by Paul Garner
The final programme in the series, ‘The Survivors’, began by transporting us to Europe “nearly half a million years ago”. Here we were presented with Homo heidelbergensis, a so-called ‘archaic’ human. The programme makers portrayed heidelbergensis as very similar to modern man in both appearance and behaviour. He was shown as a strong and powerful hunter, using sophisticated tools and living in close-knit family groups. Nevertheless, Walking With Cavemen told us that, in one crucial way, heidelbergensis was different from us. He had no capacity for abstract thought or imagination. Was he really so different from us? What are the facts about heidelbergensis?
The humanity of heidelbergensis
The original ‘Heidelberg Man’ was based on a jawbone found in a German quarry in 1907. The jawbone was large and lacked a prominent chin, but the teeth were quite human in appearance. It was presented by the quarry owner to Otto Schoetensack, a palaeontologist at the University of Heidelberg, and it was given the name Homo heidelbergensis. Archaic human remains like heidelbergensis are now known from various sites in Europe, Africa, and China. The brain sizes of these people range from about 1100 to 1500 cc, with an average of about 1300 cc – within the modern human range. Furthermore, their brains indicate that they had the language capabilities of true humans.
Over the years, the name heidelbergensis has had mixed fortunes. Some experts have argued that the remains attributed to this species are not sufficiently different from modern humans to be included in a separate category. Others have retained heidelbergensis as a distinct species. The problem is that there is a continuous gradation in form between Homo erectus, archaic Homo (including heidelbergensis), and Homo sapiens. Attempts to divide these fossils into different species are somewhat arbitrary – precisely what we would expect if, as biblical creationists suggest, they simply represent racial variations within the human family.
Did heidelbergensis lack an imagination?
Heidelbergensis appears to have had all the key features we associate with true humanity. Nevertheless, the programme makers sought to convey an impression of evolutionary development by suggesting that heidelbergensis did not possess our capacity for imaginative and abstract thinking. The programme portrayed the care given to an injured member of the family group. However, when the individual died from his injury, the group just left him where he fell. He remained unburied, without any ceremony or ritual. We were told that heidelbergensis had no conception of an afterlife and no religious sensibilities.
The discerning viewer will want to ask how the programme makers know this. At best it is a conclusion based upon a lack of evidence – a tenuous basis for such a far-reaching conclusion. Besides, there are suggestions of ritualistic treatment of the dead in heidelbergensis. An intriguing example comes from Bodo in Ethiopia:
“Interestingly, we also begin to pick up evidence for the intentional defleshing of human remains, as evidenced, for example, by stone tool cut-marks on the forehead and within the orbit of the Homo heidelbergensis cranium from Bodo. Whether this scalping indicates cannibalism (which seems a little unlikely) or some other ritual behaviour is anybody’s guess.”1
Cannibalism is practiced in some cultures because it is believed that it imparts the strength of the dead person to those indulging in the practice. Scalping has also been used by some tribes to placate the spirit of the dead person. Either practice in heidelbergensis would constitute evidence of ritualistic religious behaviour associated with death. A similar case is known from Gran Dolina in Spain, where heidelbergensis skulls show clear cut marks at the attachment sites for cranial muscles. There are also apparently intentional cut marks on toe bones.2,3 Microscopic examination indicates that these marks were made by stone tools rather than the teeth of an animal.
Additional evidence of ritualistic behaviour is cited on the BBC web site that accompanies the Walking With Cavemen series. A limestone cave system at Atapuerca in northern Spain has yielded many fossil bones attributed to heidelbergensis. During the last twenty years, the remains of thirty-two individuals have been recovered from a 14-metre shaft that has become known as ‘The Pit of Bones’. The BBC web site says:
“The Atapuerca researchers conclude that the remains come from one group and were dumped there in the space of a year. Almost all are adolescents, with the exception of two adults and a child.”4
These individuals may have perished during an epidemic or simply as a result of various illnesses. They appear to have been in poor health, suffering from malnourishment. Living in harsh conditions, it may have been usual for young adults to have experienced a high mortality rate. Although some researchers argue that the accumulation of bones is purely accidental, perhaps the result of a mudflow, others think that the bodies were placed into the pit deliberately as ritualistic burials. The BBC web site quotes Professor José Bermúdez de Castro of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and co-director of the Atapuerca research team, lamenting:
“It is very hard to get colleagues to accept evidence of ritual for early humans.”4
Perhaps the reluctance of most scientists to accept such evidence is because it is not anticipated by evolutionary theory. Preconceptions can all too often cause scientists (of all persuasions) to overlook what is in front of them.
The Neanderthals
According to the series, heidelbergensis gave rise to two new human populations. Divided by extremes of weather and environment, there was a northern species and a southern species.
First, there were the Neanderthals, a stocky and powerfully muscular people surviving in the harsh ice age conditions gripping northern Europe. In the public mind, the Neanderthals have become synonymous with Darwinism. However, the story of Neanderthal Man’s discovery is not an entirely happy one. The first Neanderthal remains were found in a limestone cave in the Neander River valley, near Dusseldorf, in 1856. Over the next few decades similar remains were found in many other European cave sites. In the Darwinist ferment into which they were thrust, they were portrayed as stooping, shuffling, hairy ape-men. This turned out to be a misinterpretation, based largely on one skeleton that belonged to an elderly man with arthritis! In fact, the Neanderthals were as upright and un-ape-like as we are. They had short limbs and extremities and large, broad noses – both thought to be related to the bitterly cold conditions in which they lived. Their average brain size was actually slightly larger than that of modern humans. Furthermore, the Neanderthals are associated with cultural remains that demonstrate their humanity. For example, Neanderthals buried their dead with ritual (preparation of the body, grave goods such as flowers and artefacts). They made dwellings, used tools and fire, wore clothes, and even performed primitive surgery. Nevertheless, the viewer was told that these people were also incapable of imaginative thinking, even that they would not have had the conceptual thought to allow them to appreciate a joke! As with heidelbergensis, how the programme makers could reliably draw such conclusions was not revealed.
Modern people – Homo sapiens
The series concluded by telling us that it was the southern group of heidelbergensis that would ultimately become us. Despite having been brought to the very edge of extinction, this group of people would eventually leave Africa, displace the Neanderthals, and come to dominate the world. They were able to do this because they, unlike heidelbergensis and the Neanderthals, had developed a mind capable of abstract thought. How did this happen? The programme offered no suggestions, simply presenting it as a fact, though the Walking With Cavemen web site attributes it to “the combination of environment and chance”! This scenario seems to have been based on the prevalent view that the Neanderthals were a side-branch of human evolution and not on our direct line of ancestry. It has been claimed that DNA recovered from Neanderthal skeletons is sufficiently different from that of modern humans to indicate that they did not contribute to the modern gene pool. There are problems, however, with the statistics and methodology of these studies.5 In fact, there are several sites where Neanderthal remains have been found alongside those of modern man, and even finds of skeletons that seem to have a mixture of Neanderthal and modern human characteristics. The latest of these, the skeleton of a four-year-old boy discovered near Lisbon, made headlines in April 1999.6 If these are Neanderthal/Homo sapiens hybrids they support the idea that the Neanderthals were fully human.
Conclusion
Despite the best efforts of the programme makers to construct an evolutionary story from the fossil record of these people, the various populations presented to us in this episode were all truly human. We are united with Homo heidelbergensis and the Neanderthals by our skeletal structure, brain size, and culture. In the Biblical view we are all descendants of Adam, and these earlier races represent successive waves of migration after the Flood of Noah. During the course of these migrations, cultural and bodily changes took place – but all of them simply represent variation within the human family.
References
1. Tattersall, I. The Fossil Trail. Oxford University Press; 1995. p.244.
2. Johanson, D. and Edgar, B. From Lucy to Language. Simon and Schuster, New York; 1997. p.93.
3. Carbonell, E., Bermúdez de Castro, J.M., Arsuaga, J.L., Diez, JC., Rosas, A., Cuenca-Bescós, G., Sala, R., Mosquera, M. and Rodríguez, X.P. Lower Pleistocene hominids and artifacts from Atapuerca-TD6 (Spain). Science 1995;269:826-830.
4. Human evolution: the first Europeans – 1 million years.
5. Lubenow, M.L. Recovery of Neanderthal mtDNA: an evaluation. Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 1998;12:87-97.
6. Duarte, C., Mauricio, J., Pettit, P.B., Souto, P., Trinkaus, E., van der Plicht, H. and Zilhao, J. The early Upper Paleolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and modern human emergence in Iberia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 1999;96:7604-7609.
