Neanderthal News and the Limits of Organic Material Survival

Red blood cells and DNA samples raise questions about the decay time of soft tissue and genetic material.

Iceman: Otzi the iceman was a red-blooded human. Finally, after several attempts, red blood cells have been imaged from the body of the “iceman” thought to have perished 5,300 years ago, PhysOrg reports. This “marks the oldest known preserved instance of a red blood cell,” reporter Bob Yirka claims; didn’t he hear about dinosaur red blood cells? Bob Enyart lists all the scientific papers proving the existence of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils far older than this, according to evolutionary assumptions. If a dinosaur and a human have red blood cells that are still recoverable from their remains, how could Yirka know that Otzi wasn’t running up the mountain to get away from one when he died?

Neanderthal DNA: The Altamura fossil of a Neanderthal, embedded in the flowstone of a limestone cave, has recoverable DNA. A team of researchers working in Italy has confirmed that Altamura Man was a Neanderthal and dating of pieces of calcite which were on the remains has revealed that the bones are 128,000 to 187,000 years old,” PhysOrg states. The abstract from the report in the Journal of Human Evolution says, “Thus, the skeleton from Altamura represents the most ancient Neanderthal from which endogenous DNA has ever been extracted.”  Science Magazine adds, “Mitochondrial DNA sequences from the bone matched those of other Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).” Other anthropologists consider Neanderthal a subspecies of modern human, using the term Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Evidence of interbreeding with modern humans supports that designation; Charles Q. Choi refers to that evidence in his report for Live Science. He also says, “The bone is so old that its DNA is too degraded for the researchers to sequence the fossil’s genome — at least with current technology.” Even allowing for the evolutionary age, this shows that DNA decays over time and should not be expected in “older” fossils.

Neanderthal interbreeding: A paper describing a modern human skull found in Manot Cave in Israel supports previous evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred. A paper in Nature states, “Moreover, at present, Manot 1 is the only modern human specimen to provide evidence that during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic interface, both modern humans and Neanderthals contemporaneously inhabited the southern Levant, close in time to the likely interbreeding event with Neanderthals.” According to the biological species concept, a species is defined by the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. That’s why we all have some Neanderthal DNA in our own genomes.  Update 5/14/15: An article on PhysOrg offers genetic evidence that Neanderthals were interbreeding with modern humans right up to the time they ceased to exist.

Neanderthal tools: A paleolithic toolmaking site with “staggering output” found in northern Armenia was probably occupied first by Neanderthals, National Geographic says, and remained in use till 1,000 BC. They found a “gigantic outdoor workshop” for flaking blades and tools out of the abundant obsidian on the slopes of an extinct volcano. Investigators believe that the hand-worked weapons and tools number in the millions.

Neanderthal speculations:  Old and new stories about the Neanderthals get told from time to time in the news. Some recent ones:

1. New Scientist says that “Neanderthal chefs may have spiced up menus with wild herbs.” Despite the icon of the Neanderthal mammoth hunter, “What is clear is that Neanderthals were not simple carnivores.” They were probably experts at roasting and making stew, and even using toothpicks.
2. That story doesn’t square with Tia Ghose’s speculation in Live Science that maybe Neanderthals died off because they couldn’t harness fire. It’s still a big mystery to evolutionists why they disappeared from the world stage.
3. But Ghose’s story doesn’t jive with Charles Q. Choi’s speculation, also in Live Science, that modern humans killed off the Neanderthals. He bases his tale on divination with fossil teeth.
4. Nope; it wasn’t fire or fighting that did them in, three geologists say in Geology. It was a volcanism (Campanian ignimbrite) that was the final blow for the European Neanderthals that were already living on the edge of survival. Why the modern humans at the time survived is not made clear.

Other speculations about early man: Going further back the evolutionary scheme, other surprising things about early man were announced in the news:

• Footprints of Homo erectus in Kenya were reported by Nature, which says that the hominids “walked very much like modern humans.” A paleoanthropologist from the University of Arizona admits ignorance: “Who knows what they’re doing there; It could be a group hunt, but it could also be lakeshore foraging.” Group hunting would suggest cooperative activity. Nature speaks of “the people that left the prints,” hinting they are not subhuman. “Hunting is a difficult thing to prove in human evolution,” one of the researchers admitted.
• Science Daily says that “complex cognition” is required to make stone tools. The earliest and simplest stone tools date back 2.6 million years in the evolutionary scheme. “The ability to make a Lower Paleolithic hand axe depends on complex cognitive control by the prefrontal cortex, including the ‘central executive’ function of working memory, a new study finds.”
• Tim White and team posted an update of what is speculated about Ardipithecus, claiming in PNAS that it was “neither ape nor human” but had a “surprising ancestry of both.” Toss out the textbooks showing man descending from apes; “Ardipithecus alters perspectives on how our earliest hominid ancestors—and our closest living relatives—evolved.” Neil Shubin of Your Inner Fish and Tiktaalik fame edited the paper. First words in the paper: “Charles Darwin,” naturally. Skeptics of human evolution may wish to pore over this lengthy analysis of Ardi. The authors admit, when all is said and done, that the fossil “provides only limited evidence about the nature and timing of crucial early events in hominid evolution. However, even this evidence is important in removing the confinements of the missing-link mentality that have distorted interpretations of human evolution for more than a century.“

Human evolution marches on. Downhill, that is. Most of us could not keep up with a Neanderthal man or Homo erectus if we had to try to survive out in the wilderness without any modern conveniences. They were smart, skilled, and cognitively well equipped. And, they were not that old. When their remains are viewed objectively without the Darwinian template, they fit within a Biblical time frame as pioneer descendants of migrants from Babel, facing harsh living conditions after the Flood. Ardi was a large ape. How can we say all this? Easy; read the answer in William Dembski’s new book, Being as Communion. While not discussing early man specifically, Dembski proves with logical, mathematical and philosophical arguments that you can’t get higher information from non-intelligent sources. The law of “Conservation of Information” defies all attempts at evolutionary progress by natural selection. In other words, it’s all downhill from creation.

We can also infer from the decay of DNA and red blood cells that they didn’t live that long ago. And if Neanderthal man’s DNA was already decaying beyond recognition, and Iceman’s red blood cells were hard to recover, that means that the red blood cells found in a T. rex femur are also not millions of years old, but must fit within the Biblical timeframe. These observable evidences are causing the implosion of the whole Darwinian empire. It’s about time. The moyboys are wrong! Take a look at all the soft tissue evidence and other young things that Bob Enyart has compiled, including carbon 14 everywhere that couldn’t last millions of years. Liberate yourself from the myth of long ages. It distorts our view of the world.

Did you notice how the “missing-link mentality” has “distorted interpretations of human evolution for more than a century”? Ask yourself what other “confinements” of thinking by evolutionists are distorting interpretations of the evidence right now. Why does anyone trust these losers? Open Genesis and you’ll find the credible framework that fits the time evidence, explains the exceptionalism of man, and does not violate the Law of Conservation of Information. Jesus cited Genesis and said that the first man and woman existed “from the beginning of creation” (Mark 10:6), not millions and billions of years after a big bang.  Why shouldn’t you trust the word of the Creator? (John 1)