Introduction
Many questions have been coming up through the last past centuries which
has plagued the minds of great thinkers, questions as to our origins and
our relationship to other inhabitants of this Earth. It was once assumed,
according to Biblical theology, that we were created by God and that all
humans on Earth are descendants of Adam of Eve. With the coming of Darwin’s
On the Origins of the Species in the 1880s we started to reassess our
thinking to a new critical level. Mankind perhaps evolved from apes, that
thought alone reshaped the consciousness of institutional science. After
that paradigm shift scientists set out on a quest to find the missing
link between Apes and Humans. The more scientists search for the answers
regarding our evolutionary past the more mysterious it becomes. With new
evidence regarding our evolution coming into light every month it seems
we are getting closer to some answer, but are we really just beginning
down the rabbit hole? New evidence suggests that we are not even related
Neanderthals, which was once assumed were once our ancestors. Again, the
paradigm consciousness within institutional science keeps reevaluating
itself and keeps on searching for the answers to the questions regarding
out ancestors and our evolutionary past.
From Ape to Man: The Reassessment of Darwin’s Theory
The quest for ‘missing link’ has been an on going process
which has yet to turn up any results. It seems that every year a new news
article comes out with proof of the ‘missing link’ but through
careful analysis the remains are classified as either human or ape. Hopelessly
searching and searching for any possible evidence of that leap from ape
into humans has turned up a fruitless search. Some scientists are pushed
to the limits for results that they end up conducting ‘bad science’.
A good example of this is Eugène Dubois who in 1891 discovered
what was known as ‘Java Man’. His great discovery was finally
proof supporting Darwin’s theory and thus was proudly presented
to the world as the ‘missing link’. The ‘missing link’
consisted of a skullcap, a femur, and a few teeth of which the skullcap
and femur were found more than 40 feet away from each other. For some
reason Dubois assumed they were from the same creature and alas ‘Java
Man’ was born. Before his death in 1940 he realized and concluded
that the skullcap and femur were of two different animals, despite this
fact ‘Java man’ was prominently displayed in the Museum of
Natural History in New York until 1984 when it was removed.
In the field of science the progressions and advancements can only be
made through critical self evaluations. However, institutionalized science
seems to accept the notions and ideas of Darwin without completely having
the substantial evidence to back it up (just like in pseudo-science).
So, how can an institution condemn pseudo-science, but yet is guilty at
the same time to some degree. The only way science can truly progress
is through the reshaping of ideas and re-evaluation established theories,
or else it fails to progress and becomes almost dogmatic law.
The Upright Ape
In order to understand whether or not we are related to Neanderthals we
must see the new evidence about the origins of the human lineage to see
where our common ancestors might be. According to recent findings by Dr.
Aaron G. Filler, the human evolution did not come from Ape, but rather,
Ape evolved from Humans from a common upright ancestor. Dr. Aaron G. Filler
is not alone in this claim, other notable and respectable experts seem
to back him up. Most notably David Pilbeam who is a professor and past
Chairman in Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. David Pilbeam
said the following in regards to Dr. Aaron G. Filler’s latest research
which was published in book form entitled The Upright Ape: A New Origin
of the Species.
There have been many suggestions about evolution, but almost all have
agreed that the defining feature of humans and their ancestors was bipedalism-habitual
upright walking. It is now more widely accepted that the common ancestor
of human and chimps would have been quite chimp-like, moving in the trees
by arm suspension, and on the ground quadpedally with feet flat and fingers
curled so that knuckles contact the ground; bipedalism would have been
very infrequent,.. He [Dr. Aaron G. Filler] argues that bipedalism has
always been an important component of the locomoter behavior of all living
hominoids since their common ancestor evolved such behaviors. As he points
out provocatively, if some significant degree of bipedalism preceded the
divergence of humans and chimps, this raises interesting questions about
the earliest human ancestors.
Dr. Aaron G. Filler’s research consisted of analysis of fossils,
developmental biology of the spine, etc. Filler is a leading expert within
the field of medical neuroscience and has studied under other leading
biologists and anthropologists such as Ernst Mayr, Stephen J. Gould, David
Pilbeam, and Irven DeVore. Perhaps Darwin was only partially correct in
his theory. Filler suggests that we should pay more attention to other
alternatives for possible answers such as myth and religion. In his book
he makes mention of Egyptian myth, Christian myth, and Hindu Veda myths
surrounding the origins of man. Clearly he rejects the point of view from
the institutional scientific orthodoxy and tries to explore a new way
to interpret the evidence to find a new theory on the evolution of man.
The main research Dr. Aaron G. Filler brings up is through the basic evolution
of various aspects of us as human beings. He scales out the evolutionary
timeline in which we have come to have the different characteristics that
make us uniquely human. He uses biological systematic evolution which
can be seen on different levels. Using this information he was able to
correlate the different ways in which humans could have evolved from a
common upright ancestor and not from ape, as previously thought. To further
his explanations he uses the examples of the vertebrate and its evolutionary
usage. Always going back to the various comparisons of apes he concludes
that it would have been almost impossible for humans to have evolved from
apes. Simple tasks such as breathing or even walking would have radically
been diverted evolutionarily speaking into a totally different species.
Thus, the hypothesis he has becomes tested by all means available from
DNA analysis to skeletal mechanism analysis. If science proves that we
are radically different in lineage with sub-branches extending every which
way, perhaps we must reevaluate where the Neanderthals fit in to this
evolutionary framework.
The Problem of Neanderthals
The archaeological evidence seems to suggest that Neanderthals are very
different from Homo Sapiens. The various physical characterizes point
to an interesting timeline. Though as previously though, Neanderthals
evolved out of Africa, migrated northwards and established simplistic
hunting and gathering techniques to adapt to the environment. Later of
which, Homo sapiens came with various waves northward out of Africa and
competed for wild game. Recent investigations show that perhaps Homo sapiens
and Neanderthals were able to produce offspring which brings us back to
the question are we so radically different from the Neanderthals?
The new questions posed point out that Homo sapiens were not the only
ones to develop culture. This new reassessment on our contemporary views
on how we see Neanderthals as almost barbaric simplistic beings now comes
under question. We see evidence of culture from death rituals to even
music. Though science has now proved that we, as humans, are a distinctly
different species from that of the Neanderthal why do we still portray
them as almost animalistic beings. Studies conclude that the fate of the
Neanderthal could have been due to an intermixing of the Neanderthals
and Homo sapiens (e.g. Neanderthal Child from Gibraltar) . And an even
newer study suggests that the extinction of the Neanderthal was due to
its inability to adapt to the Ice Age (Gilligan 2007).
Perhaps folklore might play a role in interpreting what might have taken
place in the past in ancient Europe for example. Ancient folklore surrounding
the legend of ‘trolls’ in ancient Europe has been suggested
by researchers as perhaps being a distant conscious memory of our modern
day ancestors (Cro-Magnons) encountering the Neanderthals. Paleoanthropologist
Juan Luis Arsuaga wrote a book entitled ‘The Neanderthal's Necklace:
In Search of the First Thinkers” in which he tries to investigate
where the role of the Neanderthal might have taken place in terms of a
‘developmental lineage’ in ancient Europe. In his theory he
places the Neanderthals and the early Cro-Magnons as nomadic tribes which
had to at one point run into each other, which is clearly evident in the
archaeological record. However, he further states that the Neanderthals
had larger heads and through their means of physical appearance could
have led to later reminiscent tales of ‘creature-like’ beings
that once inhabited the land. Thus, creating a precursor for the later
tales of ugly trolls that roamed the land.
Mitochondrial DNA & the Evidence
Studies conducted by genetic coding facilities have placed the Neanderthal
theories to the test, literally. DNA samples were taken from Neanderthal
specimens and then decoded to record the exact mtDNA. That mtDNA(Mitochondrial
DNA), which normally passes from mother to daughter, was compared to a
wide set of human mtDNA extracted from modern day humans. The conclusion
was that the Neanderthal species did not contribute at all genetically
to our developmental lineage. In other words, the results show that Neanderthals
did not interbreed with Homo sapiens, but rather just went extinct (Krings
1997).
Despite this evidence this does not rule out the fact that crossbreeding
between the Neanderthal species and Homo sapiens did in fact take place.
The debate from all sides of the matter are still on going and scientists
have yet to reach a conclusion to this regard. Though the Neanderthal
are rather quite similar to us as human beings in a relative way, they
are still not our genetic ancestors. In 2006 scientists from the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley
Lab) and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) underwent the process of genetically
sequencing a Neanderthal bone. The results showed that we were 99.5% identical
to Neanderthal. “Based on these early results, Homo sapiens and
Homo neanderthalensis last shared a common ancestor approximately 700,000
years ago” (Lawrence 2006). This new research opens the doors for
further genetic studies to uncover our historical past. If we indeed co-existed
for thousands of years, how did we, as humans, go about living along side
the Neanderthals.
Evolutionary Systematics and their Interpretations
When it comes down to evolutionary origins of modern day humans, it is
as mysterious as the ocean we crawled out of. With the various rates of
mutation we are able to clearly distinguish roughly at what point we branched
off from some unknown. Though we are able to understand that, how does
everything else fit in? The question is still up in the air for scientists.
Perhaps with the new research of Dr. Aaron G. Filler we are able to reevaluate
our own understanding of the origins of man. Trying to understand all
these branches on a genetic timeline seems to be the ongoing strife with
the academic sciences. Evolution, in terms of our own understanding, becomes
critical to the point where we must keep conducting test after test to
understand the basic foundation of which we came about. The various interpretations
give us deep insight into the hundreds of possible scenarios which could
have taken place at one point or another. But again, with each new investigative
analysis into the matter raises even more questions than answers. As long
as we understand the basic fundamentals for a foundation on which we can
base our own knowledge upon, there is no rush. Over time new methodological
technology comes about as well as new archaeological evidence and maybe
in later times we will further our detailed understanding of how we came
about.
Bibliography
Arsuaga, Juan Luis
2002 The Neanderthal's Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers.
Brace, Loring C.
Refocusing on the Neanderthal Problem
American Anthropologist August 1962, Vol. 64, No. 4, pp. 729-741
Filler, Dr. Aaron G.
2007 The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species. New Jersey: The Career
Press
Gilligan, Ian
Neanderthal extinction and modern human behaviour: the role of climate
change and clothing, World Archaeology, Vol. 39, No. 4. (2007), pp. 499-514.
Krings, M., A. Stone, R. W. Schmitz, H. Krainitzki, M. Stoneking, and
S. Pääbo.
1997. Neanderthal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans. Cell
90:19-30.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(2006, November 16). Neanderthal Genome Sequencing Yields Surprising Results
And Opens A New Door To Future Studies. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April
16, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2006/11/061116083223.htm