Study: Neanderthals Could Swim and Dive
When you first learned about Neanderthals, you were probably told they were less-than-intelligent brutes who lived a primitive lifestyle a long time ago. I was told that when I went to high school and university. That’s how they’re still depicted in many museums, textbooks, and in the popular imagination. But that story simply doesn’t match with what we now know about Neanderthals. And that was confirmed yet again in a recent study of seashells.
Scientists recently examined shells they associate with Neanderthals, discovered in a beachside cave in Italy back in 1949. These shells had been modified to serve as tools, something that has been known for a long time. But a closer look at some of the shell tools, particularly how rough or smooth the edges and faces were, revealed that Neanderthals appear to have grabbed some of them from off the beach, but others required they dive six to thirteen feet to harvest the living organism from the ocean floor.
The lead author of the study says,
People are beginning to understand that Neanderthals didn’t just hunt large mammals . . . .They also did things like freshwater fishing and even skin diving.
eanderthals are humans, just like us, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), descendants of Adam and Eve.
The picture of Neanderthals keeps changing as more and more evidence confirms that they were intelligent and capable of taking advantage of the resources around them, just as modern man is. That is exactly what was expected from a biblical worldview. Neanderthals are humans, just like us, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), descendants of Adam and Eve. Far from being mysterious human cousins, they are descendants of Noah’s family, who lived in the harsh world after the flood. And, apparently, some of them enjoyed shellfish!
Get More Answers on Answers News
This item was discussed on Monday on Answers News with cohosts Avery Foley, Bodie Hodge, and Dr. Gabriela Haynes. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. We also covered the following topics:
- Firefighters save “living fossil,” the Wollemi pine.
- Was the earth’s magnetic field even stronger in the past?
- Did a struggling church ask older members to leave?
- And more!
Watch the entire episode of Answers News for January 27, 2020.
Be sure to join us each Monday at 2 p.m. (ET) for Answers News. You won’t want to miss this unique news program that gives science and culture news from a distinctly biblical and Christian perspective.
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
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