scientific statement
The Neanderthal Legacy
by Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.
The
notion of the totally objective scientist is, I contend, a myth.
Scientists are humans, and we all carry cultural biases, personal and
societal worldviews, religious preconceptions, and implicit paradigms.
These biases are often so deeply ingrained that we do not even
acknowledge them explicitly; we mistake our subjective views for some
sort of objective truth. We fail to "experience the true meaning of
things rather than the meaning we unwittingly impose on them" (David
Conway, Magic without Mirrors,
2011). A case in point is the traditional interpretation of our close,
and now extinct (but more on this below), relatives commonly referred
to as Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).
Ever
since they were first recognized in the 1850s based on fossil remains,
Neanderthals have been generally viewed as our rather brutish,
primitive, ape-like distant cousins, the quintessential uncultured
cavemen and cavewomen. The early modern humans (Homo sapiens,
often referred to as Cro-Magnons, and seen as our direct ancestors)
were, according to common consensus, superior to the Neanderthals in
every way. Indeed, the vehement intellectual struggle waged against the
concept of evolution by natural selection (a struggle that continues
even today, over 150 years after Charles Darwin first published On the Origin of Species in
1859) is fueled in part by preconceived notions and false
interpretations of the "primitiveness" of Neanderthals. Such subhuman
animals certainly could not have anything to do with our noble
ancestry, or so some assert. However, the latest modern scientific
research is rapidly upending the traditional view of Neanderthals.
Indeed the Neanderthals, with brains on average larger than those of
modern humans (but differently arranged and proportioned), may well
have been endowed with certain intellectual and emotional faculties
that were better developed than the equivalents in the average modern
human.
To
cut to the chase, far from being an uncivilized side branch of the
human evolutionary tree, best joked about even as we relegate them to a
metaphorical closet like some eccentric relative whom we are ashamed
to acknowledge, these Neanderthal cave people may be the originators of
religion, the first practitioners of the arts that would eventually
develop into science, and the innovators responsible for laying the
foundations of civilization and high culture. We may owe our deepest
intellectual notions, our underlying archetypal mythologies, our most
fundamental religious conceptions and worldviews, to the Neanderthals.
We are who we are today due to our inheritance, both culturally and to
some extent genetically, from the Neanderthals. In this view the tables
are turned. It was the Neanderthals who, tens of thousands of years
ago during the ice age, were the carriers of refined and sophisticated
intellectual notions that led to what we now view as the hallmarks of
civilization. The Cro-Magnons were, counter to the traditional view,
the unrefined, warring, physically assertive, and relatively
un-intellectual species. Today our civilization and we modern humans
are a mixture of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon traits.
These
are exciting, explosive, paradigm-shattering ideas. They shake the
very foundations of what we thought we knew about the origins of
civilization and high culture. Yet, this new paradigm is supported by
the latest scientific research on Neanderthals, research that is
on-going with new discoveries being made on a regular basis.
It
has been a joy and privilege to become directly involved with this new
research concerning not just the enigma of the Neanderthals, but also
the origins of our own humanity. I have long had an interest in
Neanderthals, dating back to before my college days. As an
undergraduate I studied anthropology and geology, and my primary focus
was human evolution based on both the fossil record and comparative
ethnological analyses. I could think of nothing more interesting and
important than to understand our own origins and what makes us humans
what we are. At the time Neanderthals fascinated me, along with other
earlier species belonging to the human tree (various members of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus,
and so on) as well as the antecedents of the hominids (the human
family). To better grasp these topics, after receiving my B.A. in
Anthropology and B.S. in Geology from George Washington University, I
attended Yale University. There I earned a Ph.D. in geology and
geophysics in 1983, with much of my focus being on mammalian
paleontology (for, after all, humans and their close relatives are
mammals), but also continuing my studies in what makes humans 'human'
and the origins of civilization.
Since1984
I have taught fulltime at Boston University, using my 'free' time and
the summers to pursue my research into the origins of civilization and
modern humanity. My studies have taken me around the world, from Egypt
to Easter Island, Japan and Peru, Scotland and Turkey, to name just a
few places where I have carried out fieldwork. In some circles I am
perhaps best known for my work on the Great Sphinx of Egypt. I first
traveled to Egypt in 1990, on invitation to analyze the Sphinx from a
geological perspective. The question before me was: Does the geology
agree with the traditional date of circa 2500 BCE ascribed to the
statue by modern Egyptologists? After several trips to Egypt and
intense research, including geophysical studies around the base of the
Sphinx and analyses of comparative weathering patterns correlated with
climaticchanges in Egypt over the millennia, I came to the unorthodox
conclusion that the oldest portions of the Great Sphinx date back
thousands of years earlier than hitherto recognized. Initially I
estimated, rather conservatively, that the Sphinx dates back to at
least 5000 BCE to 7000 BCE (today I acknowledgethat it could be even
older). This is well before the beginning of dynastic Egypt, circa 3000
BCE, and furthermore well before civilization was supposed to have
begun anywhere in the world. My dating was impossible, my critics and
detractors argued. Humans were too primitive; they were at best hunters
and gatherers back then, and they certainly did not have the
technology, social organization, or will power to carve a giant statue
from bedrock!
My
work on the Great Sphinx was my first serious brush with the status
quo. I was lambasted in the media by some conventional archaeologists
and historians, even as many geologists quietly supported my work (I
first presented my research at a meeting of the Geological Society of
America, with rave reviews by fellow geologists). For some years
certain Egyptologists did their best to marginalize me, even calling me
a "pseudo-scientist" (one of the nastiest epithets in the
academic lexicon, commonly used when it is desired to exclude one from
mainstream scholarly circles: fortunately I already had my Ph.D. and
was tenured at Boston University). To make a long story short, my solid
dating of the Great Sphinx has never gone away and archaeologists must
face the evidence. Recently my thesis that civilization is thousands
of years older than conventionally believed has received strong support
with the stunning finds of sophisticated, beautifully carved,
megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe (in modern southeastern Turkey)
that are securely dated to the period of 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
Some followers of my work have naďvely asked me if, in the light of
such vindication, my critics have now apologized to me. Unfortunately I
must report that I have yet to receive one such apology.
My
research on the Great Sphinx (and related areas, such as Göbekli Tepe)
had pushed the origins of civilization back to well over 10,000 years
ago, back to the end of the last ice age. But it seemed to me, based on
the evidence, civilization 10,000 years ago was in some ways basically
the same as civilization today, even if not characterized by all our
fancy machinery and electronic wizardry. I continued to ponder the
fundamental roots of civilization and all that goes with high culture,
such as religious beliefs and apparently primal archetypal notions that
ultimately form the foundation of our world today. I wanted to push
further back into prehistory, into proto-history. Along this journey I
became aware of the work of the Peruvian esotericist and
proto-historian Daniel Ruzo (1900-1991).
Based
on his studies of legends and myths, Ruzo was convinced of the reality
of a primordial worldwide civilization that, with the exception of a
few survivors who took refuge in underground chambers, caves, and
tunnels, was destroyed by a cataclysm long before the earliest
civilizations acknowledged by modern conventional historians. To me, as
a geologist, this did not seem like a totally preposterous notion.
Ruzo spent much of his life searching for physical evidence of this
incredibly ancient proto-historical culture, and he believed he had
found it in the form of enormous, but highly eroded, sculpted rock
formations located in the Peruvian Andes on the Marcahuasi (Markawasi)
Plateau. In 2005 I followed in Ruzo's footsteps, exploring the
Marcahuasi Plateau firsthand. As magnificent as the setting is, and as
enigmatic as the possible ancient stone sculptures are, I was not
thoroughly convinced that this was the evidence for the origins of
civilization that I sought.
In
early October 2008 I found myself speaking about my work on the Great
Sphinx and related topics at the Conference on Precession and Ancient
Knowledge (CPAK) in San Diego. One of the attendees was filmmaker Oana
R. Ghiocel. She introduced herself and mentioned the enigmatic possible
sculptures found in the Bucegi Mountains (part of the Southern
Carpathians) in Romania. If I remember correctly, she even showed me a
photograph of the Carpathian Sphinx. I was not totally unfamiliar with
the Carpathians, and in particular the Carpathian Sphinx, as Ruzo had
in fact visited the Carpathian Sphinx and environs back in 1968 while
searching for the primordial civilization. I was also aware from my
anthropological and paleontological studies that a number of fine
Neanderthal specimens and habitation sites have been located in
Romania. Still, having never visited Romania at that point, I only had
book knowledge of the country and its treasures. Little did I know this
was soon to change!
As
it happened, Oana Ghiocel lived in Boston (Massachusetts) when she was
not in Romania, so over the next year and a half we periodically met
in my office at Boston University to discuss our mutual interests.
Among other things, she introduced me to the research and theories
concerning Neanderthals developed by Stan Gooch (1932-2010). Or perhaps
I should say she re-introduced me to Stan Gooch, as I had vaguely
heard of his work, but never pursued it, making the initial mistake of
dismissing Gooch's ideas as so far from the conventional views
concerning Neanderthals as to be unworthy of serious pursuit. Yes, I
too was guilty of being unduly influenced by the status quo. Let that
be a lesson to me!
Beginning in the 1970s, in such books as The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals (1979) and Cities of Dreams (1989),
Gooch argued for a radical reinterpretation of the Neanderthals.
Neanderthals had brains as large as ours, or indeed in many cases
slightly larger, but their brains were not structured in the same
manner as ours. The human brain consists of both the cerebrum and
cerebellum, and Gooch pointed out that Neanderthals had larger
cerebellums than modern humans. According to Gooch the cerebellum is
that part of the brain primarily responsible for intuition, dreaming,
insight, paranormal abilities, and magic (in the true sense, not stage
conjuring). The more developed Neanderthal cerebellum gave rise to a
"high civilization of dreams" (Cities of Dreams).
Neanderthals developed a deep understanding of the natural world, but
they did not necessarily do so in the rational, logical, scientific
manner that modern humans have come to expect and accept. 'I think that
they [the ancients, Neanderthals]' Gooch stated, 'obtained their
knowledge not logically and scientifically but intuitively'(Dream Culture).
Gooch argued
that Neanderthals were the original creators, the innovators of a high
culture, of symbolic values and religious sensibilities, which early
modern humans (Cro-Magnons) copied and adopted without
genuine understanding. Neanderthals did not have a civilization of
high technologies, but one of the mind and spirit that survives today
in our beliefs, myths, folklore, and religious practices.
Neanderthals
developed in time a culture of the mind of a very high order, but also
of a strangeness that is very difficult for us to imagine.
Neanderthals, according to Gooch, worshipped the cave bear, the spider,
and the serpent animals with whom they shared their caves.
Neanderthals were the first humans to fully develop religious cults,
and cave bear worship was their most significant cult. Neanderthals
worshipped the number 13, associated with the moon and the lunar
calendar, a number that is still considered magical today. Neanderthals
developed a profound knowledge of crystals and minerals. According to
Gooch, Neanderthals had developed their own unique symbols, signs, and
sophisticated language systems. Neanderthals weaved and sewed
embroidery, wore jewelry, painted their faces and bodies, danced, had
an elaborate mythology and cosmology, built stone circles,
utilized sacred fires, and made ceremonial sacrifices. They had their
own grand celebrations and feasts that were spectacularly colorful and
creative performances. They worshipped the moon and other celestial
bodies including constellations still worshipped today worldwide such
as The Big Bear, Little Bear, and Draco (the dragon or serpentin the
sky). Gooch asserted that Neanderthals had a strong religious life
based on an Earth-magic religion, and they believed in the afterlife,
practicing complex burial rituals.
In many ways Neanderthal culture and Cro-Magnon culture were diametrically opposed. Gooch wrote in his book, The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals,
'I
believe the actuality of Neanderthal man --of whom archeologists find
only a handful of skeletons, a few altars, traces of ritualized burial,
a range of flint tools, and an apparent knowledge of herbal remedies
--was this: his was a moon-goddess-worshipping, matriarchal,
food-gathering society, where women governed all matters. The only
tasks delegated specifically to men were those where muscle power was
directly and literally required, as in fighting, for example.The
structure and nature of Cro-Magnon life was diametrically opposite.
This was a patriarchal, hunter-warrior society, of which men governed
all aspects, including religious life. Women were mere adjuncts in all
things, whose main purpose was to bear sons and to comfort and care for
the male. The supreme deity worshipped was the sun god.'
Cro-Magnons
learned about Neanderthal religion and knowledge initially through
secret observations during the 10,000 years (or more) of co-existence
between the two species in Europe. When Cro-Magnons arrived in Europe
they were shocked by the knowledgeable Neanderthals and wanted the
Neanderthal magic for themselves; so, they slowly and carefully spied
on Neanderthals, copied them, and in the process stole all their
knowledge and wisdom including symbolic systems and rituals.
Gooch
believed that aggressive and battle-skilled Cro-Magnons both massively
exterminated some populations of Neanderthals, but also interbred with
them.This was a radical unconventional view --to believe that
Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals interbred and therefore Neanderthal genes
should still be found among us. However, recent studies of the
Neanderthal genome reveal that today an estimated 1% to 4% of the
modern Eurasian genome appears to come from Neanderthals. That is,
Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons must have interbred. This confirms Gooch's
ideas!
Inspired
by the work of Stan Gooch and the enthusiasm of Oana, I was ready to
go into the field and explore the Neanderthal heritage firsthand,
testing the theories of Stan Gooch and further developing our knowledge
and understanding of Neanderthals, and tracing the origins of our
own civilization and culture. When she was a young girl, Oana's father
took her to the Bucegi Massif to see the Carpathian Sphinx and she
spent school vacations in Busteni at the base of the Bucegi Massif.
Numerous Neanderthal fossil remains have been found in Romania, and the
caves of the Bucegi area have yielded direct evidence of Neanderthal
habitation, including Neanderthal tools, ritual arrangements of cave
bear skulls and skeletons, and other indisputable evidence of a
Neanderthal presence. There is no doubt that this was a major
Neanderthal cultural nucleus during the last ice age, tens of thousands
of years ago. Thisis a logical starting place to study Neanderthal
culture directly.
Oana
arranged joint research and filming expeditions to Bucegi during the
summers of 2010 and 2011. These were heady times for me, full of
adventure, excitement, new insights, and discoveries. After diligent
study, I have become convinced that the Bucegi area was what we might
term a hotbed of Neanderthal activity during the last ice age. Beyond
the direct evidence of Neanderthals in the region, there are numerous
enigmatic stone monuments besides the Carpathian Sphinx, formations
that seem to resemble humanoid heads. The vast majority of these
structures (or sculptures) are, to my eyes, compatible with Neanderthal
features and attributes. A formation, which I refer to as the Emerging
Head, looks distinctly Neanderthal-like with large eye sockets and
brow ridges, a low forehead, and a wide nose. Likewise, the Bearded
Head Rock appears to resemble more closely a Neanderthal than a modern
human. The Carpathian Sphinx itself has more than one profile; viewed
from one aspect it appears to be a modern human, but when one walks
around to the other side it takes on a distinctly
Neanderthal appearance. Oana and I continue to study these formations
carefully, considering whether they would have had their present
appearances during Neanderthal times. Our tentative conclusion is yes,
they would have, and we believe that Neanderthal people on the plateau
would have recognized these faces as readily, perhaps more readily,
than we do today. Based on our on-going research, we hypothesize that
the Bucegi Plateau was both a stronghold and ritualistic center for
Neanderthal populations during the last ice age.
Reinforcing
this interpretation are extremely ancient legends and myths
that specifically pertain to the Bucegi area. These are well attested,
as the Romanian Queen Elisabeth (1843-1916) collected and preserved
the legends of the region current among the common people.
Additionally, the world-famous Romanian historian, folklorist, and
philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) compiled, studied, and
interpreted many incredibly ancient Romanian folk traditions, clearly
dating back long before the time of ancient Greece (one of the sources
for these traditions is Herodotus of the fifth century BCE). We are
currently undertaking exhaustive analyses of these traditions in the
light of possible Neanderthal connections. Although we have just begun,
we already see numerous potential references and allusions to
Neanderthals and interactions between Neanderthals and early modern
humans. A wizard (Neanderthal) lives in Ialomita Cave, witches (female
Neanderthals) understand the secrets of nature magic, the
hero-king-god-healer Zalmoxis (Zamolxis) wore a bear skin (Neanderthals
had rituals surrounding the cave bear), a fortress is found at the
heart of Bucegi where the snow never melts (apparently a reference to
the ice age, as throughout Bucegi the snow now melts during the summer
months), and many other elements all point toward Neanderthal
civilization. As Eliade wrote in his 1972 book Zalmoxis (p.vii),".
. . the cult of Zalmoxis,. . . as well as the myths, symbols, and
rituals that underlie and determine Romanian religious folklore, have
their distant roots in a world of spiritual values that precedes the
appearance of the great Near Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations."
With
our 2010 and 2011 expeditions we have made remarkable headway in terms
of arriving at a new understanding of the Neanderthal legacy and the
pivotal role Neanderthals played in the development of modern humanity
and civilization.Without understanding our debt to the Neanderthals we
cannot hope to understand ourselves. Indeed, we all carry a piece of
the Neanderthal heritage, and in this sense the Neanderthals never
truly went extinct.
The first tangible fruit of our research is the film, The Mystery of the Carpathian Sphinx.
I hope you will enjoy it, but more importantly I hope it will open
your eyes to a new way of viewing the Neanderthals and humanity. I am
proud of what we have accomplished thus far, as reflected in the film.
However, the research is not over; there is much more to learn. The Mystery of the Carpathian Sphinx is
not an end, but a beginning. Oana and I continue our studies of
Neanderthal culture. We are currently working on a book, and we have
follow-up expeditions and films planned. We have just begun the journey
and there is no predicting what new insights and mysteries we may
discover.
Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.
Dr.
ROBERT M. SCHOCH, a full-time faculty member at the College of General
Studies at Boston University since 1984, earned his Ph.D. in Geology
and Geophysics at Yale University. He also earned an M.S. and an
M.Phil. in Geology and Geophysics from Yale as well as a B.S. in
Geology and a B.A. in Anthropology from George Washington University.
Dr. Schoch has been quoted extensively in the media for his
revolutionary research on ancient cultures and monuments in such
diverse countries as Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia, Romania, Wales, Scotland,
Mexico, Peru, Chile (Easter Island), and Japan.
In
the early 1990s, Dr. Schoch's geological analyses of the Great Sphinx
demonstrated that the statue is thousands of years older than the
conventional dating of 2500 BCE, bringing him worldwide fame. Dr.
Schoch is featured in the Emmy-winning documentary The Mystery of the Sphinx, which first aired on NBC and has been subsequently broadcast on numerous channels both in America and abroad.
A
featured speaker at international conferences and symposia, Dr.
Schoch's work has been instrumental in spurring renewed attention to
the interrelationships between geological and astronomical phenomena,
natural catastrophes, and the early history of civilization. Besides The Mystery of the Sphinx,
Dr. Schoch has appeared on many radio and television shows, including
ABC, BBC-2,Syfy, the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery
Channel, and the History Channel. He has contributed to magazines,
journals, and reviews, and he is the author, coauthor, and/or editor of
a number of books, both technical and popular,including Phylogeny Reconstruction in Paleontology, Stratigraphy:Principles and Methods, Vertebrate Paleontology, Voices of the Rocks, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, Pyramid Quest, Forgotten Civilization: The Role of Solar Outburstsin Our Past and Future, TheParapsychology Revolution, and the university textbook Environmental Science: Systems and Solutions.
Website: www.robertschoch.com
Caves of Consciousness video project
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Mysteries in Stone 1968 film (in French)
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Robert M. Schoch at CPAK 2008
Robert M. Schoch on Daniel Ruzo
Robert M. Schoch on Stan Gooch
Stan Gooch on the Neanderthal Legacy
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