One of the links in the supposed chain of human evolution has been discredited by a professor of anatomy at Yale University. After studying the upper throat region of the skulls of several types of prehistoric men, Edmund S. Crelin concluded that Neanderthal man could not talk because his upper throat was not properly shaped. This knocks him way back in his ancestral relationship to man, Crelin said. He stated that the ability to speak was far more important to survival on the evolutionary chain than brain size or the ability to chew, the previous anthropological criteria.
Although Neanderthal man, who lived some 40,000 to 70, 000 years ago, could not talk, Crelin was quick to point out that two other types of prehistoric men could. These were Cro-Magnon man, a contemporary of Neanderthal, and Steinheim man, who lived at least 300,000 years ago according to Crelin.
As a result of this discovery, anthropology books will have to be rewritten. Several already have, says Crelin, and Yale and the University of Connecticut have revised their anthropology courses to disinherit Neanderthal man from his once awarded role as a close relative of modern man.
Is Neanderthal man trying to tell us something?
(NEW HAVEN REGISTER, March 2, 1972; NEW YORK TIMES, March 9, 1972.)
Bible and Spade 1:3 (Summer 1972)