of modern humans. 9 Furthermore,
there is evidence from fossils of
individuals showing mixed characteristics between Neandertals and modern
humans. One such example is that
of a four-year-old child buried with
pierced shells and red ochre in Abrigo
do Lagar Velho. Dental proportions,
certain mandibular characteristics,
diaphyseal curvature, and pubic proportions align with those of modern
humans, whereas femorotibial lengths
and diaphyseal robusticity suggest that
it is Neandertal. 10 Another example
of a recently found fossil hominin
showing mixed characters is a set
of skull remains from Jebel Irhoud,
Morocco, dated to an evolutionary
age of 315,000 years. 11 Neandertal
characters include an elongated
braincase. However, most of the
facial characteristics resemble those
of modern humans, such as a relatively
short and retracted face, weak brow
ridges, as well as the reduced dentition
resembling that of early modern
humans. 12
Furthermore, many creationist stud-
ies have indicated that Neandertals and
modern humans belong to the same
holobaramin, based on both cranial
and post-cranial characteristics. 13
Modern humans, Neandertals, and
their direct ancestors display lower
genetic diversity than the great apes,
indicating that they have undergone a
demographic bottleneck in the recent
past, 14, 15 similar to modern humans.
This means that humans could have
been morphologically diverse before
this demographic bottleneck, which
could correspond to the dispersion
after Babel, since at this time humanity
broke up into smaller people groups.
Furthermore, there are some human
fossils showing mixed characteristics
from both modern humans and
Neandertals. 10 This means that these
two groups interbred with each other,
so were members of the same created
kind, and that their individual genetic
characteristics influenced the hybrid
morphology of their offspring.
What is quite anomalous about
the Neandertals is their geographic
distribution. The remains of both
Neandertals and modern humans
(as well as erectines and H. heidelbergensis) have both been found in
Europe and Asia, which is a quasi-global distribution. Neandertal remains
have also been found in Africa. 16 Some
researchers even believe that the
Denisovans showed signs of genetic
admixture into 33 populations from
southeast Asia and Oceania17. The
assertion that the authors make, that
it took 500,000 years for Neandertals
to reach Spain from Dmanisi in the
Caucasians, can be measured based
on modern history. It is known, for
example, the seven Hungarian tribes
came into the Carpathian Basin
from the ancient homeland, Magna
Hungaria (an area of land north of
the Caspian Sea) within only several
hundred years, which is roughly half
the distance between Dmanisi and
northern Spain, where Neandertal
remains were found.
In summary, we can conclude
that with scientific advances made in
anthropology and with more and more
recent discoveries made over the past
150 years, the way Neandertals have
been viewed according to evolution
has changed dramatically. There are
some variations in morphology, quite
possibly due to a higher pre-Flood
variation. But instead of primitive,
brutish animals, half-way between
animals and humans, we can state
with high enough confidence that
Neandertals are the same species as
modern humans, and part of the human
holobaramin.
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