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Where did man come from? Did he evo/ve from primitive ape-like creatures? The
latest evidence has thrown anthropological theories into disarray and is compelling
sorne drastic changes in evolutionary thinking.
by
Robert A. Ginskey
H
ardly a week goes by, it seems, without some–
body finding a new-or should we say "old"–
bone of sorne supposed early ancestor of man–
kind. Who, for example, has not heard of Nean–
derthal man, of Peking man, of Java man, of
Austra/opi–
thecus africanus
or Cro-Magnon man?
One-hundred fifty years ago "fossil men" were almost
unheard of and most people believed man was a special
creation ofGod. Today, hundredsofarchaeological si tesare
yielding an impressive array of bones and artifacts, and
many archaeologists and anthropologists seem convinced
they represent the "evolution ofman." But do they?
Back in 1856, three years before Charles Darwin pub–
lished his controversia! theory of evolution in the book
The
Origin of Species,
a high school teacher found the first
nonmodern human fossil. He called the faceless, heavy–
browed skull cap "Neanderthal man" after the Neander
"thal" (valley) in Germany. Not much could be said about
Neanderthal because no other bones were recovered, Then
in 1908, near the village of La Cl)apelle aux-Saints in
France, a complete skeleton of a Neanderthal man was
discovered- the most complete, most exhaustively pub–
lished, most frequently pictured, and most
misunderstood
Neanderthal specimen ever found.
For decades, he was portrayed in countless cartoons,
museum displays and anthropology books as bestial ,
shambling, stooped, with head thrust forward.
Yet when two anatomists, William Strauss of Johns
Hopkins University and Alee Cave of St. Bartholomew's
Hospital Medica! College in London, reexamined the
skeleton, they found that much of his "primitive" stunted
stature was due to arthritis in the spinal column. In their
report they stated: "lf he [Neanderthal man] could be
The
PLAIN TRUTH August 1979
reincarnated and placed in a New York subway-pro–
vided that he were bathed, shaved and dressed in modern
clothing- it is doubtful whether he would attract any
more attention than sorne of its other denizens."
The noted authority F. Clark Howell said: " Put him in
a Brooks Brothers suit and send him down to the super–
market for sorne groceries [and] he might pass completely
unnoticed. He might run a little shorter than the clerk
serving him, but he would not necessarily be the shortest
man in the place. He might be heavier-featured, squatter,
and more muscular than most, but again he might be no
more so than the porter handling the beer cases back in
the stockroom." So our primitive, shuflling hunchback
ancestor actually turns out to be not much different than
modern man!
The brain of the Neanderthals was amazingly large–
aV'eraging 1450 cubic centimeters (compared to only 1400
ce for the
aver~ge
modern man). This would imply that
Neanderthals were at least as intelligent (perhaps more
intelligent) as modern man!
Neanderthal man even buried his dead, as evidenced by
the Shanidar man of Iraq, who was buried with masses of
wild flowers, including bachelor's buttons and hollyhocks.
Apparently Neanderthals believed in an afterlife and were
concerned about death. Surely a very human quality.
Culturally, Neanderthal man may have been "infer–
ior," but he was a
man
nevertheless.
Since Neanderthals were so intelligent, why should
evolutionists claim the Neanderthals evolved into "mod–
ern man"? The fossil evidence indicates they were a sepa–
rate line and, in fact, did
not
slowly change into "modern
forms."
Equally puzzling is why they suddenly died out. Con-
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