creativecommons.org

A multinational study re-examined a fossil and associated stone tools of the collections from Shukbah Cave in the Levant. The cave site was subject to extensive excavations in 1928. The fossil consisted of a single lower first molar tooth of a child. It was said to show “clear Neanderthal affinities”. The associated stone tools included what are known as Nubian Levallois points and cores. These types of tools were previously considered as exclusively made and used by Homo sapiens—i.e. modern type humans. The underlying assumption has been that this technology was too ‘advanced’ to have been made by allegedly ‘less evolved’ groups such as Neanderthals.

The authors stated that their “results indicate that any direct link between Nubian Levallois technology and Homo sapiens can no longer be assumed.” The Max Planck Society quoted Prof Simon Blockley as saying that the study “issues a timely note of caution that there are no straightforward links between particular hominins and specific stone tool technologies.”

Blinkhorn et al. noted that their finding represents the “first direct association between Neanderthals and Nubian Levallois technology”. They said it demonstrates “that this stone tool technology should not be considered an exclusive marker of Homo sapiens.”

This is one more piece of the accumulating evidence about Neanderthals consistent with the creationist view—i.e. that they were fully human descendants of Adam and Eve. That is, they are also in the same kind, Homo sapiens. They were not ‘primitive apemen’ or brutish, subhuman, distant cousins to ‘true humans’.

• Max Planck Society, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens used identical Nubian technology; phys.org, 15 Feb 2021.