Modern Evidence Changing the Face of Neanderthals

John Reader admits, “Preconceived notions have played a fundamental role in the study of fossil man. Indeed, the science itself was not founded upon the evidence of fossils that needed explanation, but upon the notion that if mankind had evolved then fossils would provide the evidence of links between modern and ancestral forms. Thus scientists have sought evidence to prove an idea.”¹⁾John Reader, Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man, Little Bronw and Company (Boston: 1981), p. 17 This comment is especially true when discussing Neanderthals.

Ian Talyor indicates how Neandertal’s image has portrayed this factor from the earliest years to the public. “In 1908 a Neandetal skeleton was discovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, and Professor Marcellin Boule of the l’Institut de Palaentologie Humaine, Paris, described what Neandertal man would have looked like in life… he described an imagined creature, half ape, half human, head thrust forward, knees slightly bent, while the numerous reconstructions that were subsequently modeled, drawn, and painted depicted this creature naked and hairy in a cave setting.”²⁾Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Expanded and Updated Sixth Edition) TFE Publishing (Foley, MN: 1984, 2008), p. 208 He continues with the history of shifting opinions of Neandertal. “Alomst fifty years after the discovery of the La Chapell-aux-Saints Neandertal specimen, anatomists Straus of John Hopkins University and Cave of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, re-examined these bones and in 1957 challenged Boule’s earlier description (Straus and Cave 1957). Boule had been incorrect in claiming that the big toe was prehensible, which is a characteristic of the apes, while the pelvis also was not at all ape-like as had been claimed. Moreover, the individual had suffered from severe arthritis that affected the vertebrae and the jaw. It began to look as if Virchow had been right after all, and in the 1960s a new view of Neandertal man began to emerge as it was realized that he was true man and walked upright as any man today (Brace 1979, 21).”³⁾Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Expanded and Updated Sixth Edition) TFE Publishing (Foley, MN: 1984, 2008), p. 209 Evolutionists still carry contorted views that linger from this misrepresentation of the past. Lee Berger describes Homo erectus and Neanderthals as “archaic humans”⁴⁾Lee Berger and John Hawks, Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story, National Geographic Partners (Washington, DC: 2017), p. 44 which he considers to be “The third part of our evolutionary history…”⁵⁾Lee Berger and John Hawks, Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story, National Geographic Partners (Washington, DC: 2017), p. 44 Dr. Johanson says, “I consider Neanderthal conspecific with sapien, with myself.”⁶⁾Donald Johanson and  Maitland Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, Simon and Schuster (New York, NY: 1981), p. 20 In the earliest years after the initial discovery of the first Neandertal, the evolutionists originally thought of Neandertal as human. “The determining factor, Huxley said, was the size of the brain. The cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull was well within the modern human range and twice that of the largest ape. And so, with these remarks, Huxley effectively set brain size as the definitive characteristic of the genus Homo.”⁷⁾John Reader, Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man, Little Bronw and Company (Boston: 1981), p. 29 What has occurred is that the evolutionists are coming around in the full circle, returning back to this original assessment due to the most recent discoveries.

Current views express, “Neandethals occupied a hunter-gatherer subsistence niche, forming small bands of approximately 15-30 individuals (Davies and Underdown, 2006). Archaeological analysis suggests that while Neanderthal groups were relatively self-sufficient there was some level of exchange and transfer of materials (Hayden, 2012). The Neandrthal fossil record of some 400 individuals represents one of the largest collections of extinct hominin remains and is larger than that of contemporary Pleistocene Homo sapiens fossils.”⁸⁾Charlotte J. Houldcroft, Simon John Underdown, “Neanderthal Genomics Suggests a Pleistocene Time Frame for the First Epidemiological Transition,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, July 2016, Volume 160, Issue 3 p. 380 These researchers acknowledge that there remain opinions of Neandertals that are assumed without evidence. “Neanderthal fossils are still often described and interpreted in relative isolation from one another. The effect of this approach is to highlight well known pathological specimens (Shanidar, La Ferrassie etc.) while weakening the focus on the broad pathological trends seen in the Neanderthal species as a whole (Davies and Underdown, 2008). That the Neanderthals fulfilled the criteria expected of the Pleistocene hunter-gatherers is thus taken as orthodoxy even when data for such is frequently absent. When reviewed as a population there is evidence that along with traumatic injury the Neanderthals displayed a broad range of dental pathology and degenerative diseases as well as a large amount of non-specific infection (Anton, 1997; Duday and Arensburg, 1991; Fennell and Trinkaus, 1997; Ogilvie et al., 1998).”⁹⁾Charlotte J. Houldcroft, Simon John Underdown, “Neanderthal Genomics Suggests a Pleistocene Time Frame for the First Epidemiological Transition,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, July 2016, Volume 160, Issue 3 p. 380

Recent interest has revolved around the caretaking of individuals within a Neandertal group. A college textbook relates, “Fossils of Neanderthals often include bones that had been broken and healed…. Ritual burials of Neanderthals have also been found…”¹⁰⁾Jay Phelan, What Is Life: A Guide to Biology, W. H. Freeman & Company (New York, NY: Third Edition 2015), p. 484 One particular Neandertal discovery, known as Shanidar I, has spark major intruige in this topic. “It [Shanidar I Neanderthal’s cranium] is part of the largely complete skeleton of an adult (40-50 years old, based on his pubic symphysis and dental wear comparison to the histologically aged Shanidar 2 to 6) male (pelvically sexed based on the greater sciatic notch).”¹¹⁾Erik Trinkaus, Sebastien Villotte, “External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar I Neandertal, PLoSOne, October 20, 2017; 12(10):e0186684.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186684; pdf, p. 2 This specimen has been identified to have number of physical disabilities. “It would have been essentially impossible for Shanidar I to maintain a sufficiently clear [ear] canal for adequate sound transmission. He would therefore have been effectively deaf in his right ear, and he likely had at least partial CHL [conductive hearing loss] in the left ear.”¹²⁾Erik Trinkaus, Sebastien Villotte, “External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar I Neandertal, PLoSOne, October 20, 2017; 12(10):e0186684.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186684; pdf, p. 4 This hearing issue would effect more than just listening to noises but would cause learning disabilities also. “Among modern urban children it is associated with carrying degrees of reduced academic progress, and hearing loss in living adults is associated with difficulties in communication, information exchange and social interactions, decreased mental and physical function, isolation, and psychological disorders.”¹³⁾Erik Trinkaus, Sebastien Villotte, “External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar I Neandertal, PLoSOne,  October 20, 2017; 12(10):e0186684.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186684; pdf, p. 4 Furthermore, “Shanidar I also experienced a suite of other degenerative difficulties. He is best known for his withered right shoulder and arm, that was little more than a weakened stump extending to just proximal of the elbow; it was most likely amputated above the elbow, possibly after a non-union fracture and associated atrophy. He had a laterally crushing fracture of the left orbit (probably altering and/or reducing vision). He experienced right genual and pedal trauma and osteoarthritis producing an abnormal gait (reflected in right talar remodeling and left tibiofibular posterior bowing), thereby impairing his landscape mobility and agility. And there is evidence of probable hyperostotic disease (DISH), which is associated with muscular tendinosis and reduced back and appendicular ranges of motion.”¹⁴⁾Erik Trinkaus, Sebastien Villotte, “External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar I Neandertal, PLoSOne,  October 20, 2017; 12(10):e0186684.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186684; pdf, p. 5 The former view of Nendertals as a half ape like creature has been challenged by the evidence that this group was giving care to this disabled individual. “The Shanidar Neanderthals have played a key role in debates regarding Neanderthal biology and behavior, including social behavior such as care for the ill and injured…, mortuary practices…, interpersonal violence…, and artificial cranial modification…; aspects of growth…, health… diet… and demography; as well as morphological variations and its causes… .” [ellipsis skipping sources referenced]¹⁵⁾Emma Pomeroy, Marta Mirazon Lahr, Federia Crivellaro, Lucy Farr, Ti Reynolds, Chris O. Hunt, Graema Barker, “Newly discovered Neanderthal remains from Shanidar Cave, Iraq Kurdistan, and their attribution to Shanidar 5,” Journal of Human Evolution, 111 (2017), p. 102

Some decades ago, Neandertal was thought to be an ape-like cave dweller grunting over each other in compettion for attention. Such an image has been set to rest with evidence of their ability to communicate with language. “Paleontologists in Israel have discovered a fossil bone which shows that Neanderthals may have been just as capable of speech as modern humans. The bone, known as the hyoid, is from a Neanderthal who lived between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. The hyoid, a small U-shaped bone, is a key part of the vocal apparatus in modern human beings.”¹⁶⁾Sarah Bunney, “Neanderthals Weren’t So Dumb After All,” New Scientist, Vol. 123 (July 1, 1989), p. 43 This report continues, “According to B. Arensberg and Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv University and their colleagues, the fossil hyoid, in size and shape, is just like a modern human’s. The position of the muscle attachments are also similar. The researchers believe that, despite their heavy jawbones, Neanderthals spoke a language.”¹⁷⁾Sarah Bunney, “Neanderthals Weren’t So Dumb After All,” New Scientist, Vol. 123 (July 1, 1989), p. 43 Of course, this conclusion should be obvious since affections for the disabled and the technological abilities to fabricate tools as well as practicing religious rites in the burial patterns is only rational to understand that information has to be past on from one indiviual to another in a form of education over generations.

Sarah Kaplan writes, “These ancient hominins ranged across Europe and parts of Asia for more than 300,000 years, producing tools, jewelry and impressive cave creations. They cared for their sick and elderly. They perhaps even performed a primitive kind of dentistry.”¹⁸⁾Sarah Kaplan, “Humans didn’t outsmart the Neanderthals. We Just outlastd them.” Novemeber 1, 2017;  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/11/01/humans-didnt-outsmart-the-neanderthals-we-just-outlasted-them/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.27f0259e2487 Dr. Jack Cuozzo was a member of the American Association of Orthodontists and American Dental Association for thirty years and is on the Mountainside Hospital Medical Staff, Montclair, NJ serving as head of the orthodontic section for two years and Associate Director of the Dental Department for two years, had opportunities to examine Neadertal skeletons in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, the British Museum in England under Christopher Stringer, the University of Liege in Belgium, the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, the Museum of Prehistory in East Berlin, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Field Museum in Chicago, the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and the paleontology collection of Southern Methodist University. His research found evidence of dentistry being practiced amongst Neandertals. “Figure 5 also exhibits a very interesting piece of dental work on the upper tooth [of La Chapella-aux-Saints]…. This is an upper bicuspid tooth, which is named because it usually has two cusps or pointed elevations. Having lost these cusps, it is plain to see that either he or someone else tried to carve a more incisive (sharper) anatomy on the crown. Notice the three neatly filed facets on the edge of the crown.”¹⁹⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 41 He mentioned other Neadertals that had similar markings. “Another pattern exists on the mesial (front) or inbetween surface of the lower right first molar from the LeMoustier young adult. You can count at least eight or nine sharp scratches in the enamel in the flattened portion of the mesial surface of the tooth.”²⁰⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 95 These data have forced a major reevaluation of how the evolutionists have interpreted Neandertal. “In a review of the MSA [Middle Stone Age] and Middle Paleolithic archaeological record we have shown that inferred markers of modern human cognitive and behavioral capacities have a greater time depth in the Middle Palaeolithic record than commonly acknowledged. We have found no data in support of the supposed technological, social and cognitive inferiority of Neandertals compared to their AMH [anatomically modern humans] contemporaries…. This has implications beyond the field of archaeology per se: archaeologists’ characterizations of Neandertals as cognitively inferior to modern humans have created an interpretive framework within which subtle biological differences between Neandertals and modern humans tend to be overinterpreted…”²¹⁾Paola Villa, Wil Roebroeks, “Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of the Modern Human Superiority Complex,” April 30, 2014; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0096424

Another recent discovery has revealed the fabrication of tools by Neandertals. “A collection of broken wooden tools unearthed in southern Italy offers new evidence that Neanderthals used fire to shape wooden tools as early as the Middle Paleocene, about 171,000 years ago. The find sheds important new light on the earliest use of fire, and it reveals how sophisticated Neanderthal technology was. The tools, called digging sticks, are still in use today.”²²⁾Kiona N. Smith, “Neanderthals used fire to make tools 2/5/2018; https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/neanderthals-used-fire-to-make-tools/%3famp=1#ampshare=https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/neanderthals-used-fire-to-make-tools/ The report continues, “Boxwood is one of the strongest European hardwoods, which makes it perfect for a durable tool like a digging stick, but it’s also hard to whittle into shape with stone tools. Fire would have softened an outer layer and made it easier to work. When Aranguren and her colleagues tried working some boxwood branches, they found that they couldn’t shape the rounded handles and blunt points without charring the wood first.”²³⁾Kiona N. Smith, “Neanderthals used fire to make tools 2/5/2018; https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/neanderthals-used-fire-to-make-tools/%3famp=1#ampshare=https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/neanderthals-used-fire-to-make-tools/

The esthetic interest evident in Neandertal groups also indicates complex cognitive capabilities. “Neandertals drew on cave walls and made personal ornaments long before encountering Homo sapiens, two new studies find. These discoveries paint bulky, jut-jawed Neandertals as the mental equals of ancient humans, scientists say.”²⁴⁾Bruce Bower, “Cave art suggests Neandertals were ancient humans’ mental equals,” Science News, Vol. 193, No. 5, March 17, 2018, p. 6 The college textbook confirms further fire use and other advanced technologies used by “archaic humans.” “Nevertheless, H. erectus had technological skills. These may have been the first humans to use fire (the evidence on this is not definitive), and they almost certainly built boats that allowed them to move along coasts and from island to island.”²⁵⁾Jay Phelan, What Is Life: A Guide to Biology, W. H. Freeman & Company (New York, NY: Third Edition 2015), p. 484

Previously, making and using fire was perceived as something only modern humans were capable of. New evidence causes us to question whether we should be distinguishing between “modern” and “archaic” as a valid distinction when discussing Neandertals. “While it is generally assumed that modern humans were proficient fire makers, some researchers doubt Neanderthals knew how to artificially make fire despite evidence that they used fire regularly. Since using fire does not necessarily require the ability to produce fire (natural fires in the landscape may have provided semi-regular access to this resource in the past), only by identifying the tools used to make fire can we know if Neanderthals possessed this skill.”²⁶⁾C. Sorensen, E. Claud and M. Soressi, “Neanderthal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis,” Scientific Reports, volume 8, Article number: 10065 (2018), p. 2; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28342-9 What these scientists are unearthing is evidence that Neandertals were using flints to spark their own fires. The researchers report, “we have concluded that those resulting from repeated forceful contact with pyrite for the express purpose of producing sparks for fire making conform best to the unidentified archaeological traces. Moreover, the resultant fire making traces on the experimental bifaces are distributed in a manner consistent with those on the archaeological pieces. Together, these points support the hypothesis that some of these bifacs were occasionally used as fire making tools.”²⁷⁾C. Sorensen, E. Claud and M. Soressi, “Neanderthal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis,” Scientific Reports, volume 8, Article number: 10065 (2018), p. 12; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28342-9 The evidence supports more than simple sparks made by strike flint together to produce fire. “However, experiments of longer duration… have shown that these surfaces become worn and less effective at producing sparks over time, which can have a limiting effect on the amount of time any one surface is used. Some bifaces exhibit particularly heavey mineral use wear on both sides of the tool…, or on one side with variable directionality…. This phenomenon could indicate that the tools were used for more than one fire-making event, or that difficult conditions for making a fire (e.g. inclement weather, poor quality or slightly damp tinder) required a longer period of use that necessitated using a fresh surface after the utilized surface became too worn and less effective at producing sparks. However, the act of reshaping a biface through flintknapping effectively rejuvenates the surface of the biface, though in the case of the archaeological bifaces, it is unlikely that this would have been an added (though largely unintended) benefit of normal edge reshapening practices geared towards obtaining fresh cutting edges for other tasks like butchery. It is therefore interesting to note that some of the most well-developed directional percussive and frictive mineral use traces occur on bifacial thinning flakes….” (ellipsis skip sources and supplemantry figures referenced)²⁸⁾C. Sorensen, E. Claud and M. Soressi, “Neanderthal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis,” Scientific Reports, volume 8, Article number: 10065 (2018), p. 9; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28342-9

Jack Cuozzo also had opportunities to search a number of caves where Neadertals were known to have occupied. “Gere is La Chapelle-aux-Saints’ burial cave, we find specific evidence of a ritual fireplace made of stones. It is clear that this fireplace was also used for meals.”²⁹⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 227 The scientific report on the flintknapping used to start fires by Neandertals, concluded, “After careful comparison with different types of mineral use traces produced on experimental bifaces, we have concluded that those resulting from repeated forceful contact with pyrite for the express purpose of producing sparks for fire making conform best to the unidentified archaeological traces. Moreover, the resultant fire making traces n the experimental bifaces are distributed in a manner consistent with those on the archaeological pieces. Together, these points support the hypothesis that some of these bifaces were occasionally used as fire making tools.”³⁰⁾A.C. Sorensen, E. Claud, & M. Soressi, “Neanderthal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis,” Scientific Reports, (2018)8, p. 12; www.nature.com/scientificreports

If so much evidence leads to the conclusion that Neandertals are surely human, why do they persistently appear classified as a lower form, inferior to modern humans? This is extremely odd since, “recent results from DNA sequencing suggest that H. sapiens actually encountered and interbred with Neanderthals, just as they emerged from Africa. This conclusion is based on the finding that at least 1% to 4% of the genetic makeup of most modern humans include Neanderthal DNA.”³¹⁾Jay Phelan, What Is Life: A Guide to Biology, W. H. Freeman & Company (New York, NY: Third Edition 2015), p. 484-485 It has been further reported, “Anatomically modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and with a related archaic population known as Denisovans.”³²⁾Sharon R. Browning, Brian L. Browning, Ying Zhou, Serena Tucci, Joshua M. Akey, “Analysis of Human Sequence Data Reveals Two Pulses of Archaic Denisovan Admixture,” Cell, Volume 173, Issue 1, p53–61.e9, 22 March 2018; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.031 Popular science reports exploded with healines that Neanderthals and modern humans spread diseased through sexual intercourse during the summer of 2016. “Tapeworms, the genital herpes virus and tuberculosis may have all made their way into Europe, courtesy of humans, according to the paper.”³³⁾Elahe Izadi, “Our ancestors may have doomed Neanderthals by giving them herpes and tapeworms,” April 11, 2016; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/04/11/we-may-have-doomed-the-neanderthals-with-our-nasty-human-diseases/?utm_term=.016b12d19d7d However, the actual report stated, “There is as yet no evidence of infectious disease transmission between AMH [anatomical modern humans] and Neanderthals, but when considered in the light of the temporal and geographical overlap between the two populations (Higham, et al. 2014) and the evidence of admixture, it must have occurred. There is compelling evidence from Africa of pathogen exchange between humans and other hominins, preserved in the genome of human herpesvirus 8 (KSHV).”³⁴⁾Charlotte J. Houldcroft, Simon John Underdown, “Neanderthal Genomics Suggests a Pleistocene Time Frame for the First Epidemiologic Transition,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, July 2016, 160, p. 384 However, as we saw earlier and Lee Berger also expresses “If populations can interbreed with eachother in their natural habitat, they belong to the same species.”³⁵⁾Lee Berger and John Hawks, Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story, National Geographic Partners (Washington, DC: 2017), p. 93 This seems to imply that Neadertals are as fully human as we are today.

Not only did modern humans and Neandertals interbreed, the genetics have been identified to determine exactly which traits of modern man is derived from Neandertal phenotypes. An article in The American Journal of Human Genetics reported, “Here we show that Neanderthal DNA affects skin tone and hair color, height, sleeping patterns, mood, and smoking status in present-day Europeans.”³⁶⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p. 578 Indeed, “Interbreeding btween Neanderthal and early modern humans has been shown to have contributed about 2% Neanderthal DNA to the genomes of present-day non-Africans.”³⁷⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p. 578 The study consisting of “A total of 825,927 polymorphic site were genotyped.”³⁸⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p. 579

We analyzed 136 baseline phenotypes in 112,338 individuals of British ancestry from the UK Biobank pilot study. A total of 822,111 SNP’s directly genotyped in this cohort were classified as either “archaic” or “non-archaic” on the bases of their inclusion in a previously published map of Neanderthal ancestry and their similarity to the Altai Neanderthal genome.³⁹⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p. 580

This study revealed, “Individuals with blonde hair show higher Neanderthal ancestry as chr14:92, 767, 097-92, 801, 297… further archaic haplotypes on chromosomes 6 (chr6:45, 533, 261-45, 680, 205…) are both significantly associated with lighter skin color.”⁴⁰⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p.585 “A Neanderthal haplotype… association with sun sensitivity… [and] an increased risk to keratosis.”⁴¹⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p.585 This supposedly even effects a persons sleep habits.

Archaic alleles… are associated with a preference for being an “evening person” and an increased tendency for daytime napping and narcolepsy, respectively.⁴²⁾Michael Dannemann, Janet Kelso, “The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans,” The American Journal of Human Genetics 101, Oct. 5, 2017, p. 585

     Jack Cuozzo was the only creationist who had “penetrated the restricted zones of the hallowed halls of anthropology.”⁴³⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 83 He reported “I found out that some of the actual Neanderthal fossils did not look like they did in the textbooks.”⁴⁴⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 24 Cuozzo refered to Michael Day’s book Guide to Fossil Man (fourth Edition 1985) that has an illustration of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints depicting a “far forward of the actual jaw position the mandible protrudes … so they can maintain the prognathic mandibular hypothesis.”⁴⁵⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 274 He further noted, “Actually, the chin had started to disappear in The Neanderthal Centenary photograph in 1956., in the two illustrations by L. Pales. Plate V,… shows a chin in the original block of stone originally excavated in 1911 by H. Martin. So between 1911 and 1956 La Quina V lost part of its chin.”⁴⁶⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 42 Why is this disappearing chin relevant? Because, “Apes have no chins either.”⁴⁷⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 42  Couozo’s research had exposed that the scientists that were in charge of keeping the Neandertal skeletons were actually altering them to make their appearance fit the predisposed opinion of an ape-man anscestor.

There is something unique about Neandertal skeletons that mark them morphologically different than antomically modern humans. Both evolutionists and creationists had opined these diffrences as evidence of diseases in these archaic people. Evolutionists eventually took the ape-man position and creationists clung to the diseased idea. “For many years idiocy and rickets remained the anti-evolutionists’ best explanation of Neandethal Man’s physical peculiarities.”⁴⁸⁾John Reader, Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man, Little Bronw and Company (Boston: 1981), p. 28 This remained a long time held argument among creationists, but now even creationists are seeing a different picture. Jack Cuozzo stated in 1998, “Rickets does not create Neanderthals, either.”⁴⁹⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 277 Being the only creationist who has examined these skeletons, his argument stands on firm ground. He says, “I sincerely hope that these outlines diagnostic signs for rheumatoid arthiritis, rickets, and congenital syphilis will finally put to rest the specualation of all those who have tried to explain away the Neanderthal features using these diseases.”⁵⁰⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 279 Again, he argues, “If there is one thing Neanderthals did not have, it was diseased bone density. It was not thin osteopoiotic bones in rickets and osteomalacia. Their compact bone was dense.”⁵¹⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 266 His final assessment explained, “The primary cause of Neanderthalization of the adult skull is age and function within a superior genome capable of extended longevity; a gene closer to Adam and Eve, therefore less deteriorated.”⁵²⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p.307 In other words, he believes that Neandertals were the people that the Bible speaks of that lived longer lifes, and their slower physical maturing rate and ability of reaching greater ages is the cause of their distinct morphological features. Interestingly, evolutionists are reporting evidence that seems to correspond with Cuozzo’s assessment.

Assessing a Neandertal child’s skeleton discovered at El Sidron Cave in Northern Spain which anatomist Christopher Dean of University College London first calculated the age of the child to be 7.7 years old based on a dental analysis and maturation of the skull, spine, elbow, hand, wrist and knee. “However, the vertebrae at the center of his spine had not yet fused, unlike those in modern human children of similar age. And the back of the Neandertal child’s skull showed signs that his brain was still growing. The team noted that the child’s brain had reached only about 87% of an average adult Neandertal’s brain size, whereas modern human brains reach 90% of their adult size by age 5.”⁵³⁾Ann Gibbon, “Neandertals, Like Humans, May have had Long Childhoods, Sep. 21, 2017; http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/neandetals-humans-may-have-had-long-childhoods Another report explained this phenomon, “In other words, Neanderthals may have matured even a little more slowly than modern humans.”⁵⁴⁾Scott Neuman, “Study Suggests Neanderthals Enjoyed Long Childhoods,” September 22, 2017; https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/22/552963854/study-suggests-neanderthals-enjoyed-long-childhoods These are amazing admissions coming from evolutionists as they have always endorsed the idea that Neandertals matured quicker because they were closer to the alleged ape-like ancestor. Discussing skeletal development of Neanderthal children:

Think of this, significant or not, it is so far and away from our modern children that either we have to think of these children as different species or that they were extremely slow developers.….

This is not good news for the British Museum people who would like the Neanderthals to be advanced, age for age, and larger, age for age, in comparison to their modern counterparts. It is also not good for any Christians who want to say Neanderthals are perfectly normal humans like us. Their posterior faces are so much smaller, tucked in and wound-up than us when they are two years old that it really shows what biblical immaturity in humans was all about. We must be careful when we say perfectly normal humans like us.⁵⁵⁾Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1998), p. 176

     Of course, if there was a longevity of life and the physical maturing process was slower in the past as Cuozzo suggests and evolutionists are starting to conceive, then there must have been something that effected their life span. Evolutioonists are also starting to fill in this conundrum.

Omran (Omran 1971) considers parasitic diseases, tuberculosis, pneumonia (respiratory infection) and diarrhoeal diseases to be hallmarks of disease in the early agricultural era of the Holocene, dubbed “the age of pestilence and famine”. Anthropological and epidemiological data suggest that many acute infections require large, sedentary populations to be maintained, or an available pool of pastoral animals to act as intermediate hosts (Barrett et al., 1998), precluding the spread of many infectious diseases in the Pleistocene. In contrast, host and pathogen genetic data support a modified hypothesis of acute respiratory, soft tissue and diarrhoeal diseases having a pre-Holocene association with AMH (Armelagos and Harper, 2005) and Neanderthals. Many of the pathogens thought to have originated in pastoral animals actually originated in humans, including, brucellosis, Bordetella pertussis, typhus, typhoid and perhaps tuberculosis. Subsequently, a number of these infections have passed to ruminants and poultry during the transition to agriculture and the intensification of farming (eg (Hoberg et al., 2001; Kidgell et al., 2002; Wirth et al., 2008)). Increased population densities, sedentism and the rise of agriculture during the Holocene may have intensified their impact on modern human health, changing disease transmission dynamics and increasing mortality rates. For the Neanderthal population of Eurasia, exposure to new human pathogens carried out of Africa may have been catastrophic.⁵⁶⁾Charlotte J. Houldcroft, Simon John Underdown, “Neanderthal Genomics Suggests a Pleistocene Time Frame for the First Epidemiological Transition,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, July 2016, Volume 160, Issue 3 p. 385

So the interpretation of a sudden pathological cause of mortality rates for these “archaic humans” would confirm that there was prior to this, a longevity of life that needs to be explained by the evolutionists. The pattern of evidence does support the creationists view concerning Neandertals.