Frankly, I find the anti-semitic subtext of this article rather unseemly.
Prehistoric Protocols of Zion? Is that what's this is all about?
C'mon...
Posted on 09/06/2007 2:26:33 PM PDT by blam
Did prehistoric man come from Haifa?
Last update - 23:34 06/09/2007
By Fadi Eyadat
The audience, the stage and the set are ready. Only the guest of honor is missing - "and everyone is waiting for him," says Prof. Mina Evron, a researcher in the Archaeology Department of the University of Haifa and the codirector of excavations at Misliya Cave, southwest of Mt. Carmel.
The 'guest' that she and a team of researchers are seeking in the cave area is a skeleton that could represent early humans.
"We have found everything here: large quantities of the tools they used, hand-held stone tools and blades, animal bones. We know how man behaved during that period," says Evron. "All we are missing is the skeleton."
The artifacts found in the area of the cave are indicative of behavior patterns of humans who lived about 250,000 years ago, at the time of the Mousterian culture of Neanderthals in Europe.
So far studies have shown the tools of modern man in a much later period, about 170,000 years ago, in Ethiopia. The new findings are of great importance, connecting the earliest modern man to the Carmel Mountains man.
About 2 million years ago, with the movement of Homo erectus ("upright man") to Europe, Neanderthal man, a new species, developed. Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, of the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University and a codirector of the excavations, says Neanderthals were stockier than modern man, with a larger skull and more massive limbs. Another species that developed from Homo erectus from Africa was Homo sapiens ("thinking man") or us. His skull and other physical dimensions were smaller and finer than those of Neanderthal man.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
I think they’re all STILL in Haifa... they never left...
Actually, if it looked provable that the human species developed society and the beginnings of civilizations in Israel it would most likely cause the mooselimbs’ heads to spontaneously explode.
Frankly, I find the anti-semitic subtext of this article rather unseemly.
Prehistoric Protocols of Zion? Is that what's this is all about?
C'mon...
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Thanks Blam. |
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Professor Hershkovitz says first Homo sapiens who developed in Africa were stockier than modern man. "Still," says Hershkovitz, "it is possible that the final development of Homo sapiens happened here, in Israel, outside Africa. If a modern Homo sapiens is found in the layers from 250,000 years ago, he will belong to one of the earliest Homo sapiens population in the world, and possibly the earliest. Then all the theories of the development of modern man will have to be reexamined."
That would be cool!
But what if they find a Neanderthal skeleton instead? (Back to the drawing board!)
It is terribly hard to come up with an accurate time line for artifacts. Before it can be accepted, you usually have to have four or five cross-checks in agreement. Carbon dating, of course, multiple layers of artifacts and sediment that are in chronological arrangement, fire pit iron molecule alignment, in some cases radioactive decay, tree rings, etc.
Man existing 250,000 years ago also creates some problems, especially if they lasted another 80,000-120,000 years with little or no particular evolutionary changes, such as changes in size, shape, weight, height. All of which are very prone to change in modern people even over the course of a few generations.
The Skhul Cave (Cave of the Kids)
Numerous human burials dated to approximately the same time were found in this nearby cave. Fourteen skeletons were uncovered, including three complete ones; they were defined as an archaic type of Homo sapiens, closely related to modern humans in physical appearance. It is believed that this human, with delicate facial features, a protruding chin and straight forehead, was fully developed around 100,000 years ago. The finds from these graves also show evidence of cult and rituals related to death and the spiritual realm. The finds in the cave are of major importance to anthropological prehistoric research of the development of the human species. The theory that Homo sapiens did not develop from Neanderthal man, but that both lived contemporaneously, is becoming increasingly accepted: Neanderthal man became extinct while Homo sapiens developed into the modern human race.
...the team analysed over 50,000 pieces of wood and nearly 36,000 flints from two hearths associated with a Homo erectus settlement dating back 790,000 years. More contentiously, Robert Bednarik is convinced that Upright Man ushered in the dawn of trans-ocean travel between 900,000 and 800,000 years ago as part of a wider revolution...
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