Neanderthals And The Garden Of Eden

Updating Neanderthals: Understanding Behavioral Complexity in the Late Middle Paleolithic provides comprehensive knowledge on Neanderthals who lived throughout the European and Asian continents. The book synthesizes historical information about the study of Middle Paleolithic populations and presents current debates about their genetics, subsistence, technology, social and cognitive behaviors. It focuses on the last phase of Neanderthal settlements and presents the main patterns of modern humans across Europe. Written by international experts on the Middle Paleolithic who have conducted innovative studies in the last three decades, this book explores the implications of interactions between different human species, including Neanderthals, Denisovans and Sapiens. In addition, the book discusses the diversity and variability of human adaptations and behaviors in the changing climate and environment of the Late Pleistocene, and the relationship between these behaviors, demography and cognitive capabilities. Offers a comprehensive update on the variability and diversity of Neanderthal behaviors during the Late Pleistocene Presents an interdisciplinary reconstruction of Neanderthals by assessing archaeology, paleontology, paleoecology, anthropology, genetics and cognition Reviews the reliability of archaeological data and the theoretical and methodological advances of the last 30 years Discusses the most debated Neanderthal themes, such as demography, diet, socio-economy and art

Neanderthals and Modern Humans develops the theme of the close relationship between climate change, ecological change and biogeographical patterns in humans during the Pleistocene. In particular, it challenges the view that Modern Human 'superiority' caused the extinction of the Neanderthals between 40 and 30 thousand years ago. Clive Finlayson shows that to understand human evolution, the spread of humankind across the world and the extinction of archaic populations, we must move away from a purely theoretical evolutionary ecology base and realise the importance of wider biogeographic patterns including the role of tropical and temperate refugia. His proposal is that Neanderthals became extinct because their world changed faster than they could cope with, and that their relationship with the arriving Modern Humans, where they met, was subtle.

Throughout history, speech has been forbidden or at least restricted to the laboring classes. Enslaved people laboring in ancient Egypt or working on Latin American plantations were forbidden to speak during work. In the early period of nation-states, the language of many peoples was forbidden because of the sovereignty of the lingua franca. Censorship has taken various forms in the history of all states. Talk amongst the laboring classes could lead to revolt and revolution; for this reason, speech was restricted during the harshest periods of labor. However, speech could be commercialized and reproduced in a society where all individuals were atomized entirely and isolated, in an environment where meaning was almost lost. In short, speech was supervised and controlled for the oppressed until the second half of the 20th century. However, especially in the postmodern period, speech has been supported at every point and subjected to significant inflation as if it were detached from meaningfulness. The pressures previously placed on the speech of workers and marginalized groups have suddenly diminished; speech everywhere has been commercialized and reproduced. This book analyses the causes of this evolution.

The 150th anniversary of the discovery of the famous Neanderthal fossils gave reason for an international and interdisciplinary symposium in Bonn/Germany. The present book arose from this congress and focuses on multiple aspects of archaeological investigation on Neanderthal lifeways. In-depth studies of top-ranking scientists provide a detailed and comprehensive survey of contemporary research on our Pleistocene relatives. Examinations and debates are embedded in a variety of regions and time frames. Chronology, subsistence, land use, and cultural adaptations among late Neanderthals form the major trajectories of the book. The wide range of approaches involved, leads to an increasing understanding of the facets of and the variability of Neanderthal behavioural patterns. The present volume is complemented by a paleontologically orientated publication of the same congress (edited by Gerd-Christian Weniger and Silvana Condemi).

In 1856 - as Darwin was completing Origin of Species - the fossilized remains of a stocky, powerful human-like creature were discovered in a cave in the Neander Valley in Germany. This work offers an account of the search for man's beginnings and out of a particular man - dead for 40, 000 years - who began a revolution that changed the world.

Explores the influence of Neanderthal man on the cultural and biological development of humanity • Traces the power of long-held beliefs and superstitions to the influence of Neanderthal lunar and dream-based traditions • Offers a compelling vision of a unified humanity that can benefit from the gifts of both its Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon ancestors • Provides evidence that direct descendants of the Neanderthal race may still be alive in Central Asia A number of long-standing beliefs and superstitions show how the ideas that dominated the lives of our ancestors still have a powerful influence on us today. The disturbing power attributed to the number thirteen, the positive influence of the number seven, and the comfort offered by the admonition “knock wood” all reveal the enduring presence of our most ancient ancestors: the Neanderthals. Contrary to current theories, Stan Gooch maintains that the Neanderthals were not destroyed by the younger Cro-Magnon culture but were incorporated into that culture through interbreeding. The blending of the disparate influences of the lunar, matriarchal-based Neanderthals and the solar, patriarchal Cro-Magnons may explain the contradictory impulses and influences that have generated human conflict for millennia. In fact, the author suggests that the caste system in India may have been constructed to utilize the strengths of both lunar and solar cultures and to minimize the conflict between the two. There is evidence that direct descendents of the moon-worshipping, dream-­cultivating Neanderthal race are still living in Central Asia today. While their physical descendants may be almost extinct, the influence of Neanderthal wisdom remains strong and can be found not only in witchcraft lore and the Kabbalah, but in the formative tenets of the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and even Christianity.

"In the first complete chronological narrative of the species from emergence to extinction...archaeologist Dimitra Papagianni and science historian Michael Morse have shaped a gem." —Nature In recent years, the common perception of the Neanderthals has been transformed, thanks to new discoveries and paradigm-shattering scientific innovations. It turns out that the Neanderthals’ behavior was surprisingly modern: they buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted large animals in their prime, harvested seafood, and communicated with spoken language. Meanwhile, advances in DNA technologies are compelling us to reassess the Neanderthals’ place in our own past. For hundreds of thousands of years, Neanderthals evolved in Europe parallel to Homo sapiens evolving in Africa, and, when both species made their first forays into Asia, the Neanderthals may even have had the upper hand. In this important volume, Dimitra Papagianni and Michael A. Morse compile the first full chronological narrative of the Neanderthals’ dramatic existence—from their evolution in Europe to their expansion to Siberia, their subsequent extinction, and ultimately their revival in popular novels, cartoons, cult movies, and television commercials.