Neanderthal-Heidelberg Distinction Blurs

“Heidelberg Man” has been a modern name imposed on certain fossil humans that have been unable to speak for themselves.  Now, their bones appear to overlap with Neanderthals.  But don’t modern humans have Neanderthal DNA?  Do the distinctions make any sense?

Constructive scientific debate?  According to PhysOrg, anthropologist Chris Stringer is now claiming that the largest cache of Heidelberg Man fossils were really Neanderthals.  The article reveals various forms of data manipulation to reformat the story of human evolution, such as recalculating the date of Sima fossils from Atapuerca, Spain (previously labeled Heidelberg) from 600,000 years old to 350,000 years old, so that they fit within the Neanderthal category.  That’s because the Sima fossils show some Neanderthal characteristics both from anatomical and genetic data.  Stringer put a positive spin on the reclassification, stating, “These new views on the dating and classification of the Sima material have led to a constructive scientific debate with the Atapuerca team, which will help to progress our understanding of the place of these important fossils in human evolution.”

Constructive artistic debate?  Cave paintings in from Spain have been re-dated as 40,800 years old, too old to be made by “modern” humans, and possibly made by Neanderthals.  Live Science reported one anthropologist claiming “It would not be surprising if the Neanderthals were indeed Europe’s first cave artists.”  That would have been very surprising not long ago.  “Neanderthals have been portrayed as brutish, animalistic cavemen,” reporter Stephanie Pappas wrote, “but the archaeological evidence suggests they weren’t dummies. They buried their dead, made complex tools, and used decorative pigments.”  So why not make art on the walls of their caves?  Another anthropologist is convinced it is Neanderthal art.

Putting these two articles together, it appears the distinctions between Heidelberg Man, Neanderthal Man and Modern Man are flexible, being subject to the whims of certain living Homo sapiens who like to describe their disagreements and frequent changes of opinion as “a constructive scientific debate.”

Constructive for whom?

The real tragedy of these reversals is the momentum of falsified stories.  There is a long time lag from the time old ideas are discarded to the time textbooks, museum displays and TV documentaries are replaced.  Students are not told there is a “constructive scientific debate.”  They are not told there is any debate! Under the flawed direction of evolutionary anthropologists, artists (working in the present) create imaginative dioramas of fake histories that are presented as fact to impressionable minds.  Students graduate and go on to their own careers with these false impressions; how many of them ever hear the evolutionists say they were wrong?  Do you think the makers of BBC specials that hire naked actors and CGI (computer generated imagination) animators to portray alleged “human evolution” are going to go back and fix the many mistakes in documentaries made years ago, that continue to be shown on TV and continue to make money for them?  The debate is destructive, not constructive.  The new view does not “progress our understanding” (speak for yourself, Chris); it is a regression, if not a blind drunken sailor’s walk.

We must keep in mind that the labels and stories are all recent and artificial.  Heidelberg Man didn’t exist in the past with that name; neither did Neanderthal Man.  Various populations of humans with certain trivial differences in anatomy lived in various places — that’s all.  The categories and interpretations are all made up in the present.  The bones are just props for an evolutionary story that was predetermined by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man, and his disciples have been descending deeper into folly ever since.*  The bone pile, growing higher since 1871 but not substantially so, only serves to illustrate the folly of believing that humans had ape ancestors, which had shrew ancestors, which had fish ancestors, which had bacteria ancestors, all built on the folly-acious assumption that Stuff Happens because of random mutations.  Why?  Because the story keeps changing, and the bones never fit into a stable story that shows progress in understanding.  Humankind’s only verifiable, documented, intelligently designed family tree is found here and here.

*Example: To illustrate once again the folly of the evolutionary tale of “human evolution,” it requires accepting the notion that “Heidelberg Man” emerged some 800,000 imaginary years ago, and “Neanderthal Man” emerged some 400,000 imaginary years ago.  Both of these groups were virtually identical, physically and anatomically, with us – save for trivial differences such as bone thickness, some facial features, pelvic width, etc.  There are more differences between living humans than those artificially-categorized ancestors (compare Watusi and pygmy, Inuit and European).  But they walked upright and had comparable skull capacities with us – for Neanderthals, larger on average than ours.  Moreover, they used fire, hunted mammoths (can you do that?), were skilled spearmen and tool-makers, used language and created art (at least for Neanderthals, although not finding Heidelberg art doesn’t mean it didn’t exist).  With that in mind, evolutionists expect us to believe that these people walked this earth for 100 times the length of all recorded history (during which humans went from living in villages to walking on the moon and launching NuStar) without ever figuring out how to plant a farm or ride a horse or discover America.  Let the folly of that Darwinian tall tale simmer between your ears.