Plug

Member of The Crypto Crew:
http://www.thecryptocrew.com/

Please Also Visit our Sister Blog, Frontiers of Anthropology:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/

And the new group for trying out fictional projects (Includes Cryptofiction Projects):

http://cedar-and-willow.blogspot.com/

And Kyle Germann's Blog

http://www.demonhunterscompendium.blogspot.com/

And Jay's Blog, Bizarre Zoology

http://bizarrezoology.blogspot.com/
Showing posts with label Neanderthals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neanderthals. Show all posts

Friday, 15 November 2013

Zana and the Old African Element





The complication with the Sykes finding that the DNA of Zana the Wild Woman contains DNA from a female line that stayed in Africa and did not mingle with the Out of Africa people is that the people that stayed in Africa did include a more archaic form that evidently interbred with the local equivalents of Neanderthals (The Kabwe type AKA "Rhodesian man")
 
 

In 2011, DNA tested from African hunter-gatherer groups (Biaka Pygmies, San, and Mandinka) concluded that part of the genetic material found in these modern African populations was inserted into the African genome approximately 35,000 years ago from a now-extinct species, not found in the DNA of non-Africans, that broke away from the modern human lineage around 700,000 years ago. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110905/full/news.2011.518.html
 In 2012 another study was done testing DNA from 3 sub-Saharan African populations (Pygmies, Hadza and Sandawe), indicating that the ancestors of the African populations bred with different archaic species of hominins, probably 40,000 years ago.[but possibly up to 10000 years ago]
 http://www.nature.com/news/hunter-gatherer-genomes-a-trove-of-genetic-diversity-1.11076



A report in New Scientist dated January 16, 1993, entitled "On the Origin of Races" stated, it was reported that evolutionary anthropologists are now proposing nothing less than the complete abolition of Homo erectus, on the grounds that the species is insufficiently distinct from Homo sapiens. The report proposed that all fossil remains of Homo erectus and Archaic Homo sapiens (including Neanderthals) should be reclassified into a single species, Homo sapiens which is to be subdivided only into various contemporaneous geographic races. The various assorted terms such as Homo erectus, Solo Man, Neanderthal Man, Rhodesian Man and so on simply mean the same as “Us.”
 
This statement is not universally accepted, however it is the one I follow myself.

Wednesday, 23 October 2013

Tennessee Bigfoot Via Jay Cooney

 
Jay Cooney recently wrote a blog in which he posted these fine drawings by Sybilla Irwin and he said that there was one kind of Bigfoot in North America, and the eastern kind matched the western kind. With this statement I most heartily disagree and Jay knows it. For that reason I feel no remorse in offering the alternative interpretation. Instead of being the same as the Western Sasquatch (as exemplified by the Patterson-Gimlin film) the Tennessee creature seems to me to be a prime example of my category, the American Almas (Hair samples submitted for analysis had supposedly consistently turned out to measure in the Neandertal range but my only source of this information is from other researchers, not from whatever reports they are quoting. I have at least handled some of the hair samples) . My contentin is that the head to body proportions and the body structure by itself are much more humanlike than the larger and bulkier classic Sasquatch. In the Eastern kind the head is larger in proportion and the head is held high enough that the chin is a level well above the shoulders. The top of the head is less pointed and the cranium is much larger.


The close-up of the head, and then the Neanderthal skull overlain for comparison. 
Jay makes a big deal about the teeth that show do not match ape teeth, but in fact they are
 a better match for Neanderthal teeth in size and shape. 


Here is a comparison of the Tennessee Bigfoot to the Living Neanderthal Man of Heuvelmans as depicted by hi former wife Alika Lindbergh. The proportions are a very good match. Below is a reconstruction plan of a Neanderthal man designed for animation by Jerod Bough and once again the bodily proportions are much the same. And I had previously remarked that the illustration of the habituated Tennessee Bigfoot "Fox" show a Neanderthal type of skull in his head.


Thursday, 9 May 2013

More on Yowies

Above are some Australian rock art representations supposedly showing the Yowie.
Below is an exceptionally good Yowie track. it is 14 inches long and nearly
five inches wide, and compares well in size with many of the "Bigfoot"
 type tracks found in the colder parts of the Northern hemisphere. Attributons are to yowiehunters.com.au buty my server will not connect to the site for verification.

 
There is a famous article published in CRYPTOZOOLOGY stating that Yowie reports referred "Only" to stray individuals of wandering "Wild" Robust Aboriginals as misundersood by the witnesses. There is some merit to stating the problem in such terms because some of those Robust
fellows were unusually big and unusually hairy, and very well used to living off of the land. Furthermore a still-popuolar theory holds that they were at least partly descended from types
 of earlier fossil men known from the island of Java in Indonesia.

Mungo Man burial. This man stood at least 6'6" in life.
The genetics of Mungo Man were unusual, as shown in the chart below.
 Both of these illustrations are from Mathilda's Anthropology Blog.

Mungo Man turns out to have come from an older branch of humanity than most of the rest of us, at least on his mother's side. That branch is more closely related to the Neanderthals than us but not related to tyhe specifically European Neanderthals (A distinction wich we also see in the Denisovians) In this case this brings to mind the "Tropical Neanderthals", the Solo Men of Java
 
Compartison of some "Robust" fossil skulls  to Solo Man from Indonesia. KS marks one of the Kow Swamp skulls. certain other skulls from Kow Swamp seem to have been artificially deformed instead.
 

Photograph of one of the mostly extinct "Robust" Murrayan Aboriginals.
These were large, powerful and stocky aborigines with a lot of body hair.
 They were mostly wiped out by smallpox in the early days. Their populations were concentrated more in the area now more heavily inhabited by White Australians, in the South.
 
Illustration of a Yowie from a Bigfoot Discussion board:
unfortunately the original board cannot be located currently.
This is another certainly "Robust" individual but human looking enough.
Impression of a Yowie living around bog holes, from recent reports 

Cryptid Catalog: 'The Yowie'

http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/cryptid-catalog-yowie

Yowie3
Artwork: Bill Asmussen
 
It seems like just about every culture on the globe comes with its own legend of a hulking, apelike semi-human or proto-human creature – from the Yeti (or Abominable Snowman) of the Himalayan mountain range to the Sasquatch (aka Bigfoot) of the U.S. Pacific Northwest, and literally dozens of others. Australia is no exception to the rule, as there are many legends about a simian beast believed to dwell in the wilderness in all parts of the continent. Known by many names depending on the region and culture, it's most commonly referred to as the “Yowie,” or “Yahoo.”
Yowie1

LINK  LINK 2

Alleged Yowie Sighting (c/o Yowiehunters.com.au)
Tales of this creature can be traced back to ancient Aboriginal folklore, where they are described as a hairy, ape-type species, with some legends adding eerie details like clawed feet and unnatural speed. European colonists documented their accounts of similar ape-men in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and Yowie sightings are still being reported today all around the continent, as recently as last year. According to the Australian Yowie Research site, some Yowie studiers theorize the creature could be a form of the hominid species Australopithecus.
Yowie2
Alleged Yowie Claw (c/o Yowiehunters.com.au)
[This is obviously nothing to do with the Yowie]
Much like Bigfoot and the Yeti, accounts of the Yowie have been documented in heavily-researched books, covered in various fiction and nonfiction media (there are hundreds of Yowie-themed YouTube videos out there) and fully entrenched in Australia's popular culture. The creature was recently the subject of an award-winning comic short, which you can watch right here:


The Yowie - short film from Jens Hertzum on Vimeo.
"A very hot four day shoot in the magnificent Blue Mountains with limited time and zero budget. The crew were superb and two pick up days were added to the initial four days shooting.
Despite a number of production issues, it was worth it in the end, so far we have bagged two international awards (one for our brilliant Cinematographer Callan Green and another Merit Award for the film itself) at the 2010 LA Cinema Film Festival for our troubles!"
 
 
For ealier information about the yowie on this blog please go to this link:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/yowies-robust-aboriginals-and-solo-man.html

Friday, 3 May 2013

Naked Apes, Dogs, Cats and Rats

People continue to ask me, if Bigfoot is hairy all over, how can it possibly be the same species as us? When I suggest the idea that Neanderthalers (and Heidelbergers) are probably the origin of some of the sightings and they are probably both A) hairy all over and B) the same species as us (varieties of Homo sapiens)

Here we have naked skinned, hairless variations of thec domestic dog and cat, and the lab rat, all of which are the same species as the more familiar fully haired species. Apparently it is a relatively simple mutation which turns the expression of a fully haired coat on or off and it does not affect the health or the well-being of the animal in any other way, besides the obvious fact that the animal is now exposed and vulnerable to the elements. And so it is with our own species. Evidently at one point about a million years ago, ancestors of our species went out of Africa and colonised much of the rerst of the world (evcentually). These were an odinary animal species, fully haired all over, except the brain was unusually developed and the creature was a habitual biped. Some hundreds of thousands of years later, a tropical phase of this species lost the hairy coat and then this new hairless kind went out of Africa to colonise the world. They prevailed while the older (archaic) hairy types went into  decline and finally went into hiding as refugees i the wilderness areas.

 
There are still some reasons to think we are the same species. Neanderthals were thought to have freely interbred with the normal H.sapiens, and the Almas woman Zana did likewise, which is one of the reasons to consider that the Almas types are relict Neanderthalers.

 
And there are still some of us that are perectly normal H.sapiens but just hairier than most of the rest of us. Having a hairy body alone is not good enough reason to say something is NOT a member of our species. And in mammals generally having more or less body hair is a trivial difference.

Friday, 19 April 2013

Neanderthal big eyes ’caused demise’

http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/neanderthal-big-eyes-caused-demise/

Neanderthal big eyes ’caused demise’

The Daily Star, Thursday, March 14, 2013, BBC Online

The Neanderthal skull (L) has larger eye sockets compared with a modern human skull (R). Consequently, the now extinct species used more of its brain to process visual information. Photo: BBC Online
A study of Neanderthal skulls suggests that they became extinct because they had larger eyes than
our species.
As a result, more of their brains were devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing.
By contrast, the larger frontal brain regions of Homo sapiens led to the fashioning of warmer clothes and the development of larger social networks.
The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Neanderthals are a closely related species of human that lived in Europe from around 250,000 years ago. They coexisted and interacted briefly with our species until they went extinct about 28,000 years ago, in part due to an ice age.
The research team explored the idea that the ancestor of Neanderthals left Africa and had to adapt to the longer, darker nights and murkier days of Europe. The result was that Neanderthals evolved larger eyes and a much larger visual processing area at the backs of their brains.
The humans that stayed in Africa, on the other hand, continued to enjoy bright and beautiful days and so had no need for such an adaption. Instead, these people, our ancestors, evolved their frontal lobes, associated with higher-level thinking, before they spread across the globe.
Eiluned Pearce of Oxford University decided to check this theory. She compared the skulls of 32 Homo sapiens and 13 Neanderthals.
Social networks
Pearce found that Neanderthals had significantly larger eye sockets – by an average of 6mm from top to bottom.
Although this seems like a small amount, she said that it was enough for Neanderthals to use significantly more of their brains to process visual information.
“Since Neanderthals evolved at higher latitudes, more of the Neanderthal brain would have been dedicated to vision and body control, leaving less brain to deal with other functions like social networking,” she told BBC News.
This is a view backed by Prof Chris Stringer, who was also involved in the research and is an expert in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London.
“We infer that Neanderthals had a smaller cognitive part of the brain and this would have limited them, including their ability to form larger groups. If you live in a larger group, you need a larger brain in order to process all those extra relationships,” he explained.
The Neanderthals’ more visually-focused brain structure might also have affected their ability to innovate and to adapt to the ice age that was thought to have contributed to their demise.
Neanderthal wraps
There is archaeological evidence, for example, that the Homo sapiens that coexisted with Neanderthals had needles that they used to make tailored clothing. This would have kept them much warmer than the wraps thought to have been worn by Neanderthals.
Prof Stringer said that all these factors together might have given our species a crucial advantage that enabled us to survive.
“Even if you had a small percent better ability to react quickly, to rely on your neighbours to help you survive and to pass on information – all these things together gave the edge to Homo sapiens over Neanderthals, and that may have made a difference to survival.”
The finding runs counter to the idea that Neanderthals were not the stupid, brutish creatures portrayed in Hollywood films; they may well have been as intelligent as our species.
Oxford University’s Prof Robin Dunbar, who supervised the study, said that the team wanted to avoid restoring the stereotypical image of Neanderthals.
“They were very, very smart, but not quite in the same league as Homo sapiens,” he told BBC News.
“That difference might have been enough to tip the balance when things were beginning to get tough at the end of the last ice age,” he said.
Up until now, researchers’ knowledge of Neanderthals’ brains has been based on casts of skulls. This has given an indication of brain size and structure, but has not given any real indication of how the Neanderthal brain functioned differently from ours. The latest study is an imaginative approach in trying to address this issue.
Previous research by Pearce has shown that modern humans living at higher latitudes evolved bigger vision areas in the brain to cope with lower light levels. There is no suggestion though that their higher cognitive abilities suffered as a consequence.
Studies on primates have shown that eye size is proportional to the amount of brain space devoted to visual processing. So the researchers made the assumption that this would be true of Neanderthals.

[So it seems that Neanderthals were different from other humans by way of adaptations to night vision, which might even extend to re-evolving an eyeglow associated with night vision, and other adaptations to moving about and hunting at night. This could well include a different kind of gait adapted to creeping around in the dark rather than marching boldly ahead in broad daylight. And the assumption that it brought about their demise is a moot point if they had in fact survived instead.-DD]

Friday, 1 March 2013

Darren Naish Sends notice of Denisovan on Deviant Art

A while back Tyler Stone had sent me the beginning of a reconstruction of a "Neanderthal" that he found while surfing the net and I posted it here:m the work was still in progress then. Yesterday, Darren Naish's notice on Facebook alerted me to that the same piece of art. It had been posted on Deviant Art and that the artist had revised it to be a "Denisovan or Arctic Neanderthal." It is still a very good approximation of what Loren Coleman calls a Marked Hominid (after Mark A Hall). Darren Naish and his other friends them went off into a discussion abvout Homo sapiens subspecies (H.s.ssp.)from that point on. NB, I only got the message because of Darren's making remarks on the link: somebodt else had posted the link, but I had  o connection to the other party. Darren has subsequently let me know that he had no prior knowledge of or connection to this illustration.

 
The name of this artwork is listed as denisovan__or__polar_neandertal__by_keesey-d5whvpb
on the Deviant Art site. I shall fill in more details later if any more details are forthcoming.
 
BTW, I have pulled a muscle in my back and sitting at the computer is painful for me.
Because of that I shall be spending only limited time on the blogs and any comments left
on any of my blogs shall be going unanswered until I can manage to get to them.

Monday, 28 January 2013

Neanderthal Skull from Florida

These are two skulls from the Crystal Springs area of Florida, age unknown but of a type prior to the historical tribes of the region. This came out of a series of newspaper articles to be posted at the Frontiers of Anthropology as soon as I can manage to arrange them: the photograph was posted in the Miami Daily News of Sunday, September 2, 1934. The cranium on the right is low and broad with a heavy brow ridge and represents a Neanderthal type: it is a male. The other skull is the more modern type, a female. Both of them may have been killed and thrown into the water as a sacrifice: the bottom of the male skull is broken open, presumably so the brain could be eaten. The Neanderthal type might well correspond to the more human kind of "Skunk Ape", which is also extremely similar to some reports from Texas.

Skunk Ape-More Human Type (AKA Florida Bigfoot)

Skunk Ape, More Apelike type (Myakka Ape, Swamp Ape)
(Statue outside of Skunk Ape Information center in Florida)

Sunday, 20 January 2013

Bigfoot Evidence: Jay's Blog, Bizzare Zoology

Jay sent me notice of this blog posting some time ago and I said I thought it was a good posting. I have the link to Jay's blog permanently at the top of this blog also now.
Shawn at Bigfoot Evidence posted a blurb and a link to it and so I thought it would be a good idea for me to also give Jay the plug on it. His blog is at
http://bizarrezoology.blogspot.com/2012/12/relic-neanderthal-remains_31.html

Here is the introductory blurb at Bigfoot Evidence:
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Jay of the Bizarre Zoology blog. For info on weird and amazing facts/theories of zoology, paleontology, and cryptozoology go to bizarrezoology.blogspot.com or follow him on Twitter.

Some researchers of cryptozoology (the study of unknown animals for which only testimonial or circumstantial evidence, which is considered insufficient by some, is available) such as Ivan Sanderson, Myra Shackley, Dmitri Bayanov, Igor Bourtsev, Bernard Heuvelmans, and others theorize that living Neanderthals may still survive in parts of the world such as Central Asia. Their theory is supported by reports of hairy wild men, footprints that have a striking resemblance to fossil Neanderthal prints, and other evidence such as the strange guttural sounds (said to have been possibly made by a primitive voice box) heard by scientists investigating "Barmanu" sightings. However, there is (or was) also evidence for possible relic Neanderthals in the form of remains!


Saturday, 21 April 2012

Persisting European Wudewasas

Persisting European Wudewasas


The Following Posing Appeared  on the CFZ Spain Blog for the  20th of this Month (Last Week):
http://criptozoologos.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/huellas-de-hominidos-en-aralar.html


Friday April 20, 2012

¿Hominid footprints Aralar?

If we collected a few weeks ago the news of an alleged yeti sightings near Irun in 2011 ( see news ) today informed of another encounter with the mystery that occurred just a month ago (specifically, in the month of March 2011) and few miles away.
This time, a couple is making a tour in the Natural Park of Aralar, between Navarre and Guipúzcoa. They take the path of Lizarrusti and, on reaching the beech near Igaratza, repaired in some strange footprints that had been printed on the snow few days ago. The trail, consisting of three steps, corresponding to a large bare foot and with a peculiar anomaly: only has four fingers ...
Image of one of the footprints
In addition, the tracks were laid perpendicular to the usual way, something without any sense, because the direction indicated by the steps does not lead anywhere. The area was full of other footwear and foot prints of snowshoes, impossible to confuse with these unusual traces discovered by the couple. Again the same question: Basajaun? ¿Bears? ¿Pranksters? Here is the picture for each draw their own conclusions ...

Basajaun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basajaun
Jump to: navigation, search
In Basque mythology, Basajaun (plural: basajaunak) is a huge, hairy creature dwelling in the woods who protects flocks of livestock and teaches skills such as agriculture and [tool making] to humans.[1]

References
  1. ^ Lurker, Manfred (1987). The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons. Routledge. pp. 30. ISBN 0-415-34018-7.
  • Vinson, Folklore du Pays Basque (1883), p. 43. J. M. of Barandiaran, Eusko-Folklore (1922); Basque Mythology (1960), pp. 75–76.

 Basajaun
Basajaun
Basque mythology, the basajaun (plural: basajaunak[literally, "Basajaun People"]) were an ancient human race of stout, hairy wild men who were megalith builders. Basajaun means “Lord of the Woods”. They once dwelled in the mountains of the Basque Pyrenees of northern Spain and southern France. They had knowledge of magic. The Basajaun was heavily built and about 2 to 3 meters tall. Dark reddish hair reached their knees. They were very agile, strong, hairy beings with animal characteristics. The Basajaun watch over the forests and all wild creatures. They are rural genies, also called the Wild Lords. They are also considered to be the protector of flocks. When comes a storm a Basajaun will shout warnings to the shepherds; and they prevent wolves from approaching flocks. They are the first to have cultivated the earth. Human beings obtained the right to cultivate the earth when a man won a bet with a Basajaun. He stole the seeds that the Basajun was sowing and he came back to his peoples to teach them how to produce food.

http://listverse.com/2007/09/12/10-legendary-earth-peoples/

[Interestingly also, the Abarimon or people-with-their-feet-turned-backwards, of the Himalayas and spoken of by Pliny and other Ancient authors, is just another version of the Barmanu, Bangjakri or Biabanguli=Golub-Yavans. There is also evidently a Classical reference to a type of ape (Pan) with a pointed head in the Himalayas, mentioned by Heuvelmans, but I have not seen it myself]

Below, some portraits of Basa Jaun and Basa Andere, The Lord and Lady of the Forests and Wildernesses. The classicant names included Homo Sauvage and Homo Silvestre, Salvages, Holtzman and Holtzwib, Waldmen, and Wudewasas; all names basically meaning the same thing across several languages, "Forest People".




Basajaun ornament, derivative of a Classical Satyr's Mask.
http://gitemillerou.free.fr/src/legendes.php
[free translation of the French original]

The Basa Jaun

Basa Jaun GoddessSoule whole is dominated by the silhouette of ancestral Basa Jaun, the "lord savage." On seeing him from afar, it might be confused with one of the last bear of the Pyrenees. He stands, leaning forward slightly. His gait is slow and hesitant, almost limping. It is covered with a thick coat, brown and red at once, which protects the body to the hollow of the hands and feet. It is high, massive, arms swinging and robust. Back, nothing distinguishes it from a wild bear. Face, is something else. Where we expect to discover a fierce jaws and fangs planted, it is surprising to see a grinning human face, wild and unkempt. His nostrils wide and quivering inflate and deflate without ceasing the wrinkles on her forehead crease under the action of animal grimaces, his eyes dark and bridled shines deep into his cavernous brows. It is the Basa Jaun, the Lord of the mountains and the ancestor of all Basques. It haunts the gaunt and solitary peaks of the Pyrenees, the Iraty forest, ravines and yawning chasms that line the winding roads of precipices. His home is the abyss. He walks among the trees, climbing the rocky peaks, falls through the cracks in a flexible and fits in prehistoric caves inaccessible to men. It remains hidden from the world. Only traces of his feet, found by chance during a stroll through the treetops, that he can still live on earth, after millennia of rule in their lairs. And what traces! Of hoof prints, still smoking, which tiédissent slowly in the dew and fresh mud in the morning ...
The Basa Jaun is the protector of the Basque people. Feared, revered, worshiped, he extended his bear claws gleaming above the valleys and passes of the Soule, the mark sacred. It is the primordial state and barely humanized civilization. The Basa Jaun is the father of all Basques and one who has learned of animal life. He was the first miller, the first breeder, the first blacksmith. Caves are workshops magic whence escape the flames, sparks and smoke from his hammer. The mountain peaks are his chimneys of its houses wild, at the bottom of which he watches over his treasures of gold and jewels. Previously, his roar terrified priests and faithful shook the church. Among the favorite foods of Basa Jaun, priests in cassocks and their processions were bigoted pride of place. He always crunched some to whet your appetite. Faced with the huge mountain and wooded who represented his natural temple, the bell towers of villages swooned with terror, as defeated in advance ...

   The Basa Andere


Popular account


Basa AndereIt gets worse. The Basa Jaun does not live alone in the mountains of the Basque country. He has a female: the Basa Andere, the "Wild [Lady] Mistress". That masquerades as the Soule still call, naively, "Ma'am". It is even more terrifying than her lover, "Sir" because beautiful and voluptuous body. She monstrosity of beauty. Her eyes are blurry, hazy, hypnotic. It is the sensual look of a viper. The Basa Andere is the sorceress of the mountains, it is surprising that the turning of a wood, leaning over a water source, it always recoiffe her bushy hair with a golden comb, gazing at itself in the mirror of crystal clear mountain water. The Basa Andere is blonde and gigantic. Her legs are hairy. For priests of the villages, it is a perfect blend of Eve and the serpent. A wild Eve, clothed only in a few metal objects: a necklace of gold and silver around the neck and a loop of copper to the ear. Jewelry forged by her husband, underground, from the magnetic ores of the Pyrenees. One day, a villager of Mendive, vaguely gold digger, surprised the Basa Andere trying to restyle the edge of a river. In his clawed hands, the golden comb gently raking her golden hair. She had left on a rock, a big brass candlestick she had carefully polish to restore all its luster. Our gold digger, amazed by this sparkling candle, walked on tiptoe and took it. The Basa Andere turned and saw him running away at full speed by trampling the twigs of the trail and she screamed tearing that echoed throughout the mountains. She rushed after him, more than two fours. The shepherd, terrified by his fierce reaction, began to recite the Our ​​Father by tightening the candlestick against his chest. Behind him, the Basa Andere uttering panting grunts wolf at bay. He could almost imagine, already, the pain of its bite on his neck and that of the claws that come upon him and search his chest ...
The cries alerted the male to the female . The earth opened and the Basa Jaun appeared, with open arms and claws deployed. He bounded through the forest in search of the little thief, frightening roars that froze the blood of all the inhabitants of the Soule. The shepherd boy, pale and broken, ran without looking back. Behind him, his hunters approached, enraged, and threatened him with torture and pain mile ...
At that time, the shepherd boy saw the appearance of the church of Saint-Sauveur. One of the many churches and chapels that were built squat in the mountains to protect the Christians of Basa Jaun. He gave a cry of joy and, almost knocking down the door, there rushed inside, falling on his knees before the altar ...
The Basa Jaun stopped before the porch of the church uttering grunts . The breath of holy water and incense which exhaled the revolted. His nose and sticking his tongue, he moved away from the shepherd boy and left unharmed. Was heard grumbling, in Basque, a few curses for priests and their religion deadly. The shepherd boy, He shook the brass candlestick against her heart, feeling all the magnetic forces of the Earth who crossed him and redonnaient force. This chandelier, was the fire of Prometheus stole the Lords wild. It was the control of natural forces, storms, lightning, storms. This was the assurance of well-being and agricultural excellent crops for the whole region. Afraid to emerge into the forest with so much booty, the shepherd boy laid it on the altar of the church, next to the cross, and made ​​a gift to the Christian God in gratitude for his intervention. Since this day of grace, the candlestick of the Basa Andere remained in Saint-Sauveur, and because of this little church the center of the climate controls and factories throughout the storm Soule ...




Popular account

Laminak (The Dwarfs)

LaminakWildlife in their backyard, the Basa Jaun Basa Andere  and surround themselves with a multitude of swarming creatures deformed: The Laminak. The Laminak are humans without necks, poorly finished, who gush from the earth, uttering hoarse growl of a beast. They are small, crooked, yellow eyes and bushy eyebrows, their body is covered with a stinking and rough fur, their hands are large and stocky, their legs, atrophied, ending with crow's feet, hare or wild boar. They were mean and nasty looks, accustomed to lavish cave shadows ...
Despite their hideous appearance, the Laminak are considered builders of engineering. Men enter into contracts with them, to perform work impractical, often in one night. Most of the bridges , tunnels and old castles of Soule's work would be their big fingers magic ...

It seems rather peculiar that the dwarfish "Young" of the Basajaun and Basa Andere are almost another race, but also clearly with Neanderthaloid features (the odd feet are possibly descriptions for Neanderthal feet with spreading toes, but I rather think the duck feet were inherited from stories about Freshwater Monkeys instead) Then again, Bernard Heuvelmoke of the more recent reports from the Pyrenees as being "Of a different sort again" in a letter to me from the 1990s. So it is possible there is a range overlap between the larger Basajaun "Trolls" which are often blonde and are bbehaviourally much like the Scandinavian Trolls, and the darker and smaller more typical Neanderthaler types still persisting in Spain. From the way the stories indicate, it seems the two types freely mingle and interbreed in the area of overlap.

Above, a dwarfish Neanderthal as compared to the more usual modern human type (Seen on this blog in a popular earlier posting) and at right, Neanderthal footprints still preserved in wet clay of a cave floor. The largest footprints indicate that some Neanderthals were close to six feet tall and so not all of them were dwarfish: it is thought that geographic variation played a part in Neanderthal heights.

Science News Photo "Abominable Snowman" track cast, of the Asiatic "Almas" type but a large sized one. The orientation of the photo has been altered by me, in this blog we read footprint casts vertically.

Below are some photographs from the CFZ Spain blog purporting to show Basajaun.


At left below is a Neanderthal skull at the base of the species split with modern Homo sapiens from Spain and 500000 years old. At the right is a very early reconstruction of a Neanderthal from Gibraltar by Thomas Huxley, who was evidently still thinking of a classical Satyr. The remains in this case were female, a point which Huxley missed. Besides the spurious addition of the short tail, this reconstrufeatures a hafted handax and they aren't generally supposed to have been used that way.



The following is a publication by Michel Raynal from 1989 which Bernard Heuvelmans referred me to as being authoritative on the subject, before he died:

MAN WILD IN THE PYRENEES
AND THE SURVIVAL OF Neanderthals


by Michel Raynal

Abstracts : To Be Thought extinct since 35,000 years, Neanderthal Man was cold-adapté, as it Can Be conjectured from the proportions of limbs icts, icts the shape of nose, the protection of brain icts by a prominent supra-orbitalis torus , etc. . It is very Likely That It Was aussi hairy, as is The Most hairyness common cold-adaptation. In the Pyrenees and in the Iberic Peninsula, traditions, folklore, artistic representations, and Even recent sightings enough about Wild Men Have Been Recorded. Ltr; quite similar, if not identiques, with modern accounts of Hairy Wild Men in the Caucasus, Mongolia, Tibet, etc., Who Have Been Supposed To Be Men by relic Neanderthal Several authors, Mainly Porshnev and Heuvelmans. Ormières and Gomez-Tabanera Have Proposed a late survival of Neanderthal Men in the Pyrenees, an hypothesis HAS Which Gained new medium Recently the after the discovery in Spain of a Neanderthal lower jaw in a level of late Würm III.

 6 June 1972, before the Archaeological Survey of Narbonne, an unexpected communication on "the abominable human-des-Neiges in the Pyrenees," was read by a French teacher of this city, Paul Ormières (Ormières 1972). Having learned of it in 1981, I took immediately contact Ms. Ormières widow who kindly put at my disposal the library of her late husband, especially his unpublished study on "the Neanderthals in the Pyrenees", written two years later (Ormières 1974).



THE SURVIVAL of the Neanderthals

P . Ormières opened his study with a summary of research on the 'Wild Men' of the USSR. Officially, the Neanderthals disappeared there are 40 000-35 000 years. Yet more recent remains have been assigned (Podkoumok, Kvalynak, Novosiolka, etc.), but some authors have questioned, considering that it is just modern humans with the characters 'Neanderthal'. In 1979, however, was discovered Neanderthal skull of St. Cézaire (Charente-Maritime) - this one contested by anyone - in a Castelperronian level, the first level of the Upper Paleolithic: 35 000 to 30 000 years (Leveque and Vandermeersch 1981 ). I n fact, behind the dogma of the extinction of Neanderthals, there is the old idea, however untenable anatomical and evolutionary, that Neanderthals have been transformed into modern humans: the discovery of St. Cézaire shows that this hypothesis is untenable from a prehistoric perspective, since we are witnessing the simultaneous presence of two types of rights. Since then, Thermoluminescence dating sites made ​​in Israel have shown that modern humans had been there for nearly 100,000 years, while Neanderthals are dated as 60 000 to 48 000 years, making several thousand years (minimum) of 'cohabitation', perhaps not entirely peaceful, to rule out definitively the parentage (Valladas et al. 1988). In appearance of Neanderthal man, many anthropologists argue that clean-shaven and dressed, he would go unnoticed in the best society. According to the skeletal remains, we can deduce the muscular anatomy, but there ends what is certain: among the most obvious characters include the prominent brow ridges ( torus supra-orbitalis ), an extremely elusive front , the absence of projecting chin, etc.. Other issues are still controversial, as the structure of the hand: it seems indeed that there were Neanderthals in the hands very similar to ours, such as La Chapelle-aux-Saints, and others much more specialized, such as Kiik-Koba in the Crimea, according Bounak, their hand has low enforceability of the thumb, and therefore certainly a lesser ability to manual skills, which is confirmed by other studies (Musgrave 1971). Similarly the foot of these Neanderthals shows an adaptation to the mountain: the toes are very mobile, arranged in a fan, which can bend sharply to ensure a better grip, as shown by the imprints of Toirano (Italy). Most experts admit that the Neanderthals were very muscular, as shown by the attachment points of tendons, or the shape of the foot bone, to support a large weight (Trinkaus and Howells 1980), and they presented various adaptations to cold (Trinkaus 1981): it is therefore highly likely that they also presented the most banal, the simplest of these adaptations, namely a thick hair. Moreover, the animals associated with Neanderthals Würmian the former, and sharing the same climate, possessed such a fleece: mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, etc.. Similarly, most modern reconstructions represent them with thick lips, which is very unlikely: this is an adaptation for dissipating heat and increasing the surface area in contact with air (like a radiator in short), and it is therefore not surprising that we found among black Africans. It is more logical to think that Neanderthals did not have visible lips, as do the anthropoid apes. the other point of divergence concerns the nose, represented generally thick in most reconstructions: in fact, the study of the nasal bones can be deduced that the Neanderthals had to be extremely flattened and rolled up. Only the fear of ridicule that prompted specialists to give them a nose in blatant contradiction with the anatomical data. Recent work of anthropologist Trinkaus (Anonymous 1988) show that the Neanderthals did have a broad nose, nostrils gaping ... The e subjective reconstructions of Neanderthals broke out in one proposed by Jay Matterness (Rensberger 1981), so Yul Brynner clean shaven, the color of the skin and eyes has been deduced from that of Iraqis today, claiming that he is a Neanderthal from Iraq. To follow this reasoning inherently absurd, we should imagine the original Neanderthal man (that of Neander in Germany) with blond hair and blue eyes! This is also how they are represented (why not have freckles?) By Erik Granqvist Préhistorama of the canister (Ardèche), he says for optimal use of solar energy. Specious argument: it is known, the Eskimos are not blond with blue eyes. Certainly, they know to protect themselves from cold by warm clothing, adequate shelter (tents, igloos) unknown Neanderthals. But they had solved the problem in different ways: by the pneumatization of the skull (sinuses acting as double glazing), in their proportions, etc.., And probably also by their fur. Fossil material amount finally that various studies the pharynx of Neanderthals give them a lesser ability to speak as modern humans. This has been challenged: the bioacousticien Guy-René Busnel has subtly noted that the study of the pharynx of a parrot would lead to the conclusion that almost no vocal range. And besides, the fact to give fewer sounds does not alter the case: two sounds (the walrus!) Can encode any language. The only answer can come only from a cultural study: gold, the fact is that one does not have a single artistic representation due to Neanderthals, another form of abstract representation of an object. T hird point: since the centuries, have been reported in various parts of the present USSR (as well as Mongolia, Tibet, and Indochina),'' of'' Wild Men, whose sketch recalls irresistibly Neanderthal man: size human body very powerfully built, entirely covered with hair except the face, almost glabrous, long hair, prominent brow ridges ('' eyebrows are like a cap visor,'' said a witness); front and receding chin, upturned nose and flattened ridiculously ('' like when you stick your nose to the window''); largely split mouth without lips visible head buried in his shoulders, leaning forward attitude, massive trunk, almost cylindrical; feet wide, toes fan, bent, causing the toes protrude II and III (the anatomy of the foot is confirmed by fingerprints taken including the Caucasus); relatively short lower limbs, upper limbs relatively long, mainly because of the length of the hands (forearm is instead relatively short), broad hands, opposable thumb weakly (a wild female, threatened with a stick, instead of the whole hand to grasp the divert, trying to place all its fingers on the same side), the thenar eminence without (showing the base of the thumb:'' there is no 'meat' here'') [the latter two points are related: the thenar contains important muscles allowing opposition movements, muscular atrophy of this region is therefore logical beings in showing a low enforceability of the thumb, but who could have imagined an anatomical detail as subtle? ], Etc., etc..



Attitude of the sleep -ksy gyik (based KHAKHLOV) Figure taken from the book of Heuvelmans & Porchnev, p. 53

They are beings are bipedal, very agile in the mountainous regions that are theirs (their foot to the toes is very mobile greatly) they temporarily occupy some caves or rock shelters, their food is omnivorous: it goes wild plants (fruit , berries, moss, fungus, etc..) plants cultivated by humans (tomato, onion, potato, corn, sunflower, etc..), animals (carrion horses, sheep, frogs, lizards, turtles, mice, squirrels, etc.), without forgetting what is hidden from human (milk, cheese, bread, eggs, honey), etc. (Koffmann 1984), and females are described as hairy as the males, their breasts are long and pendants, sometimes reaching the stomach, they have no language, emitting cries very powerful, and we do not know their tools, rather they apparently do not produce, they are primarily nocturnal habits. Degree in 1963, the Soviet historian Boris Porchnev hypothesized revolutionary survival of Neanderthals. In 1968, the zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans was able to study the corpse kept in a freezer of a hairy man, probably shot in South Vietnam, the U.S. exhibited on the fairgrounds, and responding to the previous sketch. The rigorous study he has done has shown that this was a representative of a Neanderthal population still living today (Heuvelmans & Porchnev 1974).



Reconstitution by Alika Lindbergh,
the appearance of the Homo pongoïde in life illustration from the book of Heuvelmans & Porchnev, Plate 48

S ince then, the hypothesis of the survival of Neanderthals has been defended by Myra Shackley relevance (1982) in the prestigious journal Archaeology Antiquity : she has discovered in Mongolia including Mousterian tools, usually associated with Neanderthals, very recent (probably less than 20 000 years or less), that the mountain of Altai attribute to the almas , the Wild Man and hairy local. A armed insidious work of Dr. Koffmann on almasty Caucasus, the zoologist Khakhlov on -ksy gyik of Dzungaria, Academician of Mongolian Rinchen on almas of Mongolia, as well as Dr. Heuvelmans on the frozen specimen, it is possible to find the key to our problem.

THE THEME OF THE BEAR Abductor

I n all Pyrenees short legend of John [Juan] of the Bear, the most popular story of this region: there are dozens of versions, built around the following core: a bear kidnaps a young girl, the carries in his cave, and holds her prisoner in the cave closed by a heavy slab. He is a son, hairy and strong as a bear, hence its name, which, in growing, becomes strong enough to move the slab and run away, he makes perfect, and then after many adventures, which evoke including the cycle of the Round Table, who were obviously added later, as can be seen by comparison with the legends of the Basque Basa Jaun (see below). Hybridization man x bears is obviously genetically impossible, but is it really a bear? The manual skills lent to offspring of their love against nature evokes a primate hand, not a bear paw (as well as the episode of the slab with respect to the father) would it a confused recollection of a hybridization between a type of primitive man and a woman? We will return ... O n find this theme bear abducting girls in parties'' Bear'' as in Prats de Mollo, Arles sur Tech, or Saint-Laurent-de-Cerdane in the Pyrenees Orientales. Parties bear also exist in the Ariege, and Daniel Vine was inspired by a sequence of his film The Return of Martin Guerre . In all cases, a character playing'' Bear'', often armed with a stick or a club, kidnaps a girl, he is pursued by hunters who eventually capture him, kill him (or shave , or emasculating), and deliver the girl. In fact, we find there exactly the theme of'' manhunt'' wild charivaris medieval carnivals and Central Europe (Bernheimer 1952).
TRADITION PYRENEENNE

No shadow of the Pyrenees traditions are still alive on the Wild Men. In Arles-sur-Tech, simiots [Monkey-men] ,'' hideous monsters, with forked teeth, crooked hands, prowling the night on the roofs and down into the houses through the chimney by pushing the funeral screams'' (White 1979), the Tradition has it that the Saints Abdon and Sennen local who had defeated. The so-called'' bear'' Carnival of Arles sur Tech discussed above is also always called Simiot .    I n Haute-Ariege, the Wild Man was called the pelut om (hairy man ), or iretgge , which could be a corruption of heretical:
"At a time unknown to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, lived in the forest of Barthes, two wild men ( iretgges ), naked, hairy, armed, each a knotty stick, coming from who knows where, with no shelter that caves in the mountains, and, for nourishment, the spontaneous products of the soil or they could take the game ". T o get rid of these reactions, a villager had the idea of leaving red trousers, drawing their eyes in the forest, that iretgges enfilèrent. Villagers jumped over them, and made ​​them prisoners because they were hampered in their movements (Pinies 1978). D years this legend, it actually recognizes the old myth of the Wild Men with his staff, but also, and c ' Even more significant, the old legend about how to capture the monkeys, making them fit the boots that make them walk awkwardly, which is found in Africa (Heuvelmans 1980). The question asked most is what'' local'' monkey may well have inspired the legend that is told also in the Aude with hooves instead of pants or boots (Maffre 1939)? C s in another case, a ready iretgge a scimitar, it is clear that there has been superimposed by the memory of the past presence of the Moors in the south. The Wild Men of alleged lewdness, their nocturnal (night being favorable to the devil in the popular imagination) could accentuate their diabolical character, so heretical in the eyes of the good people ... The characters that resemble the goat (see below), so the popular image of the Devil, should contribute more.


BASA-JAUN , WILD THE LORD OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

In the Basque Country, both French and Spanish with captions are at the Basa-jaun , the Wild Man (or rather the Lord Savage [King of the Forest]) local:
" Basa-Jaun is not significantly different from a wild beast. It is hairy as a bear, it feeds on grass or game, it does not leave the mountains and forests, it is cruel, he is a thief, [...] It is not subject to infirmities: it keeps always a unique strength and is impervious to weather the seasons and it works day and night ... "(Cerquand 1875-1882). O ne to the man nicknamed'' goat'' is accused of haunting the huts of shepherds in the mountains, where it comes to warm by the fire, or simply steal their milk and cheese, as a true parasite (Webster 1879). Of course, in various tales, he is accused of abducting women and make them small, which are of unusual strength and hairy (Sébillot 1904-1907), which reminds us of the legend of John of the Bear. Adding that he seems to have long hair (including Basa-Andere , his wife), and many of his exploits are happening at night. A lthough this character is present in numbers of Basque tales, it is considered (or was considered recently) as a real animal: the Goupil's Roman de Renart , and other forest animals, talk like men, does not mean that the fox, Vulpes vulpes zoologists, does not exist! On the contrary, a reading zoological (especially ethological) of this medieval masterpiece tells us something about the behavior of this animal: He lives in a den, it is omnivorous mainly carnivorous, that it is smart to the point of playing dead, etc.., etc.., and anatomically feasible should it look like its' cousin'' Ysengrin wolf ( Canis lupus ), but with a red fleece - all things perfectly accurate , and since amply demonstrated. Al so insidious, two centuries ago, at most, loggers forest Iraty claimed to have met his footsteps, and the other hearing, and memory is perpetuated in most recently during evenings by the fire: "Two mountaineers have indeed heard at night in the rocks, as they desperately sought some cattle lost [...]". Lost in the mist, they s 'orientaient by calling itself with the scream they call irrintzina , when one of them realized that it was the Basa-Jaun who imitated! (Duny-Petre 1960). Yes a number of stories are extremely mythicized, true tales fabulous in fact, there are some that are surprisingly realistic: I do not want to show that'' the Basa-Jaun or cavolar '' , which is worth quoting in full : "Once upon a time, in a barn, two shepherds. One evening, after supper, they began to roast chestnuts in the fire. As they roast, they lay down a time because they were much fatigued during the day, keeping their sheep, and sleep overtook them: "A noise from the door wakes them up and they hear something that shakes the latch on the door. Terror seized them, as they say themselves that it is surely Basa-Jaun . They remain silent, do not talk, and pretend to sleep. "They were not mistaken: they are entering a Wild Lord all black and covered with hairs. He approaches them, and they feel a rough hand shaking and browse their face. They think it is all their lives, the Lord Savage will devour them, and they are so scared they barely breathe. But no: Basa-Jaun moved before the fire, warms, and removing the nuts from under the ashes, he eats them all. While eating, he looks every now and then, if the shepherds wake. They died of terror, not moving even more. " The Lord Savage, after eating chestnuts, rose, took the hut which suited him, and left without hurting anyone. " One tale? Yes, certainly, but one that has amazing flavor of authenticity: is almost like a story typical of the Caucasus, as Marie-Jeanne Koffmann has collected.


HISTORICAL TESTIMONIES

I n the case of the Pyrenean Wild Man, there is not that the folklore: it also has testimonies relating to creatures and hairy hominoids observed until very recently, precisely in the countries of Basa-Jaun . C 'is how a Navy engineer, David Leroy Julien, in his work on logging in the Pyrenees (1776), has mentioned several stories of feral children, such as the famous Victor of Aveyron. In the late Francois Truffaut who has devoted one of his best films ( The Wild Child ): they are merely abandoned children and then returned to the wild, unrelated to our purpose. However, he cites a case far more troubling: "There is not two years [ie in 1774] that the pastors of the forest Yraty, near St. Jean de Pied de Port, saw often a wild man who dwelt in the rocks of this forest. This man was tall, shaggy as a bear, and warning as hisards, a cheerful, with the appearance of a mild, since it faisoit wrong with anything. Often it visitoit huts with nothing; it connaissoit nor bread, nor milk, nor cheese; his great pleasure was to make the sheep run, and disperse them by loud bursts of laugh, but never hurt them. mettoient Pastors often after their dogs, so it enfuyoit as a trait, and not suffered to never get too close. Once, he came one morning at the door of a hut of workers who made ​​the oars, and a large amount of snow fell during the night retenoit; he stood at the door he held with both hands, and looked upon the workers laughing. One of these people glided gently to try to grab a leg over he saw approaching, and redoubled her laugh more, then he escaped. It was felt that this man could be thirty years as the forest is a large body , and communicates with huge wood belonging to Spain, there to assume that it was a young child who was lost there, and who had found the means to subsist on grass. " This last explanation is very naive, inspired by the legend of the Hairy Anchorite, who wants to live in the wild we finally acquire a mop of hair, devoid legend, need I say any foundation. Other testimonies were collected by Gomez-Tabanera (1978): in the last century, a ' mujer salvaje [wild woman] was reported in the mountains of Cantabria. Nicknamed'' the Osa Andara '' [the bear of Andara(Lady Bear)], she took refuge in caves:'' his arms and legs were hairy, with a coat similar to that of a bear.'' It fed on milk, chestnuts, roots, raw corn, fruit and berries (strawberry, currant, etc.), honeycombs, but also sometimes of little goats: "I saw her eat one of these animals, writes Joaquin Fusté there Garcés in 1875: at that moment she roared like a real beast and threw lightning with his eyes. " She had a kind of tray or bowl for milk and a knife made ​​from a piece of horn, and she wore around his waist'' a kind of skirt which no one knew if it was hair or fabric.'' G Omez-Tabanera legend also reported on the formation of the monastery of San Salvador de Cornellana in Asturias . Once a child has been abducted by a monster described as dare [bear]. After extensive research, we found them both in the forest,'' the so-called bear giving the feeding to the child, who lay quietly in his shaggy coat.'' The lord of the sky Doriga to thank the miracle had built the monastery and sculpt the scene [ see photo ]. I t is perhaps an even more recent testimony, narrated by Daniel Fabre (1969) in his study of Jean-de- Bear: "Ms. Gomez (born 1926), Lézignan capita (Aude), told us that in his native village, Cuevas Bajas-(Malaga Province) around 1920, a young couple (the Palmares) were party in the Sierra Morena to keep livestock. They lived in an isolated cabin. One day the husband was away, the young woman disappeared. Villagers did not pursue long research thinking she had been devoured by wild beasts that infested the region. But some time later the woman went home and told her amazing story. " She had been kidnapped by a monkey while she was washing her clothes in the river. He had taken her in his cave and he raped her. During his absence, she had managed to escape. A few months later she gave birth to a girl we named Anica and who was better known by the nickname'' the daughter of the orangutan'' ( the orangutan hija del ) [Note: more exactly, orangutan ]. She had inherited the physical part of his father, long arms, hairy body and his face was that of a monkey in the lower part of her mother at the top. This girl was also subsequently two son still living in the city of Labisbal (Province of Gerona), the first is absolutely normal, but the other is called'' cheese'' because of his ugly monkey " . The hybridization man x Monkey is generally considered impossible, although it has not really explored the possibility for ethical reasons. However, the case of maternity Vichy (a girl who lived held captive by his father in a trailer, along with a chimp, and that gave birth to a stillborn baby monster) is well documented, and disturbing to say the least (Duvic 1973). However, such a hybrid, if it existed, would unsustainable: the anatomical differences between man and Pongidae (apes) is such, that is not clear what could give such an intermediary between a runner's foot first, and the prehensile and arboreal (transformed into hand ) other ... In the case of Ms. Palmares, with the usual caveats (second-hand testimony, prior to the birth of the informant), the hybrid concerned is hairy, upper limbs are long, and'' the bottom of his face is'' monkey, which may mean he has a receding chin, and perhaps no visible lips ... What has been called the father of orangutan should not be misled: c is obviously a catch-all: today we would call a'' monkey man'' or King Kong. Moreover, his morals troglodytes have nothing to do with those, arboreal, the red ape of Sumatra and Borneo.


THE IDENTITY OF MAN AND HAIRY WILD IBERIAN Pyrenean

I t is time to review the various hypotheses that have been developed to try to explain the persistence of the myth of the Wild Men in the Pyrenees and elsewhere. P o folklorists who collected these traditions (including Daniel Fabre) Wild Man is an archetype, a preconceived idea and stereotypical human mind, intended to serve as a foil and let us know, we 'civilized', a high opinion of ourselves in comparison with the Wild. This explains the stereotypes, the cliches of the Myth: Man and Wild Hairy amateur of good wine and pretty girls, found since ancient times [see the satyrs of Greek mythology]. All this is perfectly true, but a myth must also feed on reality, on pain of death: the myth of the Man-Dog, for example, has rapidly declined and disappeared, failing to find real people in whom he can find material to survive. Conversely, the myth of the Wild Men became incarnate in apes (eg gorilla who is accused of removing the black women to copulate with them! - Slander born of ancient myth, but n None the less true that these monkeys are real! P our other authors, all would be explained by the bear: witness the festivities of the bear, the legend of John of the Bears, etc.. In reality, it is clear that there has been rather late substitution of the bear to the Wild Men (and still is in the Pyrenees only): this is perfectly demonstrated by the name of Simiot given to the'' Bears' Arles-sur-Tech, this word from the Latin Obviously simia , that is to say 'monkey'. Alignment with the Wild Man hunts in Central Europe has also been noted. U no other assumption made ​​in the middle of last century about the Basa-Jaun , would be it a memory of the Basques of the orangutan (sic), understand the chimpanzee (Chaho 1847) . Indeed, it was thought that the Basques were related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands (one even claimed that they descended from the Atlanteans), and therefore they would have known the chimpanzee, yet one might encounter at south of the Senegal River. addition that no longer defends this hypothesis, the Basa-jaun bears no resemblance to the chimpanzee: suffice it to recall the moral troglodyte (not tree), or the hair, lent to the first . R este the working hypothesis that guided the author throughout his research, formulated in 1972 by P. Ormières front of the Archaeological Survey of Narbonne, and developed in 1974 in his study of nine typewritten pages ever published, following that the Neanderthals had survived until recently in the Pyrenees. It is fair to say that this assumption has been blown by Bernard Heuvelmans, but the latter, to our knowledge, has never publicly acknowledged this hypothesis until 'to very recently (Heuvelmans 1986). I must say though that the thesis of P. Ormières has against it to be rather superficial and flawed surprising. Thus, speaking of the 'squaw' from the Ariege (a girl ensauvagée in Ariège in the early 19th century, he writes that it was hairy, which is wrong (Lenotre 1979). And he seems to consider the famous Victor of Aveyron as belonging to the survival of Neanderthals This is untrue. Later, however, it evokes a character he has seen, and which he said could be a part of the record: "This is a person considered a moron and deaf silent, hosted by a hospital in Bagneres de Luchon between 1920 and 1936. was called Clémentou or Clementi and it was given as Spanish origin. His death record calls Alfonso Clemente, son of Vicente and Juano Calvera, Benasque in Val d'Aran, unmarried 23 July 1936. "Of medium height, stocky, his head between the shoulders, long arms, short legs, slightly bent and twisted, not in front, reddish brown hair, but few cut, short nose with large nostrils, mouth huge jaw drooping, it made ​​him look goiter, very large hands and feet very large, walk on the pavement, dragging their feet. "Emits sounds, grunts and squeals indicating sensations or needs, but does not speak clearly, or a Spanish dialect or a dialect of French. He is not dumb, or deaf, as it reacts to his name, spoken with intonations local, with a look and an 'uh' interrogative . Does not like children running around him screaming and violent temper, but is harmless. very voracious, eats anything, without difficulty swallowing frogs or whole fruit ". P . Ormières a beautiful state '' anything that departed radically from the Neanderthal type of'', but it lacks the most obvious attribute to Neanderthal relics taken today, namely the fleece of hair! So one might think that the poor Clémenti n is a poor microcephalic idiot, if he had so many other Neanderthal characteristics: if it was not a Neanderthal, it may have been some Neanderthal genes ... B ref, and despite all the sympathy one may have to Professor Narbonne, it must be said that his study was superficial: ironically, he arrived at a conclusion probably fair, but based on false arguments! I returned to the Spanish José prehistorian Manuel Gomez-Tabanera (1978) have defended the thesis Neanderthal again, regardless of P. Ormières. E n effect, this hypothesis can explain the entire record in great detail:

  • The Wild Man and hairy forest Iraty: everything in him irresistibly think of the Wild Men of the USSR: hairy as a bear, agile as the chamois as to outrun the dogs (the foot of the mountain Neanderthals), etc..
  • The venture of Andara: his hair, his diet, his morals troglodytes, really evoke the almasty Caucasus. One might object that it possessed the rudiments of 'civilization', that seem to ignore (or rather have forgotten) the Neanderthals relics, but in fact there is evidence in the Caucasus on the use of bags placed around his waist, sticks, like stones thrown weapons, etc.. (Mahuzier Mahuzier & 1982). The vessels of the dare of Andara have obviously been stolen, not made: the loss of community life and the absence of language led to the disappearance of Neanderthals industries. But it is possible that it was a Neanderthal hybrid x sapiens, which brings us to the next point.
  • '' The Bear 'Monastery Cornellana, by the relative brevity of the forearm, trunk cylindrical, the mouth widely split, flattened nose, the prominent brow ridges, and even the resting posture (squatting' as a camel ': see illustration) irresistibly recall what has been reported by Khakhlov for ksy-gyik of Dzungaria. Added to this are the creases around the mouth, very marked, and immediately evoke the nasolabial folds and the oculo-malar frozen specimen studied by Heuvelmans (see reconstructions). And of course, it was hairy: it is manifest on the sculpture, and implicit in the tradition (otherwise, what would have justified its designation of dare ?).
    Sculpture called'' the Bear of Cornellana ''
    (Asturias, Spain) Photo: JM Gomez-Tabanera
  • The parties bear the legend of John of the Bear, the name of venture awarded to women wild, and so on. : The Wild Men typically Neanderthal currently described in Asia, are often called 'Bear Men': ren-Hsung in Chinese, half-dre or mid-teh in Tibetan -iou woun Burmese, Mishka-tchélavek in Russian.
W hy? Because many traits they are indeed common: a body covered with real fur, a plantigrade foot, mountain forest habitat, customs troglodytes, an omnivorous diet, etc.. D n all areas are reported and hairy humanoid creatures, one quickly to do the so-called hybrid between man and monkey. In the Pyrenees, in the absence of monkeys, we took the best substitute 'plausible', namely the bear: and explains the stories of human hybridizations x bears, or rather bear x wife to remain true to the myth of Wild Man. B ehind the theme of the bear abducting young women, as found in the legend of John of the Bears, there is another aspect of the problem: it is of course the old myth of the satyr lover of pretty girls, which is perhaps originated in the equation which is popularly made ​​between masculinity and hair, and accordingly, we assign an unbridled sexual aggression in a humanoid being and completely covered with hair ( see about this song Brassens Station at Gorilla! who humorously that belief). But it could be in more than one allusion to hybridization Neanderthal x modern man. Hybridization is an inadequate term used by anthropologists, however, convinced the majority of the membership of the Neanderthals in our species ( Homo sapiens ), and accordingly named Homo sapiens neanderthalensis , as opposed to modern humans H. s. sapiens : in this case is to 'blend' that should talk. It is amazing to see specialists use different criteria depending on whether one deals with the Zoology and Anthropology, which is scientifically indefensible, man being himself an animal. Note that according to Jean-Louis Heim (1987), Neanderthals and modern humans represent two distinct species. O na seems there evidence of such hybridisation (interbreeding or if one does not retain the specificity) with the remains Jebel Qafzeh in Palestine: they have all types intermediate between Neanderthals and modern humans, this heterogeneity can rule out the hypothesis advanced by some that this would be Neanderthals mutant sapiens (moreover refuted recently by the datings obtained by Valladas). Interestingly, the Bible refers several times to Seïrim , literally 'the hairy', usually translated as 'goats', and God warns the Israelites against the act of mating with these hairy ones: "They no longer offer their sacrifices to goats ( sic ), with whom they prostitute themselves. It will be a lasting ordinance for them and their descendants. " [Leviticus XVII, 7] The incongruity of this translation also appears, for example, in the prophecies of Isaiah (XIII, 21 and XXXIV, 14) which refers to animals of the desert jackals, ostriches ... and 'goats' , which is absurd for them. B ref, it is very likely that in the Pyrenees as in Palestine, the Neanderthals and the men of our kind have intersected, in every sense of the term, which has left traces in human memory, including mythology, sacred or profane. The case of Ms. Palmares, impregnated by an alleged orang-utan, is perhaps the most recent case: the hair, the length of the upper limbs, and probably the lack of protruding chin, not to mention the robustness (the hybrid vigor) of the offspring, and the habits of wrens father go in this direction, and yet another reminder a well documented case in the Caucasus, one of Zana, a wild female and hairy with a villager who had a child. It would be of great interest to find and study the skeletal remains ...

  • Clementi, the moron from Bagneres de Luchon, suffers from microcephaly (not front), acromegaly (enlarged hands and feet), hyperthyroidism (goiter), and in fact that amount of discrepancies it is a monster among monsters: it is much simpler to assume that Neanderthals possessed amount of genes, and therefore it looked like a almasty not hairy though: stocky, head between his shoulders, long arms, legs short, bent and twisted '(see the sharp curvature of the femoral Neanderthals), sloping forehead, short nose with large nostrils, enormous mouth drooping jaw, large hands, large feet, etc.., etc. .. As for the goitre is perhaps the fact that the vocal sac is reported in Asian Wild  men, which amplifies their voice as in gibbons.
  • The folklore of the Basa-Jaun : the 'sketch' has attempted to make Duny-Petre (1960) is irresistibly think of Neanderthals lingered in the USSR: Wren, nocturnal, living in the mountain forests, hairy , with long hair, like the bear, screaming powerful, feeding on many things, including by committing petty thefts in the shepherds' huts, etc.., etc.. : The basis of the folktale is remarkably similar to the amount of accounts collected in the Caucasus in particular (in this case of first-hand evidence, circumstantial encounters with Wild Men and hairy).

N crop material amount that the penchant for milk and cheese of the Wild Man is perhaps explained by a lack of vitamin D. It is known that the pathology of the Neanderthals, according to their bones, often shows osteoarthritis and rickets, the latter due to a deficiency of vitamin D, found in abundance in milk. After breastfeeding, the Neanderthals could be found in fish in small quantities, but they ignored the harpoon. It was suggested that in addition to low intake, it could have been a bad metabolism of vitamin D from lack of ultraviolet, because of a little sunshine into the mists of the Ice Age, and if it was simply related to customs and troglodytes night? A joutons the name given to Goat Man Basa-Jaun , evokes the hairiness (hairy as a goat), foot for mountain (a real 'goat foot '!), and probably foul smell (it should' smell the goat '!), all things reported in Asian Aboriginal Men. Note also that the Devil of the Christians being featured with characters of a goat (among other foot), had to give basis on behalf of iretgge used in Ariège. S ilo Incidentally, there is impairment in myth in the eastern Pyrenees, or the bear, the heretic (Moor? Cathar?) or the Devil have obviously been superimposed: it could mean the disappearance of Neanderthals oldest in this part of the chain. In Arles-sur-Tech, simiots are decked teeth ends and other spooky details. In fact, the latest evidence and most conclusive physical evidence from all of the Basque Country or Spain. If the Basques were able, by the isolation of their valleys, keeping a single language (which differs from all Indo-European languages), and no less a single gene (a very high percentage of Rh negative blood types) - we think they are almost pure Cro-Magnon - then a fortiori the Wild Man Neanderthal was able to survive very long in the mountains, in fact until the deforestation in the 17 ° -18 ° centuries ...




Both sides of the bone engraved Magdalenian Isturitz
showing on one side a couple of bison and the other
a couple of'' hairy'' [according to SAINT-PIERRE] Figure from the book of Heuvelmans & Porchnev, p. 430
  • This late survival is also witnessed by another element that must be read into the record: the curious engravings in the cave Isturitz (Pyrénées Atlantiques), dating back fifteen thousand years. This is initially a flat bone engraved on both sides, as described in JA Mauduit 40 000 years of Modern Art:
    "A man lying naked, adorned with bangles, stretches out his arms toward a woman lying in front him. The woman is strong and hairy, and on his thigh, an arrow triple row of barbs, symbol of his conquest. The engraving is on the other side is not unrelated to the previous one: it appears a bison male ready to mate with a female that developed into the hindquarters and tail erect, the male is also on the shoulder of barbed arrows. "

A ccording Heuvelmans (Heuvelmans & Porchnev 1974), this would be a list of successes: the bracelets and necklaces are only links, and the arrow marks hunting (which would result in'' a couple of shot bison and a couple of hairy''). As he points out, human representations in prehistoric art is highly stylized (probably because of a superstitious fear that one can indulge in the magic of his portrait); cons here, if is indeed Wild Men that our ancestors had to look like animals, there was no bar to faithfully represent their features: Heuvelmans notes'' extremely receding forehead, neck short, powerful neck, chin and above the deleted curiously upturned nose.'' In short, all the characters of the Neanderthals. We will add substantially cylindrical trunk of the female, and her breasts and long pendants. Note that according to André Leroi-Gourhan, it's not a couple, but two females, which in fact does not detract from the previous proof. C 'is at a similar conclusion that conducting the study a rock carving of the same cave Isturitz; as Heuvelmans wrote: "His hair system is represented with the utmost care: face framed by hair that distinguishes onto the back of the neck, longer hair, and - if I was not afraid to seek the facts - the scanty eyebrows, even small downy hairs of the cheeks. The turned-up nose is certainly undeniable. "



Realistic representation in the cave Isturitz
(Basses-Pyrenees), in what appears to be
a Neanderthal [after MAUDUIT, 1954]. Figure from the book of Heuvelmans & Porchnev, p. 429

Finally a possible avenue of research concerning Cagots, a pariah people of south-western France during the Middle Ages, much victims of prohibited: the obligation to marry them, to wear a distinctive sign (a bridle sewn on the garment: Hitler did not invent anything decidedly) to enter the church through a special door, etc.., etc. .. It was said that they were lepers (loss of fingers giving the hand the appearance of crow's feet, as pointed out very subtly Heuvelmans in litt. ), descendants of Goths (= bigot Goth canis dog Goth?), etc. .. All this is very controversial. Some have presented distinctive characteristics: absence of ear lobe, goitre, etc., reminiscent again of the Neanderthals lingered: in any case, their inbreeding would have effectively forced to increase the frequency of appearance of Neanderthal genes s 'it was found among them (which we refer to the problem of hybridization). The bridle is perhaps an allusion to wide feet, toes fan (in palm!) Of the Neanderthals. The legend of fairies Ariège ( encatadas ) living in caves and the footprints which looks like a webbed duck foot (Joisten 1962) may well have the same origin, more precisely be based on observation of footprints in Neanderthals the caves of the region, as Toirino Italy.


Reconstruction by Alika Lindbergh,
From Head of Man pongoïde of live,
front view and profile. Illustration from the book Heuvelmans & Porchnev, Plate 47

I n short, the thesis of the recent survival of Neanderthals can account for all data file. One might object that this is all very hypothetical, although the consistency of the data collected here is striking. Of course, the proof of the pudding would be the discovery of Neanderthal remains very recent (after the date of 35,000 years attributed to their extinction) in the region of interest: gold, it has been the case recently. It has indeed been exhumed in Boquete Zafarraya Spain a Neanderthal mandible in a level dated to Late Würm III, less than 30 000 years (Hublin 1989). It is hoped that systematic research be undertaken, which allow to discover the remains even more recent.



THANKS

We wish to thank, for documents provided by them or their advice: Duny-Peter Petre (Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port), Jose Manuel Gomez-Tabanera (Oviedo University), Benoit Grison (Sainte-Adresse), Bernard Heuvelmans (The Vésinet), Marie-Jeanne Koffmann (Moscow), Paul Ormières Widow (Narbonne), Myra Shackley (University of Leicester) and Dmitri Bayanov (Darwin Museum in Moscow) for m ' be encouraged to write this study.

REFERENCES CITED

So as not to overburden our study already fairly dense, are cited here as references not listed by Heuvelmans and Porchnev (1974). Please refer to their book for a more complete bibliography on the survival of Neanderthals.

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