Neandertal Teeth - (and Evolution links)
Of course, I had to post this, for posterity, even though it is everywhere in the news. I was going to post it earlier but got called away to do a lot of vacuuming. The crazy guy has been acting up, due to the big weather, and so I have had no choice but to retaliate. I banged massively the other night, which shut him up for a while. Then he started up again, as the weather returned. In addition to my radios being as loud as possible 24/7, (injuring my health and my dog's sanity, as well), I decided it was now time to stop sitting around writing and computerising, and do some badly needed cleaning. I knew this would bother him today, so. But I really am constrained, usually, and get not enough cleaning done. This person really is mentally ill. I must get back to reporting this to friends and police, soon. That will also take some of my time away from LJ. And I really don't have interest in working on that project, but it is necessary. So - the point of this is that I had lots to post today, but was swamped - also by the fatigue, caused by him banging last night at 12:30am, after he thought I had gone to sleep - and after all of his deliberate stomping around early this morning.
I might try to sleep for a half an hour soon, but I am cooking chicken for my dog. Tomorrow, I hope to walk to the supermarket and back. Got to try to save money again.
New insight into secret lives of Neanderthals - Same:
Dental plaque DNA shows Neanderthals used 'aspirin'
Teeth Hint at a Friendlier Neanderthal
From their dental plaque and DNA, scientists believe that Neandertal chewed bark for the aspirin it contained, and also used penicillin, before we humany humans found out about it in only relatively recently. NPR also did a story on this topic, (I hate that NPR beat me to the punch), and conveyed that sex between Neandertal and Sapiens was not a brutish thing, but was intimate and caring, as it is supposed to be to day. Also, we know that Neandertal placed flowers on buried loved ones; were probably religious - at the very least, like elephants, and were apparently very creative. All of this is a far cry from what we once believed about this, "backwards caveman," and it is what I have been declaring all along.
I have hypothesized quite unabashedly that I feel it is possible that Neandertals were taken up as religious-type leaders by many Sapiens invaders of Europe and the Levant, even while Neandertal declined for various reasons, (like climate change, loss of habitat, loss of megafauna, very probably a new widespread disease, and being out-competed and hunted down by various Sapiens). I also conjecture that they and their mixed descendants - widely went underground, building tunnels and pyramids. To me, it seems possible that they were the common ancestors and facilitators of a worldwide, fairly sophisticated civilisation, which largely vanished around 12,700 years ago, and in various stages prior to that.
Neandertals and Sapiens did intermingle genetically. Europeans, (and related), inheritted the highest amount of Neandertal genes. That sets off wheels turning in my head, alas: "Ok, what are somewhat unique to Europeans? Lactose tolerance? Alcohol tolerance? Autism? The, 'Niceness Gene'?" This would be a fascinating area of study to pursue! I see resemblances between Neandertal and some Jews, or between them and some "Dutch/Irish", or between them and Eastern Native Americans - but all of that is mainly the end-branches of an overall shaking out of various shared traits in archaic Sapiens, in Neandertal, (and in Homo Erectus). But, I might have heard that Native Americans share relatively less Neandertal genes - (I will have to check on that some time). We might not yet have the whole genetic tree down fully. I would like to know the answer to questions as, "Why did some Cherokee have Jewish genes? Perhaps they were both from Neandertal? Or was it the, "Lost Tribe?"
(Don't laugh. We get genes from every which direction - even viruses and insects. We share original genes with nematodes. Most of us are somewhat, "Chimp-related," but one guy was found in West Africa who had a slightly unusual amount of genes from Bonobos! I would rather be that! The recent discovery of Homo Naledi shows a hominid with skeletal and facial features somewhat resembling humans from central Africa. The Chinese share more features with archaic humans more influenced by Homo Erectus. Australian Aborigines are more genetically unique than other branches, and may be closer to both Erectus and Neandertal. Then there were the Denisovians and the, "Hobbit People." The whole thing is a lateral mishmash. Evolution is NOT a hierarchy where one branch is the most perfect. It is not an insult to say we may be related to previous forms such as Neandertal, because, we are seeing that these forms were intelligent and human enough in their own rights).
God knows, I'd rather be an elephant.
Or a dolphin. In a world without people.
The evolution of culture is even more fluid and certain. The fact that Neandertal, (40,000 years ago), knew where to find aspirin, and was using penicillin, suggests that that human species played a significant role in our own civilizations of the past. Native Americans have always known to find aspirin in Poplar and Willow barks - so why is it not possible that this was medicine handed down from human Neandertals, not too long ago? There is a vast, vast tool kit of natural medicines and palliatives, and astrological and stone-sense and mathematical wisdom, living and breathing like a lost, shadow sibling in the human race, now consumed and consciously forgotten - yet still alive. This EARTH KNOWLEDGE is something we inheritted from all the primates and animals and plants which have gone before us. It is all a shared network, like the communications of monkeys and birds in the jungle. It still lulls us and wakes us in dreams. Avatar.
Therefore, it is more probable that, e.g., Neandertal, played a strong influence in our tribal and social and civil past, because he walks with us today. He is us today. We are all the stuff of stars. Of the same mind.
Later, I have much about evolution, "versus," the new and the "pseudo" evolution, resembling Larmarkism, which you may have heard about on TED or RadioLab. But, for now, all I've got are links - tags from the past. This is a work in progress.
Dance Of Human Evolution Was Herky-Jerky, Fossils Suggest -
'Black swan' events can cause massive die-offs in animal populations - and climate change could make the unexpected occurrences more frequent, researchers warn -
'Black swan' events strike animal populations - See also: "Punctuated Equilibrium"
NPR search: "Human Evolution".
Tag - evolution
Tag - evolution - theory of
Tag - black swan events
Tag - evolution - human (& see prehistoric)
Tag - prehistoric - neandertals homo neanderth
Tag - prehistoric - neandertals - sex with
More fun - HERE / HERE / and HERE