Journal Entry 12(Chapter Twelve)-Ziomara Aguilar

During the mid 19th century, workers working in a valley in Germany encountered the first Neanderthal remains. Since then, scientists have dug up more Neanderthal remains all over Europe and the Middle East. Neanderthals wore animal skins to keep warm, created sophisticated tools, and hunted for food. They vanished about 30,000 years ago.  There has been much controversy as to whether environmental changes wiped them out or if Homo sapiens(humans) did, this might be unlikely though because evidence suggests that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred.
Kolbert visits the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. She meets Svante Paabo who is the director of the department of evolutionary genetics. Paabo was also the one to develop "paleogenetics" which is the study of ancient genetics. Initially, scientists believed that the Neanderthal remains had belonged to human beings. However, specialists pointed out the difference in bone structure. The bones were bowed in unusual places. As more Neanderthal remains began to surface, scientists noticed that the skeleton had an abnormally large skull and bowed femur bones.
In the early 20th century, scientists portrayed Neanderthals as hairy, brutish hunched over beings. It wasn't until after the Second World War that anatomists re-examined the remains and had decided that Neanderthals actually closely resembled human beings.
DNA is considered to be the "blueprint" of a human being. After a human dies, their genomic code deteriorates quickly meaning that it's difficult to find any genetic information about humans that lived a long time ago, this also applies to Neanderthals. Despite this, scientists have been able to find a genetic code in Neanderthal bones. Their DNA is very similar to ours, although, Europeans and Asians bear more of a resemblance than Africans.
A popular theory suggests that humans descended from a small human population that lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Majority of these humans migrated to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. A problem with this theory is that if it were true, all humans would have the same genetic overlap with Neanderthals. This, however, is not true. Some people's DNA has more in common with Neanderthal DNA than others. A theory to replace the Africa theory states that early human beings had interbred with Neanderthals when they first encountered them in Eurasia. Also, the fact that Neanderthal DNA  has survived suggests that the half human half Neanderthal offspring had been cared for and was able to survive and reproduce.
Scientists are able to conclude what the Neanderthals were like based off of their remains. The stone tools suggested that they were somewhat intelligent. There is also evidence that suggests that they buried the dead and cared for the wounded.
The AP theme that can connect to this chapter is that science is a process as well as a method of learning it also changes the way we understand the world. This is so because by observing and closely examing Neanderthal remains, we are able to understand what they were like. By using science, we were able to fix our  prejudices against Neanderthals.