Volume XVI
Number 3.....MayMay/June
2010.....www.barnesreview.org
Personal
From the
Consulting Editor
By Michael Collins Piper
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Since 1994 there have been no less than 113
issues of THE BARNES
REVIEW (TBR) committed to print.
But it is probably not a gamble to say that this 114th issue
may be our most "controversial" --perhaps even more
so than our famous "All Holocaust" issue which has
been distributed to the tune of more t:han 100,000 copies
since first published in January/February 2001. Now comes
this issue --another special issue-- based around the theme
of TBR editor and publisher Willis A. Carto's fascinating
monograph entitled "Revenge of the Neanderthal."
Agree or disagree, for whatever reason, with Carto's thesis
(and there are those who will, most vehemently so), you will
nonetheless be intrigued by the subject matter.
Having
been a contributor to TBR from its inception, I've always
appreciated this journal's wide-ranging, no-holds-barred approach
to uncovering real history, authentic history, rejecting the
artificial constructs (read: lies and disinformation) so often
put forth by those whom Harry Elmer Barnes referred to as
"the Court Historians."
So,
needless to say, I was honored when Willis asked me to sit
in as a special consulting editor on this issue of TBR, assisting
in the assembly of so much additional material that underscores
the foundation of the historical scenario Willis has put forth.
And
I can tell you that when Willis first mentioned to me -- many
years ago -- his own suspicions about the fate of the Neanderthal
and the origins of the Jewish people (a theory founded upon
his own longtime inquiries into a wide array of subject matters,
including sociology, history, biology, linguistics, archeology
and -- of course -- religion, it seemed to me, as I told Willis
then: "I think you're onto something."
So
imagine my surprise when I did my own peripheral research
-- and Willis's surprise as well -- and was able to tell TBR's
publisher he was far from being alone in having reached his
own particular (and certainly fascinating) theory about Neanderthal
man. In fact, as you'll see, several people-most notably Jewish
writers -- have independently come to the same conclusion
that Willis reached quite on his own. And since that time,
more than a few well-read folks, apprised of the theory, have
concluded that, yes, there is much more to the story (perhaps
we should call it the "secret" story) of the Neanderthal
than meets the eye.
We
thus present "Revenge of the Neanderthal" and certainly
look forward to any comments you may have -- especially new
readers.
-- MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER
Consulting Editor for this issue of TBR
[A special thanks to Michael Collins Piper
and Assistant Editor John Tiffany for their inestimable efforts
in helping with the preparation of this special theme issue
of THE BARNES
REVIEW. -- Willis A. Carto]
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EDITORIAL
A
CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC
TO BE SURE ...
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The
idea that today's people known as "Jews" may well
be foundationally genetically descended ftom the Neanderthals
is not really so extraordinary as it sounds. Even as far back
as Aug. 2, 1997, the online publication Slate (which is considered
quite "hip" and "progressive" and otherwise
very much politically correct) featured a commentary by a
Jewish writer, Charles Paul Freund, entitled "So are
the Neanderthals still Jews?" pointing out that there
have been those who have raised this controversial question:
Freund's
article noted that "a long and extraordinary history
of speculation concerns the ultimate identity of the Jews,"
and that there have been a wide-ranging array of explanations
of Jewish origins, effectively underscoring the point that
the issue is not so settled as many believe.
Now
although Freund implicitly rejects the possibility of Jews
having any linkage to the Neanderthals he points out that
it would be a "mistake" for people to instinctively
scoff at the theory. As he summarizes the situation well:
At
least two theorists working separately have concluded this:
The Jews are surviving Neanderthals. Laughing at such ideas
suggests you believe them to be absurd. But the validity
of such theorizing is beside the point. What matters is
the existence of such a premise, because it validates the
question it seeks to answer: What explains the Jews? That
Jews require a meta-explanation is the problematic premise,
one that even philo-Semites have ... fallen for.
It's
important to note, right up ftont, the two theorists to whom
Freund refers as having concluded that the Jews are descended,
at least in part, ftom the Neanderthals both happen to be
of Jewish extraction themselves: Welsh-based sociologist and
researcher Stan Gooch and Canadian-based writer Michael Bradley.
Gooch's
books, The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals: Guardians
of Ancient Wisdom and The Neanderthal Legacy: Remembering
Our Genetic and Cultural Origins, and Bradley's two works,
The Iceman Inheritance and its sequel, Chosen
People from the Caucasus, expand upon the theories the
two writers put forth, but, quite notably, the authors vigorously
differ in their ultimate conclusions. Put simply, Gooch looks
favorably on what he perceives to be the Neanderthal origins
of the Jewish people, whereas Bradley sees the Neanderthal
connection as a very real, but ultimately unfortunate, explanation
for many of the geopolitical and social problems facing the
world today.
In
truth, scientific inquiry into the origins of mankind (and
most specifically into the saga of the Neanderthals) is an
ongoing process. There are no simple answers and one can find
spir¬ited debate among those who make that study their
business.
So
there is nobody who can come forward and say definitively
that either Gooch or Bradley's assessments are off the mark
or to disprove the possibility (which others have put forth)
that the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon man (the presumed forerunner
of what we today refer to as "modern" man) may have
actually interbred and produced a "new man," despite
the fact that others contend that the Neanderthals were, more
or less, an unlucky branch of the human family tree that died
out.
Consider,
too, the fact that on April 19, 1991 the prestigious Science
magazine reported that in Israel itself there were four caves
in which the remains of Neanderthals were found and that newly
developed dating techniques suggested that "moder types
and the Neanderthals were contemporaries on the Israeli landscape."
So there were Neanderthals in the Holy Land.
Even
Abram Leon Sachar --- consistently hailed as the foremost
modern historian of the Jewish people -- in his History
of the Jews wrote of excavations in ancient Palestine
that "reveal the presence, among the earliest inhabitants,
of a race of new stone age men who dwelt in caves and grottoes
and burnt their dead in crude crematoriums, and who may have
been the Horim of the Biblical narrative." Yet, he noted,
"how long they lived on in Palestine cannot be ascertained."
Sachar likewise acknowledged that the early history of the
Jews is not so precisely documented as many might wish to
think.
Discussing
this problem in assessing the ambiguities of what is said
today and generally accepted to be what is popularly known
as Jewish history, Sachar noted: "...a veil now falls
over the story. We are left without definite evidence of what
occurred during these long centuries of race movements and
conflicts .... The details of the shifting and changing are
unknown."
In
fact, Sachar added -- almost as if unable to define anything
whatsoever as authentic Jewish history:
When
the veil is at last lifted, five centuries later, and zealous
historians begin to tell, in the Biblical narrative, the
story of their ancestors, the Hebrews are already long settled
in Palestine, holding the strategic places, loosely united
in a monarchy, worshipping a strange god, known as Yahweh.
Where they came from, who molded them into a people, how
they entered Palestine, their oldest traditions we cannot
answer with certainty.
Sachar
admitted that what he calls "the most influential history
in the world" -- that is, the history of the Jews --
"is lost in the gray morning of folk-memory and fable."
So
it is that even the most eminent of modem Jewish historians
affirmed that what he called the "central problem"
of early Hebrew history was, as he put it, to "explain
how a group of scattered tribes, pressing into the country
from many directions, became a nation, and how their varied
religious experiences evolved into the national religion which
the prophets built upon and expanded."
In
short, Sachar was saying then -- as even more current Jewish
historians such as Shlomo Sand have pointed out (to much furor,
it seems}-- that what is said to be Jewish "history"
is really, in substantial part, what the Jewish authors of
the Old Testament claimed to be history, but which others
-- including Jewish (even Israeli) historians, archeologists
and other scholars -- say is nonsense contradicted by scientific
and historical fact. In short, it's bunk.
Another
Jewish writer, Dan Rottenberg, in his widely utilized work,
Finding Our Fathers: A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy,
is careful to point out the complex nature of tracing Jewish
ancestry and points out, quite candidly:
Many
traditions about ancestral descent, Jewish and otherwise,
have been handed down over centuries and even millennia.
Because they have survived for so long, they are often accepted
as truth. It's fun to consider these traditions and impossible
to say flat out that they are false, but at the very least
they are highly suspect. If you examine any such tradition
closely, you will find that the people maintaining it had
some particular axe to grind.
For
example, Rottenberg points out that in the 19th century many
Jews living in Hungary readily claimed descent ftom the famous
Khazars. Noting that "perhaps" the claim was valid,
Rottenberg adds that the claim also happened to be "very
convenient in an age when Hungarian nationalism was strong
and suspicion of outsiders widespread." By claiming Khazar
origins, the Jews of Hungary were thus able to say that they
were not really from a faraway land, but people from the same
land as the Magyars.
On
the other hand, Rottenberg points out, there is a problem
for modem-day "Jews" living in the state of Israel:
"If it could be shown that a major part of the world's
Jews were descended from the Khazars, and not from the ancient
Israelites, this might seem to some people to undercut the
Jews' claim to Israel as their rightful homeland."
There
is no "certain" history of the Jews and their origins,
even in modem times. And thus to even attempt to explore their
earliest evolution and their separation into a group that
we know today as "the Jewish people," reminds us
there are no simple answers -- as even Jewish historians acknowledge.
The
input of such scholars as the aforementioned Michael Bradley
and Stan Gooch is quite relevant in attempting to reach an
understanding of the subject. In the forthcoming pages we'll
see what they and others have had to say, no matter how "controversial"
it may be. And controversial it is, as we said at the beginning,
to be sure.
-- MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER
Special Consulting Editor
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NOTHING IS CERTAIN
. . .
As
this issue of TBR went to press, The Washington Post
published a remarkable story on March 25 referencing an
article published online at the Internet web site of Nature
magazine (www.nature.com) describing a major new scientific
discovery regarding "a new lineage ofproto-human"
-- an all-new human forerunner never before known to science
--"a discovery," asserted the fast, "that
raises new questions about early human history."
Scientists
involved in the study of a bone fragment from this "new"
creature-which has been dubbed the "Denisova hominin"
(Denisova is the name of the cave in Russia's Altai Mountains
where it was found; a hominin is any descendant of the last
common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees) -- are unambiguous
in stating that the discovery of the new lineage, which
has not yet been declared a separate species, is an extraordinary
development.
For
example, Terry Brown, a molecular paleontologist at the
University of Manchester, says that "People are going
to be what we call 'gobsmacked' by this news: 'There is
going to be open-mouth amazement." And Johannes Krause,
a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology in Germany, who helped lead the scientific
team investigating the fmd, said that what is under study
is "some new creature that hasn't been on our radar
screen before."
The
Post noted that "What the beings looked like,
how they lived and what happened to them are a mystery.
All that's known is that they existed as recently as 40,000
years ago, which is the approximate age of the bone."
In addition, it appears that this creature existed in Russia
"during a long period when early modem humans and Neanderthals
were there."
And
the question remains as to whether this creature had contact
with the others or might have even bred witli them -- a
matter that will be the subject of further study. The
Post adds that while "so far, there's no firm
evidence of breeding between early modem numans and Neanderthals
... to discover that the Denisova hominin was a hybrid ...
would change the view of man's prehistory considerably."
The
point of all of this is a simple demonstration that what
we have long believed to be "true" about many
things-historical, scientific, archeological -- is not necessarily
true. And such discoveries as this amazing find in the region
where Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon man -- and now this
"new" creature-lived, continue to raise new questions
about our past.
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MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER is a frequent contributor
to THE BARNES REVIEW
and the author of Final Judgment: The Missing
Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy ($25),
called the definitive work on the JFK execution. He is also
the author of The New Jerusalem: Zionist Power
in America ($19.95) and The High
Priests of War ($19.95). Order any of these
books from TBR BOOK CLUB by calling 1-877-773-9077 toll
free and charging to Visa or MasterCard. TBR'subscribers
take 10% off book prices. Add $3 per book S&H.
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