They were pretty ugly I have to admit. Even paleontologists call them ugly! They just weren't very appealing with those stocky builds and flat noses. Those Geico commercials are pretty generous in the looks department with them. I wonder if they thought homo sapien was ugly though with its more upright and thinner build? Who knows...I have read of accounts of Neanderthal burial excavations and they very often placed flowers on top of the bodies before sealing them off.. Also toys and weapons buried with bodies so they may have had a belief in the after life but that's all debatable and you will hear 15 different interpretations if you look it up online depending on who's giving you their take on it A couple interesting films:

Clan of the Cave Bear
Quest for Fire

Quest for Fire is a little less Hollywood but they both depict the struggle between homo sapien and Neanderthal attempting to come to terms with one another.

I have yet another question. The Christian fundamentalists tend to assert that yes, the bible was written by men but they were moved by god to write his words or something along those lines.

Okay couldn't Charles Darwin have been "moved" or directed by god in some respect to write a book entitled "Origin of Species"? What about the work of countless Paleontologists who research day in and day out these early ancestors of man? Could they have not been inspired by god in some respect to write their books and introduce their theories? Hmmm?

Though quite annoying - flies are perhaps the most important creature man has in the forensic sciences. Without them - close to 50% of homicides would go unsolved.

Thats actually true Eljay! Now were you going to tackle the Neanderthal man issue? Tribo sort of tried but we are at a standstill now. I would like to hear your thoughts.

I've been looking a little bit into this (as much as I have had time for), and not to say that I've formulated any concrete opinions on this, there are some associative thoughts that have always crossed my mind any time this subject comes up.

What immediately comes to mind, is the thought that if one of these spaceships that Jeannie refers to - showed up in the remote woods of Montana, and started excavating, what conclusions would they draw if they came upon a burial site that had the remains of a family of dwarves, Samoans, Caucasians, and Negro's from a line traced back to Africa. Having no documentation available to explain anything about the pasts of these remains - what conclusions would they draw?
Would they think the Dwarf evolved into the Negro, into the caucasion, into the Samoan due to the size of the skeletal remains? Wouldn't this be a logical means to view the relation of these remains? After all - all the bones are there, it is obvious they appear to be the same species, yet they differ greatly. The idea that each would have adapted to the myriad of climates on the planet earth - it would certainly be reasonable to accept this premise of evoution.
Having nothing else to provide an alternative theory - it slowly becomes taught as fact, not theory.

Given my hypothetical situation - take Neanderthol and Homosapien, and disprove my premise. I would have a clearer idea of how this theory is gaining momentum towards fact if this could be clearly demonstrated.

Eljay wrote and I quote:

"...After all - all the bones are there, it is obvious they appear to be the SAME SPECIES , yet they differ greatly. The idea that each would have ADAPTED to the myriad of climates on the planet earth - it would certainly be reasonable to accept this premise of EVOLUTION..."


MorningSong wrote:

Eljay....if the bones appear to be of the SAME SPECIES, this is most likely man having to ADAPT...which is NOT the same as Evolution.

EVOLUTION means ,EVOLVING INTO A WHOLE DIFFERENT SPECIES!!!!


Note:
ADAPTION can also be referred to as , "evolving WITHIN ones Species"...but ADAPTION is DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME AS, evolving into a whole OTHER species.

But Eljay, because you mentioned the bones are of the SAME species, I am sure ADAPTION is what you were referring to , in your post.

The the spacemen that excavated in Montana had a clear conception of Geology, and some basic understanding of Biological processes whether terran or not, they would likely conclude that at most two species exhibiting a wide range of diversity, or perhaps a collection of nearly related species were cohabiting in the area.

The bones of and skeletal structure of Samoans, Caucasians, and Negros are sufficiently similar that most people untrained and inexperienced would not be able to discern a distinct difference.

Neanderthal are different enough that the differences are clearly distinguishable to an untrained observer, even if the nuances are lost on them.

The bones of congenital dwarfs though disproportionate, are similar enough in structure that upon close examination they would be viewed as a close relative or simply a variation of the species.

That is one of the reasons why we can distinguish juvenile members of a species from adults by having only their bones available for observation, rather than consider the set too be a distinct but smaller species of similar form.

When it comes to the genetic evidence however, we have a significantly different picture. The genes for hominids are fairly complex (though by no means the most complicated structure), but in understanding the gene sequencing we can find enough difference to distinguish between the various "races" and to distinguish ourselves from other near cousin species for which we have DNA evidence.

A space race which has mastered interplanetary travel will not certainly but in all probability figured out DNA, or some equivalent of cellular encoding as well.

Adaption is one of many steps a species takes in transitioning to another species.

A species ADAPTS to its environment ..... WITHOUT becoming a whole new Species.

Btw, NO ONE HAS EVER PROVEN......that ANY species has EVER become a WHOLE NEW Species....EVER!!!!

NEVER EVER EVER has happened yet!!

And Evolutionists VERY WELL KNOW this, but they keep trying to prove othwerwise....but all in Vain!!!

Why is it all in vain?

Cause God says in His Word,
Each Reproduces AFTER... ITS... OWN... KIND!!!

ONLY!!!!



And God does NOT Lie.

True. So the challenge becomes the demonstration that evolution is NOT adaptation, rather than the proof of evolution being the NEED to adapt. Is this not the idea behind "survival of the fittest"?

That's true... species do not change into whole new species all together.

They adapt and vary, and then an environmental condition occurs for which certain adaptive traits are favored, but the original varieties are not suited.

This process continues hundreds and hundreds of times and then you effectively have new species, even though they have only made very very small changes.

No...no new species ever has evolved from any original species, no matter how much time has passed.
(However, there may be many different VARIATIONS WITHIN a Species... but STILL ONE SPECIES).

Neanderthal man....Cro-Magnon ....Homo Sapien, for instance.... ALL came from the same original species ...called MAN.

Neanderthals lived to be 900 years old...surely that would have caused some physiological changes to have taken place in their bone structure, over such a long period of time.

Btw, This bone structural change , especially in the jaw,has been proven to take place as man ages....but again, no matter the physiological changes that took place over such a long period of time in neanderthal man ( from having lived to such a ripe old age ),Neanderthals still come from the SAME ORIGINAL Species that God Created...called MAN!!!


Therefore, there is only ONE Species of Man.
ONE.

But of course, Many different variations can come out of that One Species called MAN.

I find that difficult to believe, but I'd be very interested in any research data that is available to support that claim. Can you tell me where I can find any, MorningSong?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2214/1662654814_e9cfa7e416.jpg

Hasn't anyone seen this before?

ETA - no image posting huh. Terrified of the evil Dino pictures.

Actually, I should have just said , "Early man" lived to be 900 years old.

Neanderthal is just a "label" for early man.

Btw, the long age of early man, is mentioned in the bible.

Yes, I am familiar with some of the ages stated in the bible. I was just looking for any reported physical evidence to support it.

This is the position I take as well.

Impossible to recreate - so the only thing available are fossels - which only so much can be determined from. Since we cannot test any human fosells that we can attest is 900 years old to see what the maturation process would have been - scientific evidence is impossible to gather to support this as fact. We only have the written account for it. Much like we do for the existance of anything in History that was recorded - yet not preserved. I don't believe we have Homer's bones. We really can't prove he existed - but through the testimony of others, and the works he wrote, we have reasonable confidence that he was not a mythical author.

http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/who-was-neanderthal-man-was-he-the-missing-link.html



And this(below) is worth sharing again too



http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/neanderthal.html


and this also.....


http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/

I believe the articles I shared earlier also mention this...and that is, there were Fossilized bones of Homo Sapiens found ,mixed with Neantherthal's fossilized bones...what was determined was that these fossilized bones had been buried in layers of mud....which most likely was due to the great flood in Noah's time.

This is Proof, that neanderthal man and homo sapien's, lived at the same time...and the only difference between the two are..... some were much younger peope living at the time of the flood,and some were much much older people living at the time of the flood , who had already lived to a ripe old age of almost 900 years .....which was NORMAL at that time!!

And surely, it doesn't take a lot to figure out ...that an almost 900, or even a 800 or 700 or 600 or 500 or 400 year old man , will surely have some physiological changes in his body...DUE TO AGE!!

It makes perfect sense... here we have fossils of almost 900 year old men( 900 years old man will surely have had some changed bone structure too,due to AGE... which as already mentioned before, bone structural change has been proven to come with age .

Now, Mix almost 900 year old man's fossils with the fossils of the "not so old man"( who will have similar bone structure to man today......simply because he do not live to be 900 years old yet )....and the reason the fossils bones are found together in the first place, is due to the Great Flood.... and well......honestly, it all makes sense.

If one believes in God's Word...and therefore believes that the flood DID take place.... well then, that explains the neanderthal's fossil bones found with homo sapien man's fossil bones.

And these fossils could only form in the first place , due to being buried in layers of Mud back then.

And what caused these men to be buried together under layers of Mud?

The..Great..Flood..of...Noah's ...Day.