Science Shows Cave Art Developed Early

BBC ^ | 10-3-2001

[parsifal]

I wonder if there is any Neanderthal cave art in Arkansas. back to the Branch Weekly tooter.

[medved]

Sounds like they've "discovered" the basic limitations of radiocarbon dating...

[RightWhale]

the basic limitations of radiocarbon dating

C-14 half-life 5730 years. Assuming the carbon they used was organic to begin with and the special circumstances were correctly accounted for, they got a reasonable result and included the error range. Ordinary science within the accepted radio carbon range of 50,000 years..

[Ada Coddington]

All of us alive today. I believe they bred with the moderns and we are the consequence.

I suspect there are Neanderthal genes in Europeans but not in Africans or Australians. Lot of Europeans have the body shape (stocky), head shape (long and narrow) and receding chin suggestive of Neanderthal genes. However the "experts" say that the Neanderthal DNA is incompatible with homo sapien.

BTW those horses are magnificent.

[blam]

"However the "experts" say that the Neanderthal DNA is incompatible with homo sapien."

There is human DNA found in Australia that is incompatible with modern human DNA. I think it came from Mungo Man.

Mungo Man could be African: scientists
Scientists expressed caution yesterday over claims by Australian researchers that cast doubt over the theory that modern man emerged from Africa.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/10/pageone/pageone7.html

[medved]

radiocarbon dating absolutely assumes that the ratios of the various kinds of carbon in the air have always been what they are now. Even one global ccatastrophe such as the deluge at the time of Noah, and there have been several such within the last ten thousand years, and all such assumptions go straight out the window.

[Snow Bunny]

Thank you my friend.

[dubyagee]

Carbon isotope analysis of charcoal used in pictures of horses at Chauvet, south-central France, show that they are 30,000 years old, a discovery that should prompt a rethink about the development of art.

So taking evolution into account, a horse 30,000 years ago would look like.....hey, a horse!

[dubyagee]

Carbon isotope analysis of charcoal used in pictures of horses at Chauvet, south-central France, show that they are 30,000 years old, a discovery that should prompt a rethink about the development of art.

If this is the case, I think it should also prompt them to rethink about the development of evolution...

[dubyagee]

Were all the horse niches filled 30,000 years ago?

[RightWhale]

the ratios of the various kinds of carbon in the air have always been what they are now

It's based on the rates of creation and decay of the proportion of C14 in the atmosphere, which would be independent of earthly conditions that affect carbon concentration in the atmosphere. So goes the theory anyway.

[ValerieUSA]

Carbon dating is primitive and is not the definitive last word.
I think the cave horses are stunningly beautiful. If neanderthals were aware of beauty, it is not surpising that they outbred their unattractive traits through the years.

[medved]

If neanderthals were aware of beauty, it is not surpising that they outbred their unattractive traits through the years.

Bred their way into us?? No way. Studies of neanderthal DNA indicate that it was about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee, clearly explaining why there was never any evidence of interbreeding. We could no more interbreed with them than we could with horses and, further, all scientists agree, there is no way we are descended from them.

That presents yet another insoluble problem for evolutionists: to believe that modern man evolved, there would have to be some closer hominid, i.e. some hominid between us and the neanderthal which we COULD have descended from and, since this closer hominid would be closer to us both in time and morphology than the neanderthal, his works and remains should be very easy to find; they should be all over the place. Neanderthal works and remains are all over the place. Neanderthal was the major inhabitant of this planet just prior to us. Here's one of Jay Matternes' modern reconstructions(not based on diseased specimens) of what they looked like:

Not really all that bad looking. Not one of us, but a thoroughly modern man despite the DNA difference.

[Ada Coddington]

There is human DNA found in Australia that is incompatible with modern human DNA. I think it came from Mungo Man.

Mungo Man's DNA suggest he might be an erectus/homo sapien. This wouldn't be a problem for the Creationists because, as I understand them, they consider erectus, Neanderthal and homo sapien as just human variations.

[Ada Coddington]

Dress him in jeans and a T-shirt and put him on the #7 train and no one would blink and eye.

[PatrickHenry]

Were all the horse niches filled 30,000 years ago?

Probably. 30K years isn't a long time -- as these things go -- and their environment hasn't changed all that much since then, so yes, I suppose they were filling all the "horse-friendly" niches 30K years ago.

[blam]

"Studies of neanderthal DNA indicate that it was about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee, clearly explaining why there was never any evidence of interbreeding. We could no more interbreed with them than we could with horses and, further, all scientists agree, there is no way we are descended from them."

So, how do you explain the 'hybrid' skeleton that was found? (No DNA)

[blam]

FYI......(From Science News Magazine)

Fossil may expose humanity's hybrid roots.(discovery of 24,500-year-old skeleton in Portugal's Lapedo Valley may be hybrid of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens)(Brief Article)

Author/s: B. Bower
Issue: May 8, 1999

Last Nov. 28, archaeologists working in Portugal's Lapedo Valley, 90 miles north of Lisbon, chanced upon a child's burial. At first the researchers, led by Joao Zilhao of the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology in Lisbon, viewed the 24,500-year-old skeleton as an example of modern Homo sapiens.

The shallow grave resembled other Late Stone Age human burials in Europe. A seashell lay among the child's bones, which bore the stains of an intentionally applied red pigment. By the time excavation of the skeleton concluded on Jan. 7, however, the scientists suspected that their find represented something far more interesting--an anatomical hybrid that could only have appeared so late as a result of extensive prior interbreeding between humans and Neandertals. H. sapiens and Neandertals both inhabited southwestern Europe for at least several thousand years, until around 30,000 years ago.

The Portuguese team called in an authority on Neandertals, Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, to examine the find. He agreed that they had uncovered a hybrid kid. Zilhao announced the discovery at a press conference in Lisbon 2 weeks ago. Trinkaus described the skeleton last week in Columbus, Ohio, at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society. A full description of the new fossil will appear in PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. "This kid surprised us," Trinkaus says. "The mosaic of anatomical features tells us that when Neandertals and modern humans met, they regularly interbred."

Some researchers at the Columbus meeting who saw slides of the new specimen echoed Trinkaus' view. Others argued either that any interbreeding was minimal or that the fossil merely represents a stocky modern human.

Much of the child's skull was crushed, although the scientists recovered brain-case pieces and the lower jaw and teeth. The rest of the skeleton was largely intact. Tooth development places the child's age at between 3 1/2 and 5 years, Trinkaus notes. Radiocarbon analyses yielded the burial's estimated age.

Modern human traits observed on the skeleton include a well-formed chin and relatively small lower arms. But the huge "snowplow" jaw, large front teeth, short legs, and broad chest betray a Neandertal heritage, Trinkaus says.

The prehistoric child did not belong to a group of modern humans who may have evolved squat bodies suited to Ice Age conditions, he asserts. Southwestern Europe did not get cold enough to instigate such changes, in his opinion.

Trinkaus suggests that Neandertals and modern humans interbred as closely related members of the same species, as some subspecies of baboons and other animals interbreed today.

Scientists who argue that modern humanity arose simultaneously in two or more parts of the world over at least the past 1 million years support Trinkaus' interpretation. "The Portuguese find indicates that one anatomically variable human species inhabited western Europe," contends Milford H. Wolpoff of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "Human populations have always interbred."

[blam]

"Mungo Man's DNA suggest he might be an erectus/homo sapien."

I read one theory that places homoerectus in Australia prior to the arrival of 'moderns' 60k years ago and that the Aboroginies(sp) of today are the result of that meeting. (Ansestors of a combination of the two)

[varon]

. I believe they bred with the moderns and we are the consequence.

An experiment gone wrong? ;-)