Neanderthal 40k

I'd put money they were here. I'd also put money that earlier Erectus was here too. In the national museum they have a Neandertal tool on display. One found in Ireland. Its described as some sort of erratic brought by a glacier. Doesnt really fit. For a start it's in very good condition with little evidence of ice borne damage and secondly not too many glaciers went south to north. Unscientific arse basically.

The problem is the "accepted" theory. Man only got here after the last Ice age retreated(TM). Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Especially given that I have in my collection a stone tool found in England 500,000 yrs ago. Indeed back in the day I found a couple of stones that looked worked in a way that doesn't suggest sapiens manufacture. I brought them to the national museum and was told in no uncertain terms that they couldnt be. Not that they weren't mind you, but that the simply couldn't be.

So they were in Britain at a time when these islands were connected and they never made it here? Eh no. I may get slated for this but archaeology in this country has been very blinkered and often run by rank bloody amateurs from the foundation of the state onwards.

Wellll they'd kinda have to in that case... So start digging! But yea the accepted theory is bloody hard to shift. I could understand it if Britain didnt have hominids present for the last 500,000 years, but it does. Now in Ireland we drew the short straw as the ice ages scraped most of the land clean of the last million years of deposits.

If I was looking for evidence? I'be looking in south west kerry and cork, where the ice sheets didnt quite reach(hence we have a toad population there found nowhere else and where common lizards are found in greater numbers). The problem is stone tools especially non sapiens ones can be hard enough to identify so people could be kicking one off a farm path at this very moment.

steddyeddy wrote: »

Very good wibbs a lot i didnt know there thanks, not meaning to post of topic but i wonder is there anything in irish legends that could refer to the neanderthals.

I doubt it. While our legends do seem to suggest intertribal conflicts and possibly the conflict between later arrivals and the original neolithic moderns, it seems modern humans only got here from mainland europe after the ice sheets retreated at the end of the last ice age circa 11,000 years ago. By which time Neanderthals had been extinct for the guts of 20,000 years. Even if they had hung on for longer in Europe(which is possible given the dearth of fossils) they wouldn't have been in Ireland. So any legends would have come with the first moderns.

Moderns could have been here before that 11,000 yr old date in one of the warmer interglacials that had occurred within in the timeframe of modern europeans and maybe encountered Neanderthals then but chances of finding evidence of that would be incredibly slim. Stranger things have happened though.

Looking to the UK where the ice sheets never fully covered the whole island, we have a much narrower geology and narrower palaeontological record by comparison. Nowhere more obvious than in our lack of sediments of the last million years. We basically go from carboniferous deposits, with a tiny detour to jurassic, then a gap of 60 odd million years to post glacial deposits. We do have amazing carboniferous deposits(and precambrian) though. A very interesting time. Of which only the surface has been scratched. And likely never to be scratched deeper unless more amateurs start proper collecting.

In that collecting thats where someone might spot Neanderthal and other early modern evidence. Otherwise no one is looking basically. Palaeontology (and archaeology) have been driven in the past mostly by "amateurs". Some of the greatest discoveries and defo the greatest collections were made by amateurs. Most of the great musuem collections and their best exhibits were found and built by amateurs. With less and less resources set aside for this science(especially in Ireland) we need responsible amateurs more than ever.

The problem is Im not sure of the legality of it anymore. I did it as a kid, but from what I gather now its illegal to remove stone from the countryside without a licence or some such guff. Anyone got any info on that as it stands?

Location wise http://english.fossiel.net/locations/locations.php#ierland Ireland is covered with carboniferous limestone and thats usually packed with fossils.

http://english.fossiel.net/system/geolkaart/ireland.jpg

Old quarries can be a good bet if you have permission to enter. Can be dangerous though. Sea shores where the rock is eroding fossils out of the cliffs another good bet(note and watch the tides though!). Road cuttings another, though again take care re traffic.

Bring a camera to record where you find the fossil. Go for fossils already eroded out rather than in situ. Try to resist taking hammers to stuff in situ. If you dunno what youre about there's a high chance you may wreck the fossil. If you do buy a hammer get a specialised geologic hammer. Using a standard domestic type hammer is a very bad plan. The proper ones are specially toughened. Estwing are a good make. If you find anything large or interesting then note location and take a picture and maybe head for the natural history museum or the biology dept in a university? Funding for this stuff is pretty anorexic though so....