As I reported in this column in 1994 (vol. 8, no. 1), the discovery of a Neanderthal infant provided considerable evidence that Neanderthals were anatomically distinct from modern humans.(1) With the help of computer technology, the distinctions are becoming more pronounced. A new technique allows anthropologists to graphically reconstruct the anatomical features of a complete skull from just a few fragments. Tomography (CAT scan) data is fed into a sophisticated three-dimensional morphometry program to restore most of the details of the skull.
This method has been applied to five small skull fragments belonging to a Neanderthal child of three or four years.(2) The computerized reconstruction confirms anthropologists' renderings showing Neanderthal mandibles more robust than modern humans'. The bones encasing the brain are thicker relative to cranial capacity for Neanderthals than for humans, and the dental arcade is definitely different from the dental profiles of human children.
The computer results, combined with earlier findings about the Neanderthal infant, affirm that Neanderthals were sufficiently different from modern humans to be considered a separate species with no direct genetic link. Given the long-term stability of DNA(3), and Y chromosomes(4) and the relatively recent date for some Neanderthal fossils (about 100,000 years old), the possibility of modern humans' descent from Neanderthals has been ruled out.
From a biblical standpoint, I see Neanderthals as one of the nephesh, soulish (not spiritual) creatures(5) God made before he made humans. In other words, the Neanderthals must have been a bipedal mammalian species created a few tens of thousands of years before Adam and Eve. Neanderthals became extinct, possibly as the result of some climactic upheaval, at least several thousand years before the creation of Adam and Eve.
References
| 1. | Hugh Ross, "Neanderthal Tot Discovery," Facts and Faith,, vol. 8. No 1 (1994), p. 4. |
| 2. | Christopher P. E. Zollikofer, Marcia S. Ponce de Leon, Robert D. Martin, and Peter Stuckl, "Neanderthal Computer Skulls," Nature, 375 (1995), pp. 283-285. |
| 3. | Hugh Ross, "The Mother of Mankind," Facts and Faith, vol. 2., no. 1 (1988). pp. 1-2. |
| 4. | Hugh Ross, "Chromosome Study Stuns Evolutionists," Facts and Faith, vol. 9, no. 3 (1995), pp. 3. |
| 5. | Hugh Ross, Creation and Time (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994), pp. 151-153. |