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New finds in Caucasus suggest non-African origin for ancient Homo species
Science News ^ | Monday, June 6th, 2011 | Bruce Bower

Posted on 06/07/2011 5:39:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

Early members of the genus Homo, possibly direct ancestors of people today, may have evolved in Asia and then gone to Africa, not vice versa... new evidence shows the species occupied a West Asian site called Dmanisi from 1.85 million to 1.77 million years ago, at the same time or slightly before the earliest evidence of this humanlike species in Africa, say geologist Reid Ferring of the University of North Texas in Denton and his colleagues...

Evidence remains meager for the geographic origins of the Homo genus, says anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University... and it's possible that humankind's genus got its start in Asia with H. erectus.

Researchers have abandoned the long-standing view that a small-brained hominid from East Africa known as Homo habilis, which first appeared about 2.4 million years ago, evolved into H. erectus. Recent fossil finds showing that the two species coexisted in East Africa for several hundred thousand years have undermined that assumption...

Wood regards H. habilis fossils as apelike enough to be reclassified as part of the Australopithecus lineage, which includes a more than 3-million-year-old species represented by a partial skeleton known as Lucy...

The new Dmanisi discoveries come from just beneath soil that previously yielded 1.77-million-year-old H. erectus fossils, including skulls with surprisingly small brain cases suggestive of an early form of the species (SN: 9/22/07, p. 179). Excavations produced 73 stone tools for cutting and chopping, as well as 34 bone fragments from unidentified creatures. The artifacts came from a series of H. erectus camps at Dmanisi between 1.85 and 1.78 million years ago, the scientists say.

Measurements of reversals in Earth's magnetic field and of the rate of decay of the element argon in a series of volcanic ash layers provided age estimates for the new finds.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: dmanisi; godsgravesglyphs; homoerectus; homoerectusgeorgicus; multiregionalism; oldowan; origin; origins; reidferring; republicofgeorgia
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To: eak3
But God Himself planted a garden ~ and you know what that means, right?

God owned a nursery somewhere.

Bet he had some breeding stock as well.

41 posted on 06/07/2011 7:29:09 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: dangerdoc

Like he would tell us? Even if I said I was his mother I think he would ignore us.


42 posted on 06/07/2011 7:30:46 PM PDT by bigheadfred ( I ain't scared, no, not me.....teehee)
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To: NavVet

Didn’t originate there; migrated there from Sodom, just before the destruction of the cities. The “City By The Bay” reminded them of the “The Cities By The Sea”.


43 posted on 06/07/2011 7:30:46 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Made in America, by proud American citizens, in 1946.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Reversals in the Earth’s magnetic field means, the magnetic poles of the Earth have shifted in short amounts of time, and many more times than once or twice; and the shifts (which are recorded in ferrous rocks that used to be molten lava) are not related to continental drift.

Thank you for your helpful response. I do remember the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake causing a measurable shift of this earth, and then again with the recent quake near Japan. What I have not read is which direction from polar north the earth shifted.

44 posted on 06/07/2011 8:29:08 PM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: Just mythoughts

Re: magnetic reversals. This site gives a pretty concise explanation of it.

http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/reversals.html


45 posted on 06/07/2011 10:10:15 PM PDT by Explorer89 (And now, let the wild rumpus start!!)
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To: Just mythoughts

I think the big earthquakes nudged the earth’s axis of rotation? I don’t think they affected the earth’s magnetism.

The Japan earthquake this year actually moved the whole island by over a meter. (slid it closer to the mainland, I believe).

http://www.gpsworld.com/survey/news/gps-shows-dramatic-position-shifts-japan-earthquake-11212


46 posted on 06/07/2011 10:18:19 PM PDT by Explorer89 (And now, let the wild rumpus start!!)
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To: Explorer89

Thank you for the link. I think I will have to read this more than one time to get a better grasp of what has happened and appears to continue to take place.


47 posted on 06/07/2011 10:20:05 PM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: Just mythoughts

I just found a nice reference in the book, “A Crack in the Edge of the World” (about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906) by Simon Winchester (p. 70-71) about the magnetic reversals. I think it is in one of his other books, about the mapping of the field reversals across the sea floor that show the seafloor spreading (it is leaving “stripes” across the ocean floor). Go to your library and grab a few Simon Winchester books (”Krakatoa”, “The Map that Changed the World”, and “The Crack....”). He explains plate tectonics really simply. Another book I’ve loved is John McPhee’s “Annals of the Former World” which talks about island chains like Japan squishing into North America and basically creating California.


48 posted on 06/07/2011 10:31:41 PM PDT by Explorer89 (And now, let the wild rumpus start!!)
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To: SunkenCiv

Get ready for an NAACP lawsuit.


49 posted on 06/07/2011 10:43:18 PM PDT by Fledermaus (As long as John Boehner is Speaker, conservatives are screwed. He's a coward and a crybaby.)
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To: cripplecreek
I’d hit it. That is a female right?

There once was a man named McTavish

Who attempted an anthropoid ravish;

In his haste for the rape

He grabbed the wrong ape

And the anthropoid ravished McTavish!

50 posted on 06/07/2011 11:13:03 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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To: SunkenCiv
New finds in Caucasus suggest non-African origin for ancient Homo species

Darn, there goes my chance of getting reparations.

51 posted on 06/07/2011 11:17:10 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: SunkenCiv

It’s interesting that the discovery was made there in Georgia.

This is where Greek myths say Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock because he had stolen fire from the Gods and given it to men.


52 posted on 06/08/2011 12:24:39 AM PDT by Mount Athos (A Giant luxury mega-mansion for Gore, a Government Green EcoShack made of poo for you)
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To: SunkenCiv

53 posted on 06/08/2011 10:31:51 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: bigheadfred; SunkenCiv; All

I believe there were some interesting finds of homo sapiens about 32,000 years old near a river outlet in Russia by the Arctic Ocean. There were also especially fine cave art finds in France of the same age. There seems to have been a relatively mild spell in the Ice Age before 3 major downturn events in the period between 20,000 and 30,000.


54 posted on 06/09/2011 12:30:07 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: SunkenCiv

This theory flies in the face of orthodox dogma. Consequently, it will be shot at and the authors discredited for at least two generations of anthropologists. (It takes roughly two generations for an old theory to be replaced - just time enough for the old generation of “scholars” to die out.) I have always been interested in the origins of man (and woman) and have had a gut feeling that the “out of Africa” theory was pushed too hard.


55 posted on 06/09/2011 6:10:38 PM PDT by Citizen Tom Paine (An old sailor sends)
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To: SunkenCiv; blam
There have sure been some interesting finds in the Caucasus. Obviously something really interesting was going on there a very long time ago.
56 posted on 06/10/2011 12:45:30 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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