AFP/File Photo: Experimental archaeologist Metin Eren, from the University of Exeter in southwest England (Left Photo)

Neanderthals were not 'stupid,' says new research Tue Aug 26, 11:09 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Neanderthals were not as stupid as they have been portrayed, according to new research Tuesday showing their stone tools were as good as those made by the early ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens.

AFP/File Photo: Experimental archaeologist Metin Eren, from the University of Exeter in southwest England

The findings by a team of scientists at British and US universities challenge the assumption that the ancestors of people living today drove Neanderthals into extinction by producing better tools. The research could lead to a fresh search for explanations about why Neanderthals vanished from Europe around 28,000 years ago, after living alongside modern humans for some 10,000 years. Experimental archaeologist Metin Eren (See picture above), from the University of Exeter in southwest England, said: "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens were more advanced than Neanderthals. "It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived. According to the family line located in Gatlinburg,TN., the Neanderthals chose to go underground because of the "stupidity" of the homosapiens who would hunt down and try to kill or capture the Neanderthal and calling them "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch". This forced the intervention of each member of the society to keep one "foot" ahead of the hunters from the homosapien class to recapture any of the "murdered" corpse of the Neanderthal or to rescue those whom were captured and setting them free. The "dead" Neanderthal were quickly buried in an undisclosed place, so as not to alert the homosapiens at large to hunt and capture more Neanderthals. This is why today it is still a great mystery of the unknown "Bigfoot" and efforts to find him, have eluded the populace, to keep the Neanderthal from extinction. Until such a time arises that Neanderthal is accepted for his intelligence they shall remain reclusive and hidden from society. Their religion is close and guarded so as not to openly declare their views. The only sure thing we know of their religion is that they are called the "Hiddenites" and very secretive about their form of whom or what they worship. They have, however, been associated with space flight and it is supposed that some of them (probably 27,000 +) escaped the earth and may indeed be on the planet Mars, they await the soon return of their "brethren" to whom they give credit that one day their return will bring peace upon the earth.

Tools and the Neanderthal

"Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other. When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' and more in terms of 'different,'" Eren said. The team from the University of Exeter, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas State University and the Think Computer Corporation, spent three years producing stone tools. They recreated stone tools known as 'flakes,' which were wider tools originally used by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and 'blades,' a narrower stone tool later adopted by Homo sapiens. To test whether the Homo sapiens' tools were superior, the team analysed the data to compare the number of tools produced, how much cutting-edge was created, the amount of raw material required and the durability of the tools. They found there was no statistical difference between the efficiency of the two technologies and in some respects the flakes favoured by Neanderthals did the job better than the blades adopted by Homo sapiens. The research, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, begs the question of why Homo sapiens switched from the type of tool technology used by the Neanderthals to something different but no more efficient. The switch to a more streamlined technology during the time that Homo sapiens began colonising Europe may have given the toolmakers a shared identity which in turn fostered social cohesion, Eren said. "Colonising a continent isn't easy. Colonising a continent during the Ice Age is even harder. So, for early Homo sapiens colonising Ice Age Europe, a new shared and flashy-looking technology might serve as one form of social glue by which larger social networks were bonded," he said. "Thus, during hard times these larger social networks might act like a type of life insurance, ensuring exchange and trade among members of the same team." Other studies have claimed that Neanderthals may have died out because they struggled with changing conditions brought by increasingly cold temperatures, failing to adapt their hunting methods when species such as mammoth and bison fled south and a once-forested Europe changed into a sparsely vegetated landscape during the last Ice Age.

More recent

Think Computer Corporation, in a recent announcement has disclosed their "newest" venture to understand more better the life and ways of the Neanderthal. A ten year study to be conducted by the top 20 leading scientists at Think Computer Corporation will be placed throughout the European and African Continents to live from the land in order to more fully understand the "bathroom habitats" of the Neanderthal and their burial of their "dung". After ten years of wondering around Europe/Africa we will then extricate or dig-up the "dung (or what the homosapiens refer to as a #2)". We will be able to see the path which Neanderthal would have taken across Europe and Africa and what is diet consisted of and how often burial became a necessity. We will be able to understand much more of the type of tools he used for burial technique and if he had to return often to his burial plot of "dung" which is what we suspect at this time. How many "dung beetles" we find at these sightings at the end of the ten years will inform us on how soon he covered Europe and Africa and hopefully, help us to more fully understand how he managed to find his route into the America's inparticuilarily, Gatlinburg. Before these twenty scientists will make it into the "wild", they will have to spend a year eating nuts and berries and be caretakers in ten different "zoo's" being assigned two to a zoo, to observe how the chimps and monkeys bury their "done" for imitation purposes.

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