200,000 year old human hair found in dung

Telegraph ^ | May 9, 2009 | Richard Gray

[decimon]

Palaeontologists found 40 strands of fossilised hair inside samples of coprolite, or fossilised dung, from a cave in South Africa that was used by brown hyaenas.

Until now the oldest samples of human hair were from a 9,000 year old mummy found in northern Chile. It is extremely rare for soft tissue such as hair, skin and muscle to survive more than a few hundred years and only hard tissue like bone is fossilised normally.

But scientists believe the new samples of hair are the remains of an early species of human that was scavenged by hyaenas after death, allowing the delicate hairs to be preserved inside the dung as it fossilised.

[decimon]

Passed through ping.

[JoeProBono]

[al baby]

Did they match the dna up with Helen Thomas

[Doogle]

slow caveman

[SkyDancer]

It's a wig silly

Caution, this picture is a reconstruction of the person who's hair was found in the dung heap ...

[pctech]

You know it really amazes me how our scientific community can say something is 200,000 years old when carbon dating can only go back 50,000 years? Why oh why can’t people just believe what the Bible says about the earth being 6,000 years old and go from there I’ll never know.

[Paleo Conservative]

decimon You know it really amazes me how our scientific community can say something is 200,000 years old when carbon dating can only go back 50,000 years?

Carbon dating isn't the only method of radioactive dating. It's used only for rather recent fossils and artifacts.

[SIDENET]

Some poor guy has been hyena poop for 200,000 years.

Think about that the next time you're having a bad day.

;-)

[doc1019]

Mabel, get the popcorn ready … this is going to be a good one! ;-)

[BubbaJunebug]

Ass end of a bad day

[pillut48]

Does this mean there’s going to be a run on dung among archaeologists now? ;-)

Insert joke about dung experts and Congress >here<!!
;-)

[decimon]

Some poor guy has been hyena poop for 200,000 years.

I hope, as they are saying, that the guy was already dead when eaten.

[Boxen]

The article does not mention what form or technique was used to date the hair. What's more, there are other forms of radiometric dating aside from the radiocarbon sort, including uranium-lead dating and potassium-argon dating.

[MARTIAL MONK]

Life’s a bitch and then you’re hyena crap.

[BereanBrain]

if you read the article, the hair is consistent with human hair, the could get no DNA from it, so in reality, they are making a bit of a logical leap here.

[doc1019]

LOL!

[muir_redwoods]

It’s a real bad career path that results in becoming 200,000 year-old hyena poop

[decimon]

Does this mean there’s going to be a run on dung among archaeologists now? ;-)

Doctor of Coprolitics.

[gscc]

“It is extremely rare for soft tissue such as hair, skin and muscle to survive more than a few hundred years and only hard tissue like bone is fossilised normally.”

Recent postings have brought to light soft tissue that was found in a duck billed dinosaur that “scientists” dated as being 80 million years old. This article seems to suggest that soft tissue is unlikely to survive “more than a few hundred years”. Someone is seriously wrong here.

http://creation.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue-and-proteineven-more-confirmation