Criticism
There is disagreement as to whether Neanderthals actually settled in the cave. In 2006, Joakim Donner, Professor Emeritus in Geology and Paleontology, published in the journal Tieteessä tapahtuu criticisms of the idea that the materials found in the cave were created by humans. Donner claims not only that stones from Wolf Cave are not similar to Neanderthal objects found in France, but also that the cave was located under water during the time period in question, and that there is no proof that fire was made there.
Hans-Peter Schulz of the National Board of Antiquities has defended the findings, saying that it is very possible that the cave was situated above water level at the time, and that soot from the fireplace that has been found is over 40,000 years old and cannot have come from outside the cave. The justification that the pieces of stone found in the cave are actually products of human beings is, according to Schulz, that the objects have been exposed to a rapid and aimed blow, leaving a surface that does not look similar to one that has been exposed to exogenous processes, but does resemble those of man-made objects from the Paleolithic found in central Europe.
In 2007, several critical papers from Finnish geologists and archaeologists were published in the archaeological journal Fennoscandia archaeologica (vol. XXIV). The authors in question were not convinced that the finds and features found in the cave are man-made.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)