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Science, being well known for settling things for all time...
Wait.
Science keeps on marching on and making your reference materials obsolete.
The latest theory running through anthropology is that Cro-magnon, neanderthal, and denisovans is that they aren't separate species, but simply different populations of humans.
Dog breeds show as much difference as the different homo-sapiens species.
If they were simply different populations of humans, then the neanderthals being "wiped out" is explained by two populations merging via breeding.
It's a neat theory and completely off limits in 1973 in my oldest book on neanderthals.
Gee, seems like "science" is still working. At some point, when we were being lectured on "trust the science" I asked, "if science is self-correcting, it can't be right or there'd be nothing to correct." That got some weird looks. At best they're trying to be correct, as we all should be.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of neanderthals vs homo sapiens being more like dog breeds makes sense when you throw in that genetically, there's no such thing as race. Not one characteristic, trait or gene distinguishes all the members of one race from all the members of another race. Genetically, the differences between "races" are such that a European and an Asian can be as genetically similar as two Europeans or two Asians.
Being able to get and sequence DNA from prehistoric bones does help a lot. I just hope some idiot doesn't decide that _Jurassic Park_ was a call to action.
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