husband?
 
I think it's quartzite Mytho - not too sure. Its origins/signature have been traced to the Brisbane area and was supposed to have been traded by a mob from Brisbane, prehistorically.

What intrigues me about this stone is that, for some reason, this mob from Brisbane would walk 1500 Kilometres to Lake Mungo to trade with the mob from Lake Mungo , and then back to Brisbane, another 1500 kilometres - what on earth were they trading it for to make them travel 3000 kilometres all up, and what was the significance behind the blue stone to the Lake Mungo People?

Was it an item they traded, or was it the significance of travelling to the Lake Mungo area - this is in relation to the spirituality shown when they interred their dead, so was lake Mungo similar to Jerusalem, or Mecca - or am I reading too much into it...

Maybe not. As Mythopoeika says, perhaps it was some sort of gathering place. Do we know anything about the stability, or age, of it as a water source in comparison to the others round there. Or if at that time it was unique in some other way. Or again, how well the other bodies of water nearby have been excavated.

Locally to me, Gower, we have remains from 33,000 plus in one of our sea caves. A lot has been found in the area, but it was only about six years ago that an example of cave art was discovered in a very well researched, regularly visited, and easily accessible land cave.
 
... What intrigues me about this stone is that, for some reason, this mob from Brisbane would walk 1500 Kilometres to Lake Mungo to trade with the mob from Lake Mungo , and then back to Brisbane, another 1500 kilometres - what on earth were they trading it for to make them travel 3000 kilometres all up, and what was the significance behind the blue stone to the Lake Mungo People?

Was it an item they traded, or was it the significance of travelling to the Lake Mungo area - this is in relation to the spirituality shown when they interred their dead, so was lake Mungo similar to Jerusalem, or Mecca - or am I reading too much into it...

Isn't it more likely that the prized stone (and / or other trade items) 'flowed' through multiple sites / exchanges over time, rather than being transported and hand-delivered by the same carrier(s) who removed it from its source location?

... Or is there some evidence pointing to a single long distance movement?
 
Good question EnolaG.

There are very little natural resources when it comes to a stone tool industry in the Lake Mungo region, and most, if not all specific stone for individual types of tools were carried distances by outlying mobs to the people of Lake Mungo. Whether the Brisbane Mob individually carried that specific stone all that distance is unknown, and your idea of seperate 'legs' in the journey seems more appropriate. The larger amounts of that specific stone found around the Willandra Lakes seems to indicate to me that there was trading along defined routes from a determined source, over a period of time that warranted either contractual contact with the Brisbane people, or very specific trade routes throughout Eastern Australia.

The idea that established trading, over long distance trade routes, for a specific stone, at that time, would indicate a sophistication [if that's the appropriate word], in a hunter gatherer society that needs to be uppermost in anybodies minds the next time the topic of 'stone age people' enters the conversation.

Here's a website EG that might interest you concerning early dating and curious facts associated with Australian Aboriginality for at least! the last 40,000 years.

http://www.janesoceania.com/australia_aboriginal_sites1/index1.htm
 
Another possible angle on explaining the apparently long distance movements of trade items relates to the hunter gatherer life per se. Could it be that (in the climatic conditions of that long-past time ... ) there was a benefit obtained from moving one's clan / tribe seasonally (e.g., to follow a herd; to visit prey mating grounds at just the right time), and such seasonal movements resulted (at least secondarily) in trade exchanges across long distances?
 
The Pintupi-skull mentioned on page 7 intrigues me. Are they any places you can see a comparison between that and known modern aboriginal skulls?
 
The Pintupi-skull mentioned on page 7 intrigues me. Are they any places you can see a comparison between that and known modern aboriginal skulls?

It is an exciting find and definitely of genuine Fortean interest, but it looks like this is going to be suppressed through political correctness and scientific orthodoxy.
Had the Pintubi-1 skull, with its tiny cranium, huge brow ridges, receding chin, but large teeth, been discovered in half a million year old strata, it would almost certainly have been classed as another Homo Erectus.

IMG_0458.PNG

The fact that it belonged to someone estimated as being aged around 50, and who died during the 19th century means it HAS to be classed as a modern Homo sapiens rather than the archaic hominid it appears to be.
 
It's certainly fresh enough that a good DNA sample should be possible.
 
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