Two Article Questions - Book Report/Review Example

ANTHROPOLOGY Modern Humans and the Neanderthals Phylogeny means development of a group: the development over point intime of a species, genus, or group, as compared with the development of a single ontogeny. The idea of modern human to have existed alongside the Neanderthals is one that would change the history as we know it. For decades, it has been believed that the Neanderthals are part of modern man’s ancestry. This means that it is only after the Neanderthals became ‘extinct’ that modern man emerged.

To suggest otherwise would mean that man’s phylogenic tree through evolution as we know it is a sham and this would leave us orphans as we cannot ascertain our origin. If modern man existed along the Neanderthals, studies would have to commence afresh in about the phylogenic tree. This possibility would mean Neanderthals are a different genus from that of modern man. If not then, it would be a new task to find the predecessors to both man and the Neanderthals while looking out for the possibility of a common ancestor.

Acquisition of LanguageLanguage can be defined simply as a system of communication with its own set of conventions. Modern man is believed to have acquired language slowly and developed upon it. The pattern of declining diversity with distance, comparable to the ingrained decline in genetic diversity with distance from Africa, means that the source of the present human language is in the area of southwestern Africa. As you move farther from southwestern Africa, the languages become less diverse meaning that they migrated from there.

The competition for prey must have got out of hand, and the farther they moved they displaced the other species of game leading to their extinction. Their acquisition of language may have eased communication making it easy to plan beforehand how to hunt. This led them to adapt technology that favored their existence leading to gradual expansion. Work CitedRichard, G. et al. “A Draft Sequence of the Neanderthal Genome." (2010): Pp.710-722. Web. 07. May. 2012. .