The Neanderthal Perspective

The Neanderthal Perspective

scientists can see changing shapes in brains
and surmise evolved powers of language and 
use of tools..
their perspective is one of duality..the prevailing
paradigm of our culture..appearances of fossils
and shapes..and gaps in the fossil record.. these
comprise present knowing of what went before..
an assumption of time and space as containers
is unstated and unchallenged..origination is
believed to be hidden in the artifacts..

might we consider that speech articulation
and tool use may be progenitors of our entrenched 
dualistic outlook..continuing to our own time..?
was the earlier Neanderthal perspective one of
more wholistic foundation..?  does the gap in
the record cast doubt on evolutionary dot connecting..?
a paradigm flip..encouraging these questions..may be
the dawn of a consciousness-only perspective
hastening our understanding of who we are..



But there’s a gap in the fossil record after that period; the next oldest skulls that Dr. Gunz and his colleagues have studied are just 36,000 years old. These have the distinctive roundedness of living humans...modern humans evolved more sophisticated powers of language. They may have also become better at making tools...tool use and speech articulation are hugely dependent on motor circuitry...Both require the brain to send fast, precise commands to muscles. And it may be no coincidence that the cerebellum and putamen are crucial parts of our motor circuitry — the very regions that helped change the overall shape of the modern human brain...To learn what they (genes) are doing in the brain will require that scientists discern very faint signals amid the noise of the human genome.

“That’s a long way off, if ever possible,” Dr. Capra said.

Above are abbreviated excerpts from:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/science/neanderthals-humans-brains-skulls.html