Originally posted by RJHinds
These bones could not possibly be 40,000 +/- 5,000 years old. So
something is wrong with the dating method. If they had been given a
figure less than 10,000 years then I might consider the dating method
might have some validity. However, a date like 40,000 years is absurd.
We can not date anything back more than about 5,000 years ago and
even that is not certain.
You really mean 'the bones could not possibly be 50 thousand years old' because it flies in the face of your mythology. Carbon dating is very accurate to about 30 thousand years back and they can still use carbon dating for older specimens combined with what we know about the strata the bones were found in.
When you say ''We can't date them accurately", does that mean you are personally involved in such dating and can verify the inaccuracy or accuracy yourself from personal knowledge or are you just taking other people's word who are just as ignorant of the actual techniques involved?
BTW, we call them Neandertals because that was the name of the place they were discovered in. Whether we call them Neandertals or Woodaboogas makes no difference.
We know a lot about Neantertals because the shape of the bones, particularly the head, has been very accurately measured, using Catscans where they don't have to take apart the bones, the X rays build up a 3D picture of the insides and we can see the differences between modern human skulls and the Neandertal ones. For instance the brains of Neantertals were somewhat larger than our own which did not give them any more intelligence or any less but we know the shape of their brains were significantly different than ours, shape wise. They can use that knowledge to deduce what parts of their brains were like ours and such.
We also can make very accurate models of what they actually looked like because of our work with forensic artists who study the anatomy of modern humans, chimps, the great apes, Neandertals and even older specimens like Homo Habilis.
They know enough about anatomy to build up what they look like because we already know they can make a very good job of building up a picture of what a murdered human looked like even though the skeleton might be thousands of years old and they have been able to figure out who that person was, at least if it was in the 20th or 21'st century, to enable the rest of the team to get evidence to place who the probable killer was. That same technique is used to get good approximations of what a neandertal actually looked like.
Also we know a lot about the genetics of Neanders because we got enough DNA from the bones that we get an accurate DNA analysis which shows them to have about the same differences to us as chimps, which are something like 95 percent identical to modern humans. Viva La Differance. Those few percent differences are what makes us humans and chimps chimps and Neandertals Neaandertal, or does that information also lie outside your ability to accept based on your own mythology? What you believe IS mythology and the sooner you realize it the better your mind will be for it.