Neanderthal and Early Modern Humans
The history of life on earth goes back to millions of years. Many species and creatures evolved and changed through time, leading up to what we know today as, modern man. One of the creatures most similar to modern man is the Neanderthals; they are sometimes referred to as “early modern humans.”
An article entitled “Early man steered clear of Neanderthal romance” by Michael Hopkin, explains that there was a discovery that early human ancestors of modern man did not breed with their “cousins,” the Neanderthals, according to DNA that has been studied. “Neanderthals vanished from Europe between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, roughly the time that truly modern man made his first appearance in the region. Researchers have been divided over whether the two groups ever came face to face-and if they did, whether relations were hostile or harmonious” (Hopkin, 16 March 2004).
Based on research of Human and Neanderthal DNA samples, there is not much evidence of interbreeding between the two. In the chance that it did happen, it was not often. “DNA from the two sets of samples was distinct enough to rule out large amounts of mixing between the two” (Hopkin, 16 March 2004). You must now have in mind that DNA is hard to preserve; therefore it is almost impossible to be certain about these findings.
The basis of this research was from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) found in fossils from Germany, Russia, and Croatia. Mitochondrial DNA is “The genetic material found in mitochondria, the organelles that generate energy for the cell. Not inherited in the same fashion as the nucleic DNA”
Mitchondrial+DNA> (4 March 2004). Studies found that these N...
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...tween modern man and Neanderthals will go unanswered. No one truly knows what actually happened, all we do know are from the discoveries we are still finding. It all comes together in how the history of life on earth happened, how Neanderthals somehow evolved or were pushed into what we know as the modern man we all are today.
References:
Hopkin, Michael. “Early man steered clear of Neanderthal romance.” Nature Science
Update. 16 March 2004. http://www.nature.com/nsu/040315/040315-4.htm.
“Mitochondrial DNA: Dictionary Entry and Meaning. 4 March 2004.
Hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/Mitochondrial+DNA>.
Serre, David. “No Evidence Neanderthal mtDNA Contribution to Early Modern
Humans.” PLoS Biology. 16 March 2004. 4 March 2004.
journal.pbio.0…>.
In the early years of narrative cinema there was little pressure on filmmakers for the ‘evolution of film forms before nickelodeons’ (Salt, 1990, pp31) as cinema neither became a mass nor high cultural product and was still a novelty but ‘Production companies’ profits were based principally on the sales of longer fiction films’ in the later years (Musser, 1990, pp256) so focus was made for the production of popular narratives so I will show how the early development of narrative evolved from trick films to complex narrative. I will analyse the short film Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903, Smith) and an extract from the seminal The Birth of a Nation (1915, D.W.Griffith).
The Neanderthals lived in areas ranging from Western Europe through central Asia from about 200,000 to between 36,000 and 24,000 years ago. The Neanderthals lived in groups of 30 to 50 individuals, they invented many of the tool types that were to be perfected by fully sapient peoples, they had weapons adequate to deal with both the cave lion and cave bear, they used body paint, buried their dead. Neanderthal Man survived through the Ice Age. They are thought to have had fire. Neanderthals lived side by side with modern humans for over 10,000 years.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
The first Neanderthal fossils found in Europe, a fragmented child’s cranium in Belgium in 1830, and an adult cranium in Gibraltar, were not immediately recognized as a divergent kind of human. Only in 1856 after a partial skeleton was found in a cave in the Neander Valley in Germany it became clear that these fossils belonged to an extinct human and our closest evolutionary relative (Hublin and Pääbo, 2006). Since then, questions about their relationship with modern humans have been fiercely debated between anthropologists. But what attracts most interest from scientists and popular media is the possibility of hybridization between Neanderthals and modern humans if, in other words, they were a genetically different specie or a single specie capable of producing offspring.
Three incomplete skulls of Homo sapiens were discovered in 1997. Bruce Bower’s article “African Legacy: Fossils plug gap in human origins” discusses the fossils. These findings are important because according to the discoverers, they are the oldest known fossils of modern people. The skulls were found in Herto, Ethiopian located in eastern Africa. The fossils are dated between 154,000 and 160,000 years ago.i[1] The fossils were dated radioisotopically.ii[2] Since the fossils are the oldest known fossils of modern people, it is probable that these hominids represent the immediate ancestors of humans that are anatomically modern. Tim D. White’s (et al) article “Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia” describes the discovery of the Herto fossils and the research of the artifacts in great detail.
The Neandertals lived between 30,000 and 150,000 years ago in Europe, the Near and Middle East, and in Western Asia. Compared to our other human ancestors, much more is known about Neandertals due to a larger fossil record, of which several hundred fossils have been found. Despite this, the question of how the Neandertals met their end is still prominent in their field of paleoanthropology today. In Twilight of the Neandertals by Kate Wong, several theories of how the Neandertals might have met their end are addressed, and the role of the early Homo sapiens in the demise of the Neandertals is speculated.
Small, Pauline. (2005) New Cinemas: journal of Contemporary Film Volume 3, Queen Mary, University of London
Were Neanderthals the same as modern humans, or were they an entirely different species? This is a major topic of debate among Anthropologists, and many people strongly argue each view, backing their opinion with evidence from physical remains and inferred ideas about behavior.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.
The evolution of humans was (and is) a very important time. The first being of evolution was Australopithecus Afarensis or “Lucy”. Then we moved on to Homo erectus and Homo Neanderthal. When the weather got hotter, we were Homo Sapiens Sapiens and finally, the modern man. This evolution did not happen overnight. It took millions of years. The past is hardly forgotten, but the imminent is next.
Gunning, Tom 2000, “The Cinema of Attraction: Early film, its spectator, and the avant-garde.” Film and theory: An anthology, Robert Stam & Toby Miller, Blackwell, pp 229-235.
Gallagher, T. 2002. Senses of Cinema – Max Ophuls: A New Art – But Who Notices?. [online] Available at: http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/feature-articles/ophuls/ [Accessed: 8 Apr 2014].
‘Then came the films’; writes the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, evoking the arrival of a powerful new art form at the end of 19th century. By this statement, he tried to explain that films were not just another visual medium, but it has a clear differentiation from all previous mediums of visual culture.