Posted on 04/29/2004 1:32:24 PM PDT by me_newswire
WASHINGTON - More than three-quarters of a million years ago, early humans gathered around a campfire near an ancient lake in what is now Israel, making tools and perhaps cooking food, in the earliest evidence yet found of the use of fire in Europe or Asia.
Researchers have found evidence that these early people hunted and processed meat and used fire at a site called Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in the northern Dead Sea valley.
Developing the ability to use fire "surely led to dramatic changes in their behavior connected with diet, defense and social interaction," said lead researcher Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Occupation of the site has been dated at about 790,000 years ago, according to the research team. Their findings are reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The remains of burned wood indicate the possibility of a hearth, the researchers said, and there were tiny flint pieces, probably chipped off in the process of making tools.
There also is evidence of consumption of meat, including bones with cut marks and breakage patterns indicating the extraction of marrow.
The evidence indicates the early humans ate a variety of animals including horses, deer, rhino, hippo and birds, Goren-Inbar said in an interview via e-mail.
Several types of wood were burned at the site, including willow, poplar, ash and wild olive. There also was evidence of oats, wild grapevine, bedstraw, barley and several types of grass.
The find "enlarges the scope of our understanding of the behavioral patterns of the early humans," Goren-Inbar said. "It allows us to understand that these hominins were capable of coping with dangers, food, acquire warmth and later on in the history of mankind enabled some very meaningful technological inventions."
The earliest previous sites in Europe and Asia that show evidence of human use of fire have been dated at about 500,000 years ago.
Thus, the new finding pushes back the earliest evidence for control of fire by residents of Asia or Europe by more than a quarter-million years.
There are earlier sites associating fire with early humans in Africa, though some researchers believe the evidence at those locations is ambiguous and natural fires cannot be ruled out.
Anthropologist Paola Villa of the University of Colorado, who was not part of the research team, called new the report an important find.
"The evidence presented in this paper is very convincing because it is based on a combination of different kinds of data," she said. "Supportive evidence for the presence of fireplaces is also provided. The authors have considered all possible alternative explanations," she said.
"This is an important find that will encourage European archaeologists to take a closer look at their data," Villa added.
The Israeli site is at a crossroads for movement between Africa, Asia and Europe and use of fire could have helped spur the colonization of the colder climate of Europe, which began about 800,000 years ago.
Still unknown is exactly who these early people were. The paper notes that residents of this site have been assumed to be the now extinct Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, but may also have been an archaic version of modern humans, Homo sapiens.
ON THE NET Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
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See current Middle East News links at Mideast Newswire:
www.mideastnewswire.com
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Curious are you? Well you could try the links I gave you.
How Archbishop Usser worked out the age of the Earth.
Below is an excerpt.
The Bible gives some large time periods which enable us to do the same calculations as Ussher, without going into all the intermediate details as he did.
From when Abraham left Haran to enter Canaan and Egypt until the Exodus, exactly 430 years to the day (Genesis 12:10, Exodus 12:40, Galatians 3:17). 2513
Exodus to start of Temple, 479 years (1 Kings 6:1, in the 480th year or after 479 years). 2992
Start of Temple to division of the Kingdom, 37 years (Solomon reigned 40 years, 1 Kings 11:42, temple started in his 4th year). 3029
Division of the Kingdom to destruction of Jerusalem, 388 whole years, plus part of two years (Ezekiel 4:4–6). 3417
Kingdom fell in 588 BC Hence date of creation = 588 + 3417 - 1 = 4004 BC This gives a rough idea of how Ussher did his calculations.
Astronomy and Ussher
Astrogeophysicist Dr John Eddy, who was at the time Solar Astronomer at the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, Colorado, made some revealing comments at a symposium in 1978, as reported in Geotimes 23:18, September 1978. ‘There is no evidence based solely on solar observations, Eddy stated, that the Sun is 4.5-5 x 109 years old. “I suspect,” he said, “that the Sun is 4.5-billion years old. However, given some new and unexpected results to the contrary, and some time for frantic recalculation and theoretical readjustment, I suspect that we could live with Bishop Ussher’s value for the age of the Earth and Sun. I don’t think we have much in the way of observational evidence in astronomy to conflict with that.”’
Red
And if you look at the way Genesis depicts life coming to be it matches what science says to a T. From the fish in the ocean to reptiles etc etc. The only difference is that the Bible says 6 days while science says eons. But later on in the Bible it says a day for God is not what we would see as a day.
I agree, but many want to stuff I AM into a Julian calendar.
Show me where in the Bible it says the age of the world, and that its age is 6,000 years old, and then i will accept it.
And by the way .....doesn't Genesis say that the Spirit of God hovered above the waters? That was before the 6 day creation. This is what it says:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was F1 on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
That was before the 6 day creation, the human chronology and all that. Now, how did the Biblical scholars come up with 6,000 years? There is nothing as to how long it took before the creation of the earth and the beginning of the rest of creation.
Basically my only question is this ....where does it say the world is 6K yrs old? Give me a Bilbical answer and i will gladly believe it. I am a Christian, and hence i am not coming to this with a 'God is not real basis.' Nope ... I totally believe, worship, and adore God. I am just challenging a premise that the world is 6K years old, and that that is Biblical. And up to today no one has ever managed to answer that question. They either:
a) Flame me (if online).
b)Keep quiet and say nothing.
However up to date not one person has even shown me Biblically where the world is 6K years old, or even a place that merely alludes to that. Hence i classify that under the same drawer where i put the shapes of angel wings and indulgences.
And by the way, Protest1, Archbishop Usher also said the Gospel went first to Britain. That was one of the works he did (he also did a lot of work on pre-destination). Hence i would question his calculations.
Anyways, where in the Word of God does it say that. The reason i ask is many people have come up with weird stuff from the Bible. For example, have you heard of Bibliomancy? It is a type of divination where people open any book in the Bible and 'see' what is to be through that. Obviously not a good thing (divination that is).
Hence my need for Biblical assurance.
So much for even the 1948 borders! No bias in reporting here, no none at all. Did Arafat fund this research? Them Palis never give up...
I can believe the Bible and that my Lord is a loving God, or I can believe that my Lord set us up deceitfully to fail, and used a good archbishop as His unwitting tool.
Hmmm...My Lord's Word or an archbishop's word. Gee...that was pretty easy...I'll believe the Bible.
Science, by definition, is incapable of proving the supernatural. If you love both science and the bible and God, this should be clear to you.
Then perhaps it's time for you to re-examine your premises.
Or are you one of those folks whose motto is, "if the evidence conflicts with my beliefs, it must be disposed of"?
Because that's what the vast majority of the mountains of evidence indicates.
Were you there when it was created?
That (silly) excuse can be equally applied against the "young earthers".
There is plenty of good scientific evidence for a very young earth,
AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah. Sure. You betcha.
Feel free to present your top two pieces of "best scientific evidence for a young earth", and I'll show you what's wrong with it.
just as The Lord God tells us in His Holy Bible.
Really? Where?
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