Posted on 03/24/2006 11:47:46 AM PST by The_Victor
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - A hominid skull discovered in Ethiopia could fill the gap in the search for the origins of the human race, a scientist said on Friday.
The cranium, found near the city of Gawis, 500 km (300 miles) southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, is estimated to be 200,000 to 500,000 years old.
The skull appeared "to be intermediate between the earlier Homo erectus and the later Homo sapiens," Sileshi Semaw, an Ethiopian research scientist at the Stone Age Institute at Indiana University, told a news conference in Addis Ababa.
It was discovered two months ago in a small gully at the Gawis river drainage basin in Ethiopia's Afar region, southeast of the capital.
Sileshi said significant archaeological collections of stone tools and numerous fossil animals were also found at Gawis.
"(It) opens a window into an intriguing and important period in the development of modern humans," Sileshi said.
Over the last 50 years, Ethiopia has been a hot bed for archaeological discoveries.
Hadar, located near Gawis, is where in 1974 U.S. scientist Donald Johnson found the 3.2 million year old remains of "Lucy," described by scientists as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in the world.
Lucy is Ethiopia's world-acclaimed archaeological find. The discovery of the almost complete hominid skeleton was a landmark in the search for the origins of humanity.
On the shores of what was formerly a lake in 1967, two Homo sapien skulls dating back 195,000 years were unearthed. The discovery pushed back the known date of mankind, suggesting that modern man and his older precursor existed side by side.
Sileshi said while different from a modern human, the braincase, upper face and jaw of the cranium have unmistakeable anatomical evidence that belong to human ancestry.
"The Gawis cranium provides us with the opportunity to look at the face of one of our ancestors," he added.
Is man still evolving? Are the other creatures on earth still evolving? I'm not talking about adaptation either but evolving into another creature.
Well, there certainly are ongoing debates between those who would assign a new species to each find vs. those who assign them to an existing species, yes. In this case, they haven't published a definitive analysis yet, much less proposed a taxonomic classification for it. So far they're only saying that it looks Homo erectus, but with characteristics that are more like modern humans than the average H. erectus.
Anyway, the main question for creationists these days is which of the various hominid fossils (a small sample of which you can see in post 50) are merely diverse individuals of the ape-kind vs. the human-kind. Most of the skulls have links to other pages that describe them in more detail. Care to take a stand on which created kind those skulls belong to?
What great science.
Hominids cannot be proven to have existed??? That's an intriguing statement. Care to try your hand at deciding which of the fossils in post 50 belong in the ape-kind vs. the human-kind? Could it be possible that any of those are actually transitionals related to both kinds?
That would require knowing what they are evolving into to say, and that would require psychic powers.
We can speculate a bit. Certainly someone seeing some of the ancestors of the whales might speculate that the whales would eventually entirely lose their legs. Likewise we can speculate that penguins at some point might evolve into some whale-like ovoviviparous species.
Hah! PROVE any of them really existed!
</Whacked-out Luddite Mode>
You've just claimed that mankind can't be proven to exist! Technically human beings are "hominids". A hominid is any advanced primate that is bipedal (walks on two legs). There are several species preceding humans for which we have excellent and effectively conclusive evidence for bipedalism. So, no, even leaving humans themselves aside it is not "assumed" that hominids existed. It is KNOWN that they existed.
Oh, come on now!
There is not one so-called 'transitional' skull that can be proved to be a transitional skull.
It is either a human skull or an animal one.
And that is why the scientists always use words like 'assume' and 'possible' when discussing them.
And not a moment too soon!
prove they are either ape or human
Leaving aside the little word games, the fact is that there is no such thing as a transitional species between mankind and animals.
I know that the evolutionists, since they cannot prove their nonsense, have to resort to making up new and clever words to cover their lack of any real science.
Now,if you want to call humans 'hominids' that is fine, but they fall under a distinct class, which is not an animal.
In other words, they are 'hominids' are men.
I hope God the Designer is on a diet ...
The onus of proof is on the evolutionist to find a transitional species, which he will never find since it doesn't exist.
See Gen.1:27 for details.
Oh, come on now!
There is not one so-called 'transitional' skull that can be proved to be a transitional skull.
It is either a human skull or an animal one.
Good! Then you should have no problem with Jenny's test.
Btw, how (in light of your declaration that it MUST be one or the other) would you interpret it -- if it just happened to be the case -- that creationist "experts" could not themselves agree whether a particular skull (or each of a number of fossil skulls) was a "human [one]" or an "animal one"?
When you claim to know for a fact that all fossils are either human or ape it is you who has the burden of proof. I am still waiting.
My God, who is the giant scorpion, lived 300 million years ago.
He tried to write, but his claws only allowed him to produce crop circles.
He revealed to me "The Book of the Scorpian."
He says the world was created 300,000,001 years ago. First there was light, then dark, then salty oceans swimming with edible creatures. Then came the horrible plague of the nets.
Then came enlightenment, followed by men, who took upon themselves ranks, including "pope of the ocean," "High priest of the alterboys," and "Cub Scout master of the late tent adventures."
Whatever. It's not crucial. Ignore it. Are you denying that there are bipedal APES represented by fossils? You are at minimum denying this evidence in claiming that hominids have never been demonstrated to exist.
If you're going to site the bible, I hope you can provide some independent references to support your claims. A book of legends, oft-edited historical accounts and rumor doesn't qualify in a discussion of science.
Here we go with the playing of terms.
We are talking about a transition from ape to man (correct?) which means from animal to mankind.
So, the transitional species would be a kind of both, now wouldn't he/it?
So the evolutionists are looking for something that is neither completely animal or human.
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