Posted on 07/06/2005 1:12:13 PM PDT by blam
Could Asia have been the cradle of humanity?
By David Ropeik, Globe Correspondent | July 5, 2005
Science continues to struggle with one of the most basic questions of all: Where did humans come from.
There isn't much question that modern humans came out of Africa, probably in several waves of migration over the past 100,000 years. But it now appears that the ancient ancestors who gave rise to those African humans might have come from Asia.
Until recently the only fossils of anthropoids -- the creatures at the base of the branch of the evolutionary tree that gave rise to primates, including humans -- were found at a place called the Fayum in Egypt. But a growing body of evidence suggests our distant relatives might have developed closer to Cambodia than Cairo.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Now that the Clovis Barrier has been completely shattered, let's start work on the Out Of Africa theory.
Well, braggin' rights.
My thinking exactly. What difference does it make?
By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent
Published: 05 July 2005
Humans arrived in America 25,000 years earlier than previously thought - at least 40,000 years ago - footprints found near Mexico City have proved.
British and Mexican archaeologists said the discovery of the prints, made in volcanic ash near the town of Puebla, 80 miles south-east of Mexico City, will force a total rewrite of humanity's early migrations and is one of the most important archaeological finds of recent decades.
The layer of volcanic ash in which the 269 footprints are preserved has been dated by two different techniques - radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating - to between 38,000 and 39,000 years ago. Until now the earliest definite dates for a human presence in the Americas were 15,000 years ago. Given the location of the find, deep in the Americas, it makes it almost certain that humans must have first entered the Americas at least 40,000 years ago.
When combined with existing knowledge on prehistoric climate, the discovery suggests humans may have entered the Americas during a slightly less cold phase in the last Ice Age about 50,000 years ago. They would have walked over the ice-bound Bering Strait or island-hopped to Alaska via the Kuril and Aleutian chains of islands.
This means the migration into the Americas occurred at about the same time as the normally accepted date of the early Aboriginal colonisation of Australia and some archaeologists now believe that the first Americans were Australoid peoples closely related to the early Aborigines.
Given that the new evidence, it is also now conceivable that humans entered the Americas even earlier, perhaps during a much warmer spell about 70,000 years ago. It means archaeologists will now have to take more seriously two claims that a site in Brazil and another in Chile date from 50,000 and 33,000 years ago respectively.
The Mexican footprints were made by four to six individuals - probably two adults and between two and four children - in at least three episodes, several weeks or even months apart. Each time they were walking barefoot along the shore of a large lake, now Lake Valsequillo. The imprints were sealed and preserved by ash from successive eruptions of a nearby volcano, Mount Tolukuilla.
As well as human footprints, the archaeologists also found deer, camel, wolf (or dog) and puma prints.
The discovery, announced in London yesterday, was made by Sylvia Gonzalez and Professor Dave Huddart of Liverpool John Moores University and Professor Matthew Bennett of Bourne-mouth University. Dr Gonzalez said: "It shows our ancestors adapted to new environments much quicker and more easily than we had imagined."
Ping.
The mammal fossils found in Egypt clearly share features with people, apes, monkeys, and other animals on ''our" branch of the evolutionary tree, said Eric Delson, chairman of the anthropology department at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
Revelation 4:11
See my profile for info
French archeologists (not American) have established to the satisfaction of most European archeologists (not American) that humans were present in Brazil at least 50,000 years ago. F. Parenti, with N. Guidon, presented their data at a recent Paris meeting. The main site studied was the sandstone rock shelter of Pedra Furada, which is one of several hundred painted rock shelters discovered in northeastern Brazil. Guidon began her work in 1978; Parenti, in 1984. The fourvolume, 7-kilogram report (actually Parenti's doctoral thesis) concentrates on three lines of evidence:
A coherent series of 54 radiocarbon dates ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 years.
Crudely flaked stones, some 6,000 of which are deemed of human manufacture, even when the most stringent criteria are applied. Many of these came from Pleistocene strata 50,000 years old or older.
Some 50 Pleistocene "structures" consisting of artificial arrangements of stones, some burned, some accompanied by charcoal. These are likely ancient hearths.
(Bahn, Paul G.; "50,000-Year-Old Americans of Pedra Furada," Nature, 362:114, 1993.)
Comment. With the Brazil and Chile (Monte Verde) sites looking more and more convincing, it is reasonable to ask why even older sites have not been found in North America, which is nearer the famous Bering Land Bridge. As a matter of fact, controverted human artifacts have been found at such sites as Calico Hills, California, which are claimed to be much older than 50,000 years. It will be interesting to see how the Pedra Furada data are received in the States.
It's the quest for knowledge. I pity those who lack the desire to find out as much about the universe as possible. They must live small lives of "quiet desperation."
I know what you mean.
I feel the same way about people that do not thirst for knowledge of God. To actually come to know their creator.
America is the cradle of humanity. It wasn't until our Constitution was created and ratified that humanity began to live to its fullest potential.
For instance, humanoids survived Toba in Flores Is. only to die out when the weather got better and there may have been contact with modern humans (Another "but" is the markedly small stature of moderns now living on the Island. I like an Out of Africa "and" solution. This article suggests to me that the splendid isolation of Africa did not really exist and my warped mind makes it fit.
I'm pretty sure they co-existed on Flores for a while. I saw a program that questioned what the relationship may have been like.
Well, from my point of view nobody was here until I got here. All was full blown and ready to go. Lot's of evolution of technology in that short time and those my age are getting older and uglier but other than that human evolution has been a slow process, in MY view. The rest is just history to make my universe more interesting. Before long I will leave it all to the rest of you to make of it what you will.
************
But..that can't be. It's science.
On the same program I mentioned above, they showed a modern skull, a Homo Erectus and one of the 'Hobbit' skulls. The Hobbit skull most closely resembled the (larger) Homo Erectus, with one exception. We all have a part of the brain (in the front) called Brochas Area, the Hobbits had an enormous Brocha Area 10 as compared to all other skulls ever found.
I was in Houston last week at M D Anderson hospital (my mother has a tumor) talking to a neurosurgeon, he was suprised to hear about the Broca area 10 size in these little fellows. (He did know about the discovery of the Hobbits)
I'm beginning to think the Homo Erectus were a lot smarter than we have been thinking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.