Anthropologists are puzzled over the diappearence of neanderthal man from europe. I guess the concensus is that Cro_magnon man wiped out the neanderthals. my question; would a modern neanderthal (dressed up in a $300o Armani suit), and suitable coiffed, look all that different from the rest of us?
I don’t care 100% for your attitude here.
A very interesting question, Ralph, and one that’s almost grist for GD.
Quick answer: experts are divided on how closely Neandertals were related to strictly modern man, and how similar/different their capabilities were. Examples: assessment of the physical morphology of the Neandertal mouth and throat, based on known remains, suggest to some physical anthropologists that Neandertals could not have spoken, at least not in the manner of any extant language. If they used verbal communication at all, these scholars think, it would have not been in any supple, fluent human-speech mode. Yet there is the grave of a Neandertal girl which contained flowers, presumably placed there by the survivors at the burial.
Whether the elimination was violent, slow replacement by outcompeting them, intermarriage, or some combination of the above, is still argued at length. The question of whether we and they might have been interfertile is asked. One thing that is certainly known is that no known living person is directly descended in the maternal line from a Neandertal woman (mitochondrial DNA evidence here).
Those who advocate that the Neandertals were most nearly modern human in form and custom would argue that they could probably pass for modern. (There are a couple of SF stories based loosely on this idea – relict populations preserving the Neandertal race and “laying low” by impersonating unusual looking modern humans.) At the other extreme, they’re seen as a separate species too narrowly adapted for Wurm-glaciation Europe and in an evolutionary dead end as the ice receded. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in between.
It’s worth noting, too, that “classic Neandertals” – the late-surviving European population – were the ones most thoroughly specialized for the Ice Age climate, and that the earlier Neandertals of the Middle East were far more “modern” --in terms of having characteristics shared with modern humans – than their later collateral descendants in Europe. (This group is known as the pre-classic or, more commonly, Levantine Neandertal population, with “Levantine” preserved as the standard designator adjective even though it’s become less than PC for southwest Asia these days, much like the “Formosan wasp” is endemic to Taiwan.)
I’ve mentioned before that my wife once did a series of skull x-rays on a woman who had been in a car accident and noted that many Neanderthal characteristics were present, including the location of the foramena which is supposed to be diagnostic. She said the woman looked “kinda tough” but was otherwise normal.
I see one guy at the bus stop occasionally. This guy has HUGE brow ridges, a receeding chin and an exceptionally burly frame. I have no idea what you’d find if you took a look at his skeletal features, but he looks just like a movie-style “cave man”.
While people might notice he looks different, nobody points and laughs. That would be rude. So while your neandertal in a suit might attact some glances, he’s not going to be put in a zoo either.
He would look strikingly odd, even dressed in a suit. The forehead would slope back dramatically, instead of being vertical. The brow ridges would be pretty prominent and the whole face would look as if it had been pulled foreward. There would be no chin, and the nose would be unusally large. Here is a group of pictures (some good, some bad), but look at this one in particular to get an idea of what the face might look like. Whenever you see a modern person made up to look like a Neanderthal in those Discovery Channel shows, it really doesn’t do it justice because you can’t get the sloping forehead right.
There was a photo in , I think, one of those old Time-Life books that showed three different reconstructions of the outweard form of a Neanderthal, based on the same data. Depending upon the assumptions made, the Neanderthal could look pretty grotesque, or he could look virtually modern. I know that science marches on, and all, but the skulls habven’t changed, and reconstruction still follows basically the same outlines. The bottom line is, I think, It Depends… For all I know they had very distinctly thick lips. Or bald spots, or something. But it’s still possible that they would’ve looked pretty similar to a lot of present-day folk.
What?
Here’s a Photoshop of what a Neanderthal child might look like.
http://www.yaq.com/spotlight/images/preceltic/neanderthalgirl.jpg
I think it was an “are you calling me a Neanderthal?” joke that didn’t work.
Here is a really good reconstruction from the Yale Peabody Museum. If he were wearing a hat, you might not think him odd looking, but without a hat, that forehead just says something’s wrong with this guy.
No, it was a quote from the latest series of Geico ads. They started with a group of offended cavemen after Geico ran an ad saying their service was so easy, “even a Caveman could do it!” Now they’re using just one, and he’s becoming known as “the sensitive caveman”.
The current, November-December, issue of Archaeology magazine has a feature on Neanderthals. The actual magazine has several reconstructions, including the one that Bosda linked to. They’re not on the online article, unfortunately, although the cover shot has one.
The reconstructions, from several eras, all depict people who would be hard to pick out as non-human, at least from the front. Side shots of fossils skulls do show more marked differences, but apparently the muscle and skin structure hide the bones to a high degree. I think you’d need to see a full 360 degree reconstruction rather than a two-d photo to really tell how great the differences are.
I’d totally date the Geico Cavemen. He’s cute.
A reference to the GEICO Caveman commercials, actually. There’s one where the GEICO spokesman and the caveman are on a Nightline-style show together, and the spokesman says, "How can it be offensive if it’s true? The caveman responds with something like the quoted line.
So, how YOU doin’?
Nor did they! Note how the “final” reconstruction slopes far, FAR more drastically, with a nearly unbroken line from the top of the brow ridges to the crown, than does the skull! It looks to me–and I’m trying to put away my pro-Neanderthal prejudices, John–like they are ignoring the original skull in order to give the appearance of “otherness.”
Scroll down to the bottom picture in John’s link…and you’ve got a neandertal Patrick Stewart.
This is going to sound a little snarky, but I’m totally serious. A long-ago ex of mine played one of the Neanderthals in “Clan of the Cave Bear”. Most of the other actors were unrecognizable under the make-up, but I swear, my ex looked as if they had popped a wig on him and given him a change of clothes. He definitely had a primal look to him, both facial and body-type (stocky, short legs, broad shoulders). I’ve never had a problem imagining Neanderthal as a possibilty in some Norther European lineages.