Neanderthals: One of Us

For years, “Neandertal Man” was propped up by evolutionists as a prime representative of a human prehistory that could not be reconciled with the Bible. Neandertals were popularized in the public’s eye as large-browed, club-toting, leopard-print-wearing “cavemen” who paved the way for modern humans by discovering fire, founding the family unit, and so forth.

Creationists, meanwhile, have maintained that the evidence shows that Neandertals, while not skeletally identical to modern humans, were fully human, created in God’s image, and descendants of Adam. If Neandertals were alive today, they would blend right in with any other human. Furthermore, there is no reason to think Neandertals were gentically isolated from other humans of the ancient world. In other words, ancient humans, both Neandertals and others, would have lived, worked, and reproduced together in places.

If Neandertals were alive today, they would blend right in with any other human.

Mainstream science is increasingly confirming this conclusion. Anthropologist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, comments that the specimens considered to be the “earliest modern humans” in Europe “have shown obvious Neandertal ancestry.” The PhysOrg.com article continues:

In an article appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trinkaus has brought together the available data, which shows that early modern humans did exhibit evidence of Neandertal traits.

Trinkaus also speaks of a “persistent presence of anatomical features” in Neandertals that were missing from “earlier African modern humans.” Ultimately, this fuels the creationist viewpoint: ancient humans were a spectrum of design that included Neandertals and a variety of other groups (including “hobbits” and giants described by the Bible). All these early humans were created in the image of God, however, distinct from the likes of “Lucy” and other apes that are used by evolutionists to plug the gap between apes and humans. Indeed, the article confirms what creationists have long said:

This analysis, along with a number of considerations of human genetics, argues that the fate of the Neandertals was to be absorbed into modern human groups. Just as importantly, it also says that the behavioral difference between the groups was small. They saw each other as social equals.