Day By Day

Sunday, January 23, 2005

The misappropriation of terminology

Chris Stringer over in London postulates, on the basis of almost no hard evidence, that Britain 400,000 years ago was "multi-cultural" and the scene of a prehistoric "arms race" between "two different species" [Heidelberg Man and Neanderthal Man] of early humans distinguishable in the material record by their differing technology. One "species" used hand axes, the other did not. He speculates that these two human species "slugged it out for conquest" of Britain with the victory going to the Neanderthals. The fate of the losers..., extinction. Something's wrong here. The terminology is completely inappropriate. Either Stringer has lost it or the reporter is entirely incompetent. I suspect the latter. Read the article here.


No comments: