Posted on 10/03/2001 12:16:47 PM PDT by blam
Wednesday, 3 October, 2001, 18:00 GMT 19:00 UK
Science shows cave art developed early
Chauvet cave paintings depict horses and other animals
By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse A new dating of spectacular prehistoric cave paintings reveals them to be much older than previously thought.
Carbon isotope analysis of charcoal used in pictures of horses at Chauvet, south-central France, show that they are 30,000 years old, a discovery that should prompt a rethink about the development of art.
The remarkable Chauvet drawings were discovered in 1994 when potholers stumbled upon a narrow entrance to several underground chambers in a rocky escarpment in the Ardeche region.
Because the paintings are just as artistic and complex as the later Lascaux paintings, it may indicate that art developed much earlier than had been realised.
'Discovered nothing'
The analysis was performed by Helene Valladas and colleagues at the Laboratory for Climate and Environment Studies at France's CEA-CNRS research centre at Gif-sur-Yvette.
The prehistoric cave art found in France and Spain shows ancient man to be a remarkable artist.
When Pablo Picasso visited the newly-discovered Lascaux caves, in the Dordogne, in 1940, he emerged from them saying of modern art, "We have discovered nothing".
They are obviously very old, but dating them has been difficult because of the small quantities of carbon found on the walls or in the caves. The element is needed, in the form of charcoal or bones, for the standard technique of carbon dating.
To overcome these problems the French researchers have used a newer technique called accelerator mass spectrometry. This separates and counts carbon isotopes found in dead animal and vegetal matter.
'Reconsider theories'
It found the Chauvet drawings to be between 29,700 and 32,400 years old. This is about 10,000 years older than comparable cave art found in the Lascaux caves that are around 17,000 years old.
Art may have progressed in leaps and bounds
According to Helene Valladas the research shows that ancient man was just as skilled at art as the humans who followed 13,000 years later.
"Prehistorians, who have traditionally interpreted the evolution of prehistoric art as a steady progression from simple to more complex representations, may have to reconsider existing theories of the origins of art," she says.
The research is reported in the scientific journal Nature.
C-14 half-life 5730 years. Assuming the carbon they used was organic to begin with and the special circumstances were correctly accounted for, they got a reasonable result and included the error range. Ordinary science within the accepted radio carbon range of 50,000 years..
I suspect there are Neanderthal genes in Europeans but not in Africans or Australians. Lot of Europeans have the body shape (stocky), head shape (long and narrow) and receding chin suggestive of Neanderthal genes. However the "experts" say that the Neanderthal DNA is incompatible with homo sapien.
BTW those horses are magnificent.
There is human DNA found in Australia that is incompatible with modern human DNA. I think it came from Mungo Man.
Mungo Man could be African: scientists
Scientists expressed caution yesterday over claims by Australian researchers that cast doubt over the theory that modern man emerged from Africa.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/10/pageone/pageone7.html
So taking evolution into account, a horse 30,000 years ago would look like.....hey, a horse!
If this is the case, I think it should also prompt them to rethink about the development of evolution...
It's based on the rates of creation and decay of the proportion of C14 in the atmosphere, which would be independent of earthly conditions that affect carbon concentration in the atmosphere. So goes the theory anyway.
Bred their way into us?? No way. Studies of neanderthal DNA indicate that it was about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee, clearly explaining why there was never any evidence of interbreeding. We could no more interbreed with them than we could with horses and, further, all scientists agree, there is no way we are descended from them.
That presents yet another insoluble problem for evolutionists: to believe that modern man evolved, there would have to be some closer hominid, i.e. some hominid between us and the neanderthal which we COULD have descended from and, since this closer hominid would be closer to us both in time and morphology than the neanderthal, his works and remains should be very easy to find; they should be all over the place. Neanderthal works and remains are all over the place. Neanderthal was the major inhabitant of this planet just prior to us. Here's one of Jay Matternes' modern reconstructions(not based on diseased specimens) of what they looked like:
Not really all that bad looking. Not one of us, but a thoroughly modern man despite the DNA difference.
Mungo Man's DNA suggest he might be an erectus/homo sapien. This wouldn't be a problem for the Creationists because, as I understand them, they consider erectus, Neanderthal and homo sapien as just human variations.
Probably. 30K years isn't a long time -- as these things go -- and their environment hasn't changed all that much since then, so yes, I suppose they were filling all the "horse-friendly" niches 30K years ago.
So, how do you explain the 'hybrid' skeleton that was found? (No DNA)
Fossil may expose humanity's hybrid roots.(discovery of 24,500-year-old skeleton in Portugal's Lapedo Valley may be hybrid of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens)(Brief Article)
Author/s: B. Bower
Issue: May 8, 1999
Last Nov. 28, archaeologists working in Portugal's Lapedo Valley, 90 miles north of Lisbon, chanced upon a child's burial. At first the researchers, led by Joao Zilhao of the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology in Lisbon, viewed the 24,500-year-old skeleton as an example of modern Homo sapiens.
The shallow grave resembled other Late Stone Age human burials in Europe. A seashell lay among the child's bones, which bore the stains of an intentionally applied red pigment. By the time excavation of the skeleton concluded on Jan. 7, however, the scientists suspected that their find represented something far more interesting--an anatomical hybrid that could only have appeared so late as a result of extensive prior interbreeding between humans and Neandertals. H. sapiens and Neandertals both inhabited southwestern Europe for at least several thousand years, until around 30,000 years ago.
The Portuguese team called in an authority on Neandertals, Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, to examine the find. He agreed that they had uncovered a hybrid kid. Zilhao announced the discovery at a press conference in Lisbon 2 weeks ago. Trinkaus described the skeleton last week in Columbus, Ohio, at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society. A full description of the new fossil will appear in PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. "This kid surprised us," Trinkaus says. "The mosaic of anatomical features tells us that when Neandertals and modern humans met, they regularly interbred."
Some researchers at the Columbus meeting who saw slides of the new specimen echoed Trinkaus' view. Others argued either that any interbreeding was minimal or that the fossil merely represents a stocky modern human.
Much of the child's skull was crushed, although the scientists recovered brain-case pieces and the lower jaw and teeth. The rest of the skeleton was largely intact. Tooth development places the child's age at between 3 1/2 and 5 years, Trinkaus notes. Radiocarbon analyses yielded the burial's estimated age.
Modern human traits observed on the skeleton include a well-formed chin and relatively small lower arms. But the huge "snowplow" jaw, large front teeth, short legs, and broad chest betray a Neandertal heritage, Trinkaus says.
The prehistoric child did not belong to a group of modern humans who may have evolved squat bodies suited to Ice Age conditions, he asserts. Southwestern Europe did not get cold enough to instigate such changes, in his opinion.
Trinkaus suggests that Neandertals and modern humans interbred as closely related members of the same species, as some subspecies of baboons and other animals interbreed today.
Scientists who argue that modern humanity arose simultaneously in two or more parts of the world over at least the past 1 million years support Trinkaus' interpretation. "The Portuguese find indicates that one anatomically variable human species inhabited western Europe," contends Milford H. Wolpoff of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "Human populations have always interbred."
I read one theory that places homoerectus in Australia prior to the arrival of 'moderns' 60k years ago and that the Aboroginies(sp) of today are the result of that meeting. (Ansestors of a combination of the two)
An experiment gone wrong? ;-)
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