New Study Finds Neanderthals Lived Alongside Humans In Europe For Centuries

“Previous radiocarbon dates have often underestimated the age of samples because the organic matter was contaminated with modern [carbon] particles. We used ultrafiltration methods which purify the extracted collagen from bone, to avoid the risk of modern contamination.”

Above: Human Skull, left, Neanderthal skull, right

New Study Finds Neanderthals Lived Alongside Humans In Europe For Centuries
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

A new study published in the journal Nature that relies on a vastly improved carbon-dating technique has found that Neanderthals lived alongside humans for many centuries, and that they may have died out in the 2,000 years between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago in what is now modern-day Belgium, likely after the climate of Europe changed to become colder and drier. This means the two groups lived together for as much as 4,900 years in Europe, the Independent reported today.

That prolonged period of cohabitation with homo sapiens likely led both to exchange of culture – and the exchange of genes due to inter-breeding.

Scientists analyzed 196 samples of bone, charcoal and shell from 40 Neanderthal sites from across Europe using a new ultra-filtration purifying technique to remove traces of modern day carbons from fossils and other ancient objects.

“Previous radiocarbon dates have often underestimated the age of samples because the organic matter was contaminated with modern [carbon] particles [which can cause samples to be dated as much as 7,000 years younger than they actually are]. We used ultrafiltration methods which purify the extracted collagen from bone, to avoid the risk of modern contamination,” Oxford University Professor Tom Higham, the new study’s lead author, explained.

“We believe we now have the first robust timeline that sheds new light on some of the key questions around the possible interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans. The chronology also pinpoints the timing of the Neanderthals’ disappearance, and suggests they may have survived in dwindling populations in pockets of Europe before they became extinct.”

Comments

[Account Deleted]

Neanderthals live alongside humans in boro park. No need for this study.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

Neanderthals enjoying a renaissance in Europe now.

[jancsibacsi]

Pard--Hahahaha you happen to be right:))

[Michael-Meir]

Pard and Chief Rabbi:

You insult Neanderthals!

[Sarah]

Boro Park...... you can still find Neanderthals....
speaking in a language which only other Neanderthals
understand.

[RWisler]

Lies! Lies!! Lies!!! I only believe what Avigdor Miller said in his bullshit books.

[Sarek]

God put the fossils there and made it look like they're more than 6000 years old so that there would be jobs for scientists, even though we all know that profession is not worthy of Torah scholars.

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!"
-- Charles Darwin

[Allan]

“That prolonged period of cohabitation with homo sapiens likely led both to exchange of culture – and the exchange of genes due to inter-breeding”

Sadly, the Neanderthals had to constantly hire extra security for weddings of their sons with Homo Sapiens females, as the Homo Sapiens community would turn out in force to protest intermarriage and assimilation shouting “Dump that donkey!”

“Previous radiocarbon dates have often underestimated the age of samples because the organic matter was contaminated with modern [carbon] particles.”

You see! The scientists themselves admit their results were incorrect! They say they’ve got it right now, but you can be sure that next year they’ll have some other excuse for why they got it wrong again. So much for the reliability of this “carbon dating” in which you heretics put so much faith.

As for these so-called “Neanderthals”, they are nothing more than the giants (nefillim) described in the book of Bereishis, who perished in Noah’s flood. Far from disproving our holy Torah you heretics have confirmed it!

(sarcasm based on actual arguments heard from Creationists)

[nachos]

I wonder if this is where the prohibition behind mixed dancing came from.

[JessicaR]

Neanderthal genes have indeed survived. I am 3% Neanderrhal. So watch what you say about us Pard . :-). Alas, am only 0.1% Ashkenazi.

[Michael-Meir]

Why would a Creationist regard Neanderthals as giants/nefilim? They were more robustly built than modern humans, but their stature did not exceed ours.

[Jekyll Jacobson]

"Previous radiocarbon dates have often underestimated the age of samples because the organic matter was contaminated with modern [carbon] particles."
So much for scientific accuracies... But then again if it is not in the Torah it has to hold up...

[wirbelwind]

All the once sensationalised "Missing Link" discoveries like Cro-Magnon Man, Peking Man, Nutcracker Man, Swanscombe Man, Foxhall Man, Wadjak Man, Galley Hill Man, Heidelberg Man, Olduvai Man, Leaky's 1470 Man, Java Man, Grimaldi Man, Fontechevade Man, Orce Man, Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man etc etc, have all turned out to be 100% true apes, 100% true homo sapiens or 100% hoax!

After years of careful research, Lord Solly Zuckerman concluded that the entire concept of man's ascent from an ape-like creature is a phantasm.

Neanderthal Man buried his dead with artifacts, believed in the Afterlife, had a complex social structure, employed language, and used tools and musical instruments. Extremely minor anatomical differences occurred as a result of the rigorous life in the harsh, cold climate of the immediate post-Mabul era.

Adam originally possessed a tail, which G-d removed for the sake of his honour (B. Rabbah 14). Already in the generation of Enosh there had been such a decline in man's spiritual stature that his face started to resemble an ape (ibid 23). The punishment of one-third of the generation of the Tower of Babel was their being transformed in to apes (Sanhedrin 109): devolution, not evolution!

[Allan]

@wirbelwind –

My god! What an indictment of yeshiva “education” this post is!

You creationists just love it when you find a few hoaxes, don’t you? You know, I can also come up with the name of a thousand counterfeiters whose cash was a hoax. I guess that proves that there’s no such thing as real money, right? I can find a few people who impersonate doctors and lawyers. I guess that means there are no real doctors or lawyers?

Tell me, are the dinosaur skeletons and eggs found all over the world also hoaxes. How about the prehistoric giant mammals like the wooly mammoth and saber tooth cat?

You yeshiva graduates truly have no idea how science works. What does it matter what “Solly Zuckerman concluded.” Just reviewing the work of others means NOTHING unless one backs up his conclusions with actual research whose results are published in.

Of course the Neanderthals were essentially human. That’s why Homo Sapiens could breed with them. To get to the truly apelike hominids you have to go back over a million years to species like Homo Erectus and especially Australopithecus Afarensis that had a chimp size brain but walked on two legs as we do. And no, these skeletons are not on your list of hoaxes. But I’ll tell you what IS a hoax. The Tower of Babel story and the “mabul”. There was no “post – mabul era” because there was NEVER a mabul. That historical fairy tale is taught only in the yeshivas along with other myths like the Tower of Babel.

For god's sake (not "G-d's sake), put down your gemara and pick up a real history book!

[wirbelwind]

Piltdown Man really was a hoax!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_man

The others are either homo sapiens or apes.

"The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man." (John Reader, "Missing Links")

[Allan]

Yes. Everybody knows Piltdown man was a hoax. I agree with you. So what? Lucy, the Australopithecus Afarensis is real. Plus John Reader’s billiard table story is ridiculous – and not even true. Lucy alone can be laid out on one table and she’s far from the only hominid fossil skeleton. We judge fossils based on quality and importance, not quantity.

I checked up on this “John Reader” person. He’s not a scientist, not a paleontologist, not a Professor – just another armchair critic of the scientists who do the actual research.

So what’s wrong with that? Let me make an analogy to Judaism. Would you allow any random Jew you find on the streets to pasken and give opinions in halacha? Of course not. You would insist that he be a highly respected Rav, probably a Rosh yeshiva. A man recognized by other great rabbis who has spent decades immersed in the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch. If I wanted to make some halachic argument, I would rely only such rabbinical experts.

The same is true in science. If you want to dispute the consensus of the world’s experts in human paleontology then fine. But you need to quote an actual expert in the field who does his own research and publishes it, and is recognized in the field by his peers as an authority in the field. In other words, seek the same level of expertise among scientists as you would among rabbis to back up your arguments.

[wirbelwind]

According to the theory of evolution, Homo Sapiens has been around for one million years. Even assuming a minimal growth rate and the worst decimations of war and disease, the world population by today should be in the trillions! There should be billions of buried skeletons just from the "Stone Age" alone. Yet paleontologists are "perplexed" that the bones and artifacts of this teeming phantom population, whose remains should still be extant after "only 100,000 years", are totally absent!

But according to the Torah's account, all men today are descendants from the eight survivors of Noah's Flood 4000 years ago, which to the present world population of 7 billion, is a perfect exponential growth curve, even with a growth rate of only 0.5% per annum.

[nachos]

I bet you when they dig up your rebbe in just a few hundred years his bones will have nearly disintegrated.

[Shmarya]

wirbelwind –

If no one has told you lately, let me remind you that you are dumb beyond belief.

Anyone – and I really mean anyone – who has studied ancient history and who knows how difficult it was to support large populations before the discovery of agriculture about 10,000 years ago knows that everything you just wrote is complete BS.

And then there were little things like the Ice Age and plagues.

Being an uneducated person is something you can fix, if you choose to.

I suggest you get started on that right now.

[Allan]

@Wirbelwind -” Yet paleontologists are "perplexed" that the bones and artifacts of this teeming phantom population, whose remains should still be extant after "only 100,000 years", are totally absent!”

I have a similar question about the “teeming phantom population” of the millions of Hebrew slaves who (The Torah claims) lived in Egypt in the land of Goshen for over 200 years. Where are the millions of Jews graves from that time? Why are all these skeletons missing ? Archaeologists dig in the land of Goshen and find nothing. Not one Jewish burial. The only burials are clearly Egyptian - that includes the graves of the slaves who built the Pyramids. We’re talking only 3,300 years, not 100,00, so where are all these absent Jewish remains?

I think the rabbis have a MUCH bigger problem with missing skeletons than scientists do.

As for Homo sapiens, there was also death by starvation, exposure to the elements, attack by animals, a very high death rate during childbirth. In fact, the situation was so bad that all the human species actually went extinct except for we Homo Sapiens. Shmarya’s post is about how the Neanderthals disappeared. Plus humans do no fossilize as easily as other species. The great majority of skeletons were lost long ago to the depredations of the elements or scavengers. We are lucky to have found even a few of them that happened to be preserved under just the right conditions.

Now today’s modern exponential population growth is only thanks to science and technology and modern medicine and agriculture. And this is thanks to the Enlightenment when the stranglehold of religion upon the human mind began to be broken. If we had all sat around studying Torah instead of learning about electricity and biochemistry, bacteria, X-rays, vaccinations etc. then our population would never have been able to grow at rate it has.

[Jekyll Jacobson]

Shmarya
You are the least educated around here. Everything you claim to know you have most recently discovered by googling it. You are clearly not a scholarly man.
If you find something that disproves a commenter's assertion, simply direct him to the site where you unearthed your discovery. Calling people fools and telling them to get an education (that spins things the way that satisfies your worldview and corrupt thought process) causes honest people to cringe. We know that you are really a simpleton and a bitter person who out of lack of finding decent work set out to fill his day by trashing a community which has done you no wrong (other than its refusal to accept the Falasha as Jews). A person with your talents could be much more productive in thel work force. Get off your tush and get a real job! It'll make you feel secure and proud once again. (Don't waste your time telling me how happy you are; your comments say otherwise.)

[wirbelwind]

In the uniformitarian evolutionary theory it is estimated that 115 billion homo sapiens have ever lived.

Although women gave birth before the flood to sextuplets, as in Egypt, and the 1656 years of pre-Flood era the population could easily have been in the billions, these were almost all dissolved in the Mabul's scalding waters.

[Shmarya Rosenberg]

You have a very evident mental illness.