Resurrection of Neanderthals

The latest question on The National Geographic website is the question of ethics in possibly resurrecting or recreating Neanderthals using DNA traces.

Clones have been created ever since "Dolly" the sheep in 1996. The first clone of an extinct species was when scientists in Spain cloned a Bucado -a type of wild mountain goat- that had been extinct, back in 2003. The goat only lived a few minutes, but it shows what is possible with science.

Considering that there are no fully intact Neanderthal cells how would this be done? Scientists predict that not so far in the future we will be able to take a cell of a closely related species, tweak and alter the cell to resemble with some scientific engineering to match the genetic code of Neanderthals.

So what if this clone was to survive? It would have to be placed in a surrogate, with which the extremely high failure rate of cloning, would have significant challenges with the well-being of the surrogate. If this Neanderthal baby were to be born successfully and live, what would be the ethical issues surrounding its upbringing? It almost seems cruel to bring a living and thinking being into the world and being the only species in existence. Would human rights apply to a Neanderthal?  So many ethical questions related to the cost of bringing back the extinct. It's almost like raising the dead.

At the end of the article the moral questions of raising a full living and breathing Neanderthal is somewhat ruled out. What isn't ruled out is the possible great advancements and knowledge that could be learned from using the cells individually to look at genetic diseases. Advancements such as looking at muscle wasting or osteoporosis are main issues that experiments that could help modern humans considering the robustness of Neanderthals.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130306-neanderthal-genome-extinction-cloning-hominid-science/

Preservation

After cruising an archaeology website, I found an interesting article about a preserved human head. It described the head being from Europe's Dark Ages having been dissected from approximately 1200-1280 A.D. The article goes on to explain that maybe Europe's "Dark Ages" not having been so dark after all. They explain that the head had an extremely advanced preservation methods. The methods used had consisted of filling the veins and arteries full of a mixture of beeswax, lime and cinnabar mercury to help preservation. What I find so interesting about preservation is the reasons behind it.

It always amazes me how much scientific experimentation that was happening, and how it was usually more advanced than we give them credit for.


http://www.archaeology.org/news/624-130305-middle-ages-medicine-dissection

Mystical and mysterious ochre

Today, a discussion that came up was the topic of Neanderthal burials. From other classes, I'd been lead to believe that Neanderthals possibly had complex burial rituals, evidenced by burying their dead, ochre use and possible flowers left on grave. To start, society's main notion of Neanderthals is the big dumb brute they'd been made out to be. When I now hear this stereotype, it sends me in a maddened frenzy. Lately, what has been peaked on my interest scale was the idea of an afterlife.
 If you bury your dead, doesn't that mean you have some sort of notion that there is a 'proper' and 'improper' way to dispose of the dead? This brings me to the topic of ochre in Neanderthal burials. Traces have been found on walls of caves and on flint pieces near burial sites.  This article explains (somewhat difficultly because of all the jargon) about the findings at the burial sites.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/6/1889.full

Ochre has always had somewhat of a mystical connotation for me. It is basically a dye or paint which can be used on walls or skin. So what exactly did the Neanderthals using this substance believe it had symbolized by it?  We may never know, but what we can infer is that it had a meaning and possibly a whole spiritual belief linked to it. I've always found the idea of body painting or modification fascinating, especially with such an ancient group of individuals.

Something somewhat disappointing that I'd learned recently was about the pollen found on Neanderthal bones. I had always played with the idea that flowers and ochre had some supreme meaning to burials. Turns out, the flower pollen found could have just been left by rodents. This unfulfilling new find has left me to think about Neanderthal burials in a new light. However dampened my fantasy of Neanderthals participating in an almost pagan burial ceremony with lots of flowers and ochre may be, it still is a subject that I wish we had more direct evidence that the ceremony had some sort spiritual meaning. Maybe one day!