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Neanderthals Quotes

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Neanderthals Quotes

“After the first Neanderthal skeletal remains were identified in Europe in the nineteenth century it was, for a very long while, one of the fundamental unquestioned assumptions of archaeology, a matter taken to be self-evidently true, that other "older," "less-evolved" human species never attained, or even in their wildest dreams could hope to aspire, to the same levels of cultural development as Homo sapiens. During more than a century of subsequent analysis, and despite multiple additional discoveries, the Neanderthals continued to be depicted as nothing more than brutal, shambling, stupid subhumans--literally morons by comparison with ourselves. Since the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, however, and with increasing certainty as the evidence has become overwhelming, a new "image" of the Neanderthals as sensitive, intelligent, symbolic, and creative beings capable of advanced thought processes and technological innovations has taken root among archaeologists and is set to become the ruling paradigm.”

CultureRemainsParadigmAssumptionsArchaeologyNeanderthals
Book:America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization
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“Mifsud notes that J. D. Evans had graduated from Cambridge in 1949 and that in the early 1950s he was 'in desperate need of a PhD'. The thesis that the future Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of London chose to develop, influenced by the Italian archaeologist Barnarbo Brea, was that the very first human inhabitants of the previously unpeopled Malta had been immigrants from the Neolithic Stentinello culture of Sicily -- a theory that is still part of the conventional academic wisdom about Malta today. In pursuing this thesis, Mifsud suggests, it was not convenient to the young Evans to have to deal with the evidence of the Ghar Dalam teeth that suggested a prior, Palaeolithic, human presence in Malta. This, then, either as a conscious or unconscious motive, could explain why Evans was so vehement in his attacks on the antiquity of the taurodonts [that could belong to Neanderthals] and so economical with the truth in his published statements about them. He wanted them out of the way -- permanently -- of his own theory about Malta's first inhabitants.”

AuthorityEstablishmentAcademiaNeanderthalsNeolithicPalaeolithic
Book:Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization
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“Thirty thousand years ago there lived 'another human species' - the Neanderthals. Tremendous. If it is true, it is symbolically more important than the fact that man is descended from the apes. The shadow of this vanished human species weighs heavy on all our anthropology, since our entire concept of evolution privileges the exclusive universality of a single humanity, ours, the one that survived. And what if it were not the only one? Then that's the end of our privilege. If we had to eliminate this twin, this prehistoric double, to ensure our hegemony, if this other species had to disappear, then the rules of the game of being human are no longer the same. And where does this passion for universality come from, this lust to eliminate every other race? (It is a good bet that if any other race emerged from space, our first aim would be to subjugate or destroy it.) Why is it that in twin forms there always has to be one that dies? Why do we always have to wipe out duality everywhere to establish the monopoly of a species, a race, a subject? Having said this, it is not certain that we really did win out. What if we were carrying that double within us like a dead twin? And perhaps many others, in a kind of Unconscious, the stubborn heir to all the previous murders. Having achieved the unity of the species, for the greater glory of Homo sapiens, are we not now duplicating ourselves for the worse - in that artificial twinness of the clone, in which the species, denying its origins once and for all, prolongs itself as spectre in an infinite repetition? Over the screen of our consciousness and our Unconscious hovers the shadow of this original crime, the traces of which we shall doubtless never recover.”

HumanityDualityNeanderthals
Book:Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004
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“Contrary to popular belief, history does not repeat itself. The story of our planet was not predetermined, there was no air of inevitability to it, and the story of life does not speak to us of a linear progression from primitive to sophisticate. Instead, its shape has been carved out by the accumulation and loss of information, genetic and cultural, creating the illusion of relentless progress.”

EcologyHistory Of MankindPrehistoryNeanderthals
Book:The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived
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“There was a day when you could identify a NASCAR Ford, Chevrolet, or Dodge and they actually looked like "stock cars." Now they are pod machines, slick on the outside but still powered by the same Neanderthal carbureted pushrod V-8s that have been under their hoods for half a century. If this is real auto racing, then the WWF ought to be part of the Olympics.”

IfsHas BeensStillsRealHalfCenturyCarOughtMachinesRacingOlympicsHoodSlickDodgeNascarHalf A CenturyAuto RacingNeanderthalsWwfChevrolet
Author:Brock Yates
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“It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans.”

ShouldHumansHelpingIndividualSocialJusticePayRaceModernMastersEvolutionFairsIncreaseRegardSocial JusticeEngineeringReplacedOffspringNot FairLife SpanGenetic EngineeringNeanderthals
Author:Stephen Hawking
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“To women, drummers seem like these adorable, sexy Neanderthals, and lead singers seem mysterious and dangerous. So while the lead singers all want to be David Bowie, floating into parties and being the center of attention, it's the drummers who are in the corner doing keg stands and breaking tables. Usually it's the drummers who get the fun-loving ladies and the singers who get the nutcases.”

WantSeemsFunPartyAttentionDangerousTablesCornersSexySingersMysteriousFloatingDrummerAdorableBowieNeanderthalsCenter Of AttentionKegsFun Loving
Author:Dave Grohl
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“Thanks is part to our education system, we tend to think that we're smarter than the stupid guys in funny wigs who came before us. But that's because we are mistaking technology, progress, and access to information for intelligence. We think that because we know how to use iPhones (but not build them), browse the Internet (but not understand how it works), and use Google (but not really know anything), our educational system is working just great. By the same token, we think that those dumb aristocrats who used horses to get around and didn't have electricity were neanderthals.”

ThinkingKnowsUseUsedGuyTechnologyKnow HowProgressStupidInformationInternetHorseEducationalAccessThanksDumbSmarterGoogleElectricityEducation SystemIphoneTokensEducational SystemWigsAccess To InformationNeanderthalsStupid Guy
Author:Glenn Beck
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“Chauvet Cave is rather like the awakening of the modern human soul or I would say the awakening of modern human culture. Because Neanderthal men who still rode the landscape parallel to the people who did these paintings didn't have culture. There's no evidence of culture, no symbolic depiction, no evidence of music, no evidence of sculptures, no evidence of religious beliefs.”

PeopleMenHumansStillsSoulCultureBeliefReligiousModernPaintingEvidenceAwakeningLandscapeCavesSculptureParallelsHuman SoulSymbolicReligious BeliefDepictionNeanderthals
Author:Werner Herzog
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“This is the birth of the modern human soul. The artists are like us, not like the Neanderthals, who had no culture - and who incidentally were still roaming the landscape at the time the paintings were made. It is striking that there is a distant cultural echo that seems to reach all the way down to us, over dozens of millennia.”

WayHumansMadeStillsSoulSeemsArtistCultureModernPaintingBirthMade ItLandscapeDozenEchoesHuman SoulRoamingNeanderthals
Author:Werner Herzog
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“There are some die-hard male chauvinist pigs and there are some Neanderthal women who are threatened by equality - but the great majority, polls say 65% to 75% of women of America, of all ages, absolutely identify with the complete agenda of the women's movement: equal opportunity for jobs, education, professional training, the right to control your own body - your own reproductive process, freedom of choice, child care-the whole agenda.”

ChildrenHardWholeBodyCareAgeJobsAmericaDiesChoicesOpportunityProcessMovementEqualTrainingMajorityMalesAgendasPigsThreatenedPollsFreedom Of ChoiceEqual OpportunityChild CareNeanderthalsProfessional TrainingMale Chauvinist
Author:Betty Friedan
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“Once— and most of the night definitely counts as once—you can write off as a mistake. But you do this again and he's going to start thinking he has rights over you.” She knew predatory changeling men. They liked control. They particularly liked their women to submit. And Riley was one big giant hunk of testosterone-fueled Neanderthal wolf—he probably thought her submission was his right. She snorted. “Not in this lifetime.”

ThinkingMenWritingBigsNightMistakeRightsLifetimeGiantsOver YouSubmitSubmissionTestosteronePredatoryHunkNeanderthalsChangelings
Book:Nalini Singh: The Psy-Changeling Series
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“Men are not as sophisticated as women. They're not as mature as women. They're not as connected with their emotions as women...There's a very Neanderthal quality that still exists in a lot of men... And if you're in the public eye, to me, it's very boring to say what you have to say and be media trained to the extent that you don't ever reveal any truth. There was a time in my life when I lived probably a bit more on the primal level. And it was amazing.”

IfsMenStillsEyeBitsLevelsEmotionQualityMediaBoringConnectedMatureGossipSophisticatedPrimalPublic EyeNeanderthals
Author:Adam Levine
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“Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gaping around the camp-fire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or wooly-rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him.”

IfsMenMayStoriesHappensNextAudienceFireHappenedJudgingShapesCriticsSuspenseNovelistsAwakeShockEditorsCampsPrimitiveSkullsContendingNeanderthalsRhinoceros
Author:E. M. Forster
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“Asian Homo erectus died without issue and does not enter our immediate ancestry (for we evolved from African populations); Neanderthal people were collateral cousins, perhaps already living in Europe while we emerged in Africa... In other words, we are an improbable and fragile entity, fortunately successful after precarious beginnings as a small population in Africa, not the predictable end result of a global tendency. We are a thing, an item of history, not an embodiment of general principles.”

PeopleDoeEndsScienceResultsPrinciplesIssuesSuccessfulEvolutionEuropeDiedPopulationTendenciesFragileEntityCousinItemsAsianPredictableAncestryEmbodimentImprobablePrecariousEnd ResultsCollateralNeanderthals
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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