Mists of Dawn (3 page)

How
is
anthropology
used
in
this
book?
Primarily by
extrapolation,
and
this
is
how
it
works:

Most
of
what
we
know
about
the
Neanderthals,
or about
the
later
Cro-Magnons,
is
based
upon
a
relatively
few
anthropological
finds.
In
some
twenty
sites in
and
around
Europe,
fragments
of
these
people
have been
found—sometimes
only
a
bit
of
jaw
and
some teeth,
sometimes
almost
complete
skeletons.
Together with
these
skeletal
remains,
artifacts
have
been
found, tools
used
by
man.

The
Neanderthals
lived
a
long
time
ago;
authorities disagree,
as
usual,
about
how
long.
However,
they probably
flourished
roughly
between
100,000
b.c.
and 50,000
b.c
.
No
man
has
ever
seen
a
Neanderthal,
and they
left
no
written
descriptions
behind
them.
But
we have
a
very
good
idea
not
only
of
what
they
looked like,
but
also
of
how
they
lived.
From
their
skeletons, scientists
have
reconstructed
their
appearance,
and these
reconstructions
have
been
both
painstaking
and convincing.
There
are
details
that
we
do
not
know, of
course.
For
instance,
skin
color
is
something
that cannot
be
determined
from
bones,
and
body
hair vanishes
with
the
passing
of
the
years.

Chipped
flint
tools
have
been
found
with
Neanderthal
men,
so
we
know
a
good
deal
about
their
weapons. Charred
remains
have
been
located,
so
the
Neanderthals
had
fire.
They
buried
their
dead,
and
supplied the
deceased
with
weapons
for
use
in
the
hereafter. In
one
of
the
caves,
a
row
of
cave
bear
skulls
was found,
shaped
like
a
shrine.
Undoubtedly,
the
Neanderthals
had
a
religion.

They
lived
as
hunters,
according
to
the
evidence, killing
and
eating
the
animals
of
the
Ice
Age—notably the
mammoth,
the
woolly
rhinoceros,
and
smaller
animals.
This,
in
turn,
means
that
they
had
a
language of
some
sort.
Hunting
mammoths
presupposes
group activity,
and
group
activity
on
that
complex
level demands
a
language.

We
have
small
cause
to
look
down
upon
the
Neanderthals
as
stupid
brutes.
In
fact,
ironically,
they
had bigger
brains
than
we
have;
some
of
them
having
a volume
of
about
1,625
cubic
centimeters.
The
size
of a
man’s
brain,
of
course,
tells
you
nothing
about
how good
it
was,
but
the
Neanderthals,
living
as
they
did in
the
dawn
of
man,
had
a
culture
that
commands respect.
The
mere
accomplishment
of
survival
for
that long
under
those
conditions
is
a
very
real
achievement.

The
Neanderthals
are
so
named
because
the
first recognized
discovery
was
made
in
the
little
Neander gorge
in
Germany
in
1856.
“Thai”
simply
means “valley.”

The
Cro-Magnons
were
a
different
kettle
of
fish altogether.
They
were
true
Homo
sapiens,
who
lived in
Europe
from
approximately
50,000
b.
c
.
until
about 10,000
b.
c
.
In
this
connection,
it
might
be
pointed
out that
there
were
no
Neanderthals
or
Cro-Magnons
in America
at
any
time,
so
far
as
is
known.
Man
evolved in
the
Old
World,
and
the
Indians
who
were
living in
the
New
World
when
the
first
settlers
pushed
westward
had
migrated
here
from
Asia
across
the
Bering Strait.