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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: More Proto-World
Message-ID: <CyLF68.67E@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <37pqr1$ffn@tardis.trl.OZ.AU> <ONEIL.94Oct24011108@fas.harvard.edu> <Cy6xBJ.66D@inter.NL.net> <lingnost.545@hum.aau.dk>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 14:34:56 GMT
Lines: 34

In article <lingnost.545@hum.aau.dk>,
Norbert Strade <lingnost@hum.aau.dk> wrote:
>In article <Cy6xBJ.66D@inter.NL.net> mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer) writes:
>
>>My own guess, for what it's worth, would be that there is
>>indeed a correlation between genes and language (the Neander-
>>thal's genes were replaced, and so were their languages),
>>but that the date is too early.  If the time depth for *Proto-
>>World were a "mere" 40 or 50 thousand years, it would be more
>>evident.
>
>We shouldn't be so sure about it. After all, the replacement of Neanderthals 
>by 'Modern Man' (H. sapiens sapiens) is only a theory.
>It is by no means impossible that H.s. neanderthaliensis *evolved* into H.s.
>s. It all depends on the amount of variation in the skeletonal material we 
>believe we can allow (as I was told by an anthropologist). 
>It's the same with the question if the Neanderthals were physically able to 
>speak: This depends mostly on how we reconstruct their skeleton(s).
>
>*If* the Neanderthals could speak (What I think is likely) and *if* H.s.s. 
>evolved from them, the whole question looks very different.

Yes, I think HSn could speak, and HSs evolved, as far as present
evidence indicates, from some African variety of HSn (I believe 
the African variety was known as Rhodesia-man, but I haven't seen
the word recently: is it Zimbabwe-man now?).  If we confine the
word "Neanderthal" to the European (North-African/Near Eastern)
variety, I think the current evidence favours the view that they
were replaced.  But, as you say, it's only a theory. 

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
