Climate Change, was Florida Piano People

[John Musselwhite]

At 09:58 PM 9/11/04 -0600, Andrew wrote:

>Couple that with Neanderthal man who doctors familiar with Rickets 
>identified as normal humans with Rickets and you have a picture of Europe

My apologies for this really off-topic message, but this widely-repeated 
claim is untrue and should be corrected even if it's here. Please consider 
the following:
"The signs of rickets differ from Neandertal fossils in several respects, 
including:
People with rickets are undernourished and calcium-poor; their bones are 
weak. Neandertal bones are 50% thicker than the average human's.
Evidence of rickets is easily detectable, especially on the ends of the 
long bones of the body. This evidence is not found in Neandertals.
Rickets causes a sideways curvature of the femur. Neandertal femurs bend 
backwards.

(Rudolph) Virchow, who first reported the possibility of rickets in a 
Neandertal (back in the 1800s), did not cite it alone. He said the fossil 
had rickets in early childhood, head injuries in middle age, and arthritis 
in old age. It is doubtful that an entire population suffered these same 
afflictions.

(Marvin) Lubenow attributes rickets to a post-Flood ice age, with heavy 
cloud cover, shelter and clothing, and a lack of vitamin D. But the 
greatest differences from modern humans, seen in H. erectus, are found 
mostly in tropical areas.

(from http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC051_1.html)

See also http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_neands.html or 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3431609.stm for more details.

Please send any flames via email rather than posting them here. Thank you.

                 John