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Neanderthal and Tasmanian Technology Compared
By Glenn R. Morton
Copyright 1998. This may be freely distributed so long as no monetary charges or alterations to the text are made.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/neantas.htm
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This is a note I posted on a listserv a few months ago. It showed that the technology which the Neandertals possessed was superior to that possessed by some modern humans over the past few centuries. The reason this comparison is necessary is that Christians often claim that Neanderthals were too stupid to have been human. This is clearly not true.
***begin post***
Many on this list are aware of my suggestion that the creation and Flood of Noah occurred 5.5 Myr ago. This was suggested because that is the only way that geology can be harmonized with the Biblical account of the Flood. I suggested that there was a long, long technological dark age between then and now, in which what we observe in the archeological record is the slow re-development of technology to and surpassing the pre-flood levels. I based this suggestion upon the logical reasoning that if there were only 8 survivors of today's world, the technology we have all become comfortable with, would not be passed on to our children. Each of us knows a small part of the technology of the modern world but not enough to complete the process. This lack of knowledge can be illustrated by each of us asking ourselves a set of questions.
Do I know how to make gun powder?
Do I know how to make iron?
Do I know how to make electricity?
Do I know how to find copper ore?
Do I know how to make pottery? What kind of clay is required?
Do I know how to make glass?
One could continue this list indefinitely.
If there were only 8 of us, none of us knows enough technology to be able to pass our level of technology on to our children. Information would be quickly lost. Because of this assumption that spirituality equals inventiveness (which is questionable in and of itself), many have suggested that the slow change of technology in the past means that Homo erectus was not spiritual.
Some have criticised this idea, assuming that modern humans were smarter and would be more inventive than that. Humans, they say could re-invent the technology rapidly. Thus the destruction of the entire human race save 8 souls would have no real impact on the technological status of the human race. Technology would continue across this catastrophe.
There is an analogical situation from recent human history which illustrates a lost of technology in an isolated population. Assuming that inventiveness is equal to spirituality, the Tasmanians would not be spiritual. Here is why. (Unless otherwise noted, all references from Josephine Flood, Archeology of the Dreamtime, Yale Univ. Press, 1990)
During the last Ice Age, Australian Aborigines inhabited all of Tasmania, Australia and New Guinea, which, due to lowered sea levels, consisted of one single land body. Sometime between 8 and 12,000 years ago, sea levels rose to the extent that it cut Tasmania off from Australia. The Aborigines living there at the time were rapidly isolated from all other humans. According Flood, "No other surviving human society has ever been isolated so long or so completely as were Tasmanian Aborigines over the last 8000 years." (p. 173) During this period of isolation, the Tasmanians developed several physical traits which were unique. They had the widest nasal index of any people ever recorded. Their heads were shorter and broader than those of their ancestors, the Australians.
They lived on a cold 68,000 square mile, island, with a latitude as far south of the Equator as New York City is north. Their population was around 4,000 people, many more than would have been isolated by the flood. Yet according to Flood, this is not enough people to maintain even the primitive technology the Tasmanians inherited from their Australian ancestors. As their isolation continued they lost technology after technology and their lives became more and more primitive. Rhys Jones calls this the "slow strangulation of the mind" (p. 185)
The archeological record shows that in the beginning, Australians made stone tools, some of which were attached to handles, a process known as hafting. They also made bone tools such as needles with which they poked holes in animal skins and then sewed them together to make clothing. The Australian society of 8,000 years ago produced many fine weapons. Boomerangs, barbed spears (called death spears), and axe heads made by grinding.
The Australian aborigine ancestors of the Tasmanians left some art in caves. The first rock art in Tasmania was found in January 1986. (Flood, p. 115) It was in a cave and dated to 23,000 years ago, long before the sea isolated the island. This represents the skills of the Tasmanian ancestors. The only other rock art I have been able to find out about on the island dates from 2000 years ago and it is open air rock art. (Flood, p. 186)
Eight thousand years ago, when the Tasmanians were first isolated they were making one bone tool for every two or three stone tools. The first Tasmanians caught numerous fish, at Rocky Cape Cave, the lowermost deposits contain the remains of 31 species of fish. The evidence shows that the Tasmanians used baited box traps, and tidal traps made of stone. Such traps were also used on the mainland. There is also evidence of the use of nets (p. 178).
In almost every way, the initial lives of the Tasmanians were identical technologically to the Australians. But as the isolation continued, the 4,000 Tasmanians began to lose their technology. By 4,000 years ago, they were not making very many bone tools. Instead of the original 1 bone/3 stone tools ratio, only 1 bone tool for every fifteen stone tools is found in deposits of that time period. By 3,500 years ago, Tasmanians were no longer making bone tools. (Flood, p. 177) The loss of bone tool technology had implications. No longer were they able to use bone tools to sew their clothing. The Tasmanians simply draped the animal skin over themselves and tied it onto them with animal skin. Considering the cold climate of Tasmania, this was rather poor clothing. Stone tools were not attached to handles as was done on Australia, but the Tasmanians held each rock and used it to cut the trees. This is absolutely the most primitive form of stone tool use and is less efficient than would be the case if the tool was hafted. (Hafting is the process of attaching a handle to the tool) Imagine if you can, chopping down a tree by holding a sharp rock in your hand. By 3800 years ago, the Tasmanians had given up fishing. In spite of having a tremendous food source all around them, they no longer ate fish. This means they had given up or lost the technologies for nets, and traps. The Tasmanians had become seal hunters. All they needed for seal hunting was a big club to slaughter the young. During later times, the only fishing which took place was the collection of shellfish. The women would cover themselves with seal fat and dive for shellfish. (p. 181) Boomerangs, barbed points, and ground axe heads were not found among the Tasmanians. All of this technology, possessed by their Australian ancestors, was lost. Tasmania was settled by Europeans in the early 1800s (I believe in 1803). The Europeans immediately began a campaign to exterminate these primitive peoples. It was not until 1830, that the first "scientific" observations were made of these people. George Augustus Robinson, lived with the Tasmanians for 6 years. The European war of extermination succeeded. In 1876, Truganini, the last full-blooded Tasmanian died. The small population meant that there was little evidence of a religious life among them. There were no great gatherings or ceremonies with lots of people. Other than dancing and a few ceremonies, which were observed in the 1830's there is nothing in the archeological record which would indicate a religious life, yet all aborigines on the Australian continent have a thriving religious life. Another thing lost. (p. 185)
By the time that Europeans were able to observe them, their entire material culture consisted of about 24 items: "wooden spears, throwing clubs, the women's club-chisel-digging stick, wooden wedges or spatulae, baskets woven from grass or rushes, possum-skin pouch bags, water buckets made from kelp, fire-sticks, kangaroo skin cloaks, shell necklaces, canoe-rafts, huts and a few stone tools." (p. 185) These people were among the most materially impoverished on earth.
The Tasmanian material culture was so impoverished that in 1987 W. C. McGrew published, what has become an infamous article in anthropological circles. In this article he compared the toolmaking abilities of Tasmanians with chimpanzees. The Tasmanians barely won the comparison! (see W. C. McGrew, "Tools to get Food: The Subsistants of Tasmanian Aborigines and Tanzanian Chimpanzees Compared," Journal of Anthropological Research, 43(1987):3:247-258). Needless to say the author collected many scornful comments. But the pitifully simple technology of the Tasmanians is amazing.
There are three lessons to be learned from the Tasmanians.
First, if there was a flood which left only 8 people on the planet, they too would be unable to maintain their technology and pass it on to their children. If 4000 Tasmanians could not maintain even a stone age technology, how could 8 people maintain a Neolithic technology after the flood? The only logical conclusion would be that the descendants of Noah would become brutal savages. If the flood truly left only 8 people on earth, the level of technology that they would be able to maintain would be abysmal. A long, long technological dark age would follow that catastrophe just as a dark age was enveloping the Tasmanians. The decline would be much more rapid than the decline of Tasmanian technology and it would be more complete. This historical example clearly illustrates what life would be like for the survivors of the Flood. A long time would be required for technology to be re-invented.
The second implication is that these fully human people left less evidence for their spirituality or humanity than did the Neanderthals. Neanderthals lived more than 30,000 years ago. Since wood rots rapidly and is rarely preserved in the fossil record, there will be no evidence any "human-like" activities left in 20,000 years. In Europe, the oldest open-air rock art is no older than 20,000 years. This is because erosion rapidly removes art from walls exposed to the weather. Older art only survives in caves. The most recent aboriginal open air rock art in Tasmania appears to be only 2,000 years old. In 20,000 years or so, it all will have eroded away, leaving the future archeologist no evidence of representational art among these peoples. These people, who are fully human, fully spiritual and fully in need of salvation, will appear to the future archeologist as the Neanderthal's and erectus' appear to us. There will be no evidence of art, religion, and certainly no evidence of inventiveness. Since Neanderthal did leave some evidence of a religious life (possible bear cult activities), some evidence of an artistic life (flutes and whistles) and some evidence of inventiveness, they will actually appear better to future archeologists than will the Tasmanians. Christians should not feel comfortable in rejecting the humanity of Neanderthals and erectus' when the Tasmanians left less material for the future archeologist to find than did Neanderthal. Yet we KNOW that the Tasmanians were human.
The technological comparisions of the Tasmanians of 1803 with the
Neanderthals is interesting. ..........................Tasmanians Neanderthals
hafting of stone tools no yes
sewn clothing no
no
bone tools no
yes
fishing no
yes
shellfishing yes
yes
producing rock art no
no
necklaces yes
yes
Longest transport of tool 100 km 300
km. (limited by island size for Tasmanians)
Housing 3 m round huts 3 m round huts
components of most
complex tool (parts of tool) 4
3
Burial of dead no yes
Some have claimed that Neanderthals did not make bone points very often because they did not have a fully cognizant mind. Stephen Mithen writes: "..in those very rare instances when Early Humans did work bone, they chipped it as if it were stone. This implies that if technical intelligence was indeed being used, it was not working effectively, since chipping is an inappropriate method for working bone." Prehistory of the Mind, p. 186.
Other technologies which are said to be indicative of intelligence are hafting. Brian Hayden says,
"In and of itself, hafting is a strong indicator of curation, foresight and mental templates of tool designs employing different materials shaped to predetermined specifications." Brian Hayden "The Cultural Capacities of Neandertals ", Journal of Human Evolution 1993, 24:113-146, p. 115-116
Because of this, the supposed lack of hafting among early man has been used to imply that they had different mental states than modern humans. (See Mithen, Prehistory of the Mind, p. 122-123) If one uses Neanderthal technology as a reason to exclude them from the Human race, then one must be consistent and apply the same standard to the Tasmanians. However, since the Tasmanians were fully human, and yet lived with Neanderthal levels of technology, how can technology be used to determine humanity?
Wilcox writes:
"The evidence for artistic or religious expression among the Neanderthals is almost nonexistent. There is debate over whether (and for what reasons) they may have occasionally buried their dead, over whether they used ochre as paint, and over their hunting methods... However, there is no evidence of art, no ornaments, no symbolism, no indication of graving tools or sewing, and clear indication of permanent settlements or trade of raw materials." ~David L. Wilcox, "Adam, Where Are You? Changing Paradigms in Paleoanthropology," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith , 48:2( June 1996), p. 92
So does the lack of evidence for religious activity among the Tasmanians of the 19th century imply that they are not human? Of course not!
The third lesson from the Tasmanians is that the war of extermination, a racist war of genocide, was carried out before the publication of the Origin of Species. This shows that evolution was not required for racism to exist.