This documentary was excellent with one glaring exception. There is a shocking lack of understanding about the effects of vitamin D, sunlight, on skin color of the species homo sapiens (including the subspecies Homo Sapiens Neandertalis).
The documentary shows Neandertals as dark haired, brown eyed, swarthy people with dirty hair and faces. It shows the cro magnons as blond haired and blue eyed. One was even shown as a red head. They are clean shaven, their hair is nice and clean, etc. Grooming aside, the facts of the documentary are just wrong.
It has been long understood that when man leaves the equatorial regions less sunlight leads to vitamin D deficiencies. Over many generations the skin of humans living in northern latitudes lightens to compensate for this decreased sunlight. Cro Magnons being recent arrivals would have been very dark skinned.
Showing the Neandertals who had been in Europe for approximately 200,000 years at the time as dark skinned is completely and unexplainably wrong for a supposedly scientific documentary.
Neandertals can be safely assumed to have been fair skinned with blond hair and blue eyes. Conversely, Cro Magnon man having recently (in evolutionary terms) left the equatorial regions would have been much darker in complexion that the Neandertals he met.
Is this error some sort of bizarre racism on the part of the producers, or is it just very bad science. Either way it is amazing to me that such a glaring error could be committed in a documentary.
The documentary shows Neandertals as dark haired, brown eyed, swarthy people with dirty hair and faces. It shows the cro magnons as blond haired and blue eyed. One was even shown as a red head. They are clean shaven, their hair is nice and clean, etc. Grooming aside, the facts of the documentary are just wrong.
It has been long understood that when man leaves the equatorial regions less sunlight leads to vitamin D deficiencies. Over many generations the skin of humans living in northern latitudes lightens to compensate for this decreased sunlight. Cro Magnons being recent arrivals would have been very dark skinned.
Showing the Neandertals who had been in Europe for approximately 200,000 years at the time as dark skinned is completely and unexplainably wrong for a supposedly scientific documentary.
Neandertals can be safely assumed to have been fair skinned with blond hair and blue eyes. Conversely, Cro Magnon man having recently (in evolutionary terms) left the equatorial regions would have been much darker in complexion that the Neandertals he met.
Is this error some sort of bizarre racism on the part of the producers, or is it just very bad science. Either way it is amazing to me that such a glaring error could be committed in a documentary.
