Posted on 06/11/2003 3:31:46 PM PDT by aculeus
In a discovery that several colleagues describe as "spectacular" and "extraordinary," an international team of researchers has uncovered fossils in Ethiopia that fill a crucial gap in the record of human evolution.
Judged by their physical characteristics, the 160,000-year-old-fossils - nearly complete skulls of two adults and a child found near the village of Herto - teeter on the razor-thin edge of change between anatomically early and modern humans. The team also found skull pieces and teeth from seven other individuals.
The discoveries dovetail with an expanding body of genetic evidence indicating that modern humans first evolved in Africa about 150,000 years ago.
Over the years, paleoanthropologists have gathered fossils that open windows on key periods in the history of human evolution in Africa dating back millions of years, notes Tim White, co-leader of the team that made the discovery. But "the record has been mute" on what was happening 150,000 years ago, he says.
"We're opening the first window on the continent in this time period," he adds. And the view from the window is "very consistent with the predictions made by genetic evidence" that modern humans originated in Africa.
Combined with existing fossil and genetic evidence, researchers say, the new find seriously undermines hypotheses that modern humans evolved roughly simultaneously in different regions of the world and that in Europe, Neanderthals gave rise to anatomically modern Europeans.
In one sense, the finds at Herto come as little surprise to some paleoanthropologists who work in Africa.
Given the pattern of development in fossils that date to either side of the Herto group, these are the kind of hominids one could expect from that time and that region of Africa, according to Curtis Marean, professor of anthropology at Arizona State University's Institute for Human Origins.
What makes them special, he says, is their "outstanding state of preservation" and their tightly defined dates. The technique that Dr. White's team used allowed it to date the fossils between 160,000 and 154,000 years ago. The age of other potential near-modern human fossils, such as those found at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, is more uncertain.
The White team, which details its results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, first came across the site where the fossils were found on Nov. 16, 1997. It's a landscape that today looks as much like a Martian plain as anything on Earth.
Pebble-strewn, virtually treeless, scorchingly hot, the terrain along the rift valley containing the site stretches in subtle undulations toward distant mountains. But 160,000 years ago, when much of the Northern Hemisphere sagged under a sheath of ice two miles thick, this patch of Africa was the site of a shallow freshwater lake teeming with catfish, crocs, and hippos, researchers say.
According to White, he noticed a butchered hippo skull and related artifacts in an eroding slope near Herto. Eleven days later, he and colleagues returned to survey the site.
As White worked on a shaded enclosure for a lunch break, he says, "I sent two people off to begin the survey near where we had found the hippo." When they came back about a half hour later, both had found hominids, he says.
And the painstakingly slow process of collection and excavation began.
Of the specimens included in Thursday's report, the child's cranium presented perhaps the biggest reconstruction challenge. More than 200 pieces were scattered over some 4,300 square feet of the valley floor, presenting Ethiopian scientist and team member Berhane Asfaw with a 3-D jigsaw puzzle to assemble.
In addition to the hominids, stone tools also emerged from the team's excavations that signal a shift in toolmaking technology to the flake-based features of the Middle Stone Age. Moreover, one of the adult skull fragments shows evidence of parallel surface cuts that could indicate some form of primitive burial rites, the team reports.
Actually, it was the Angel Gabriel who spoke w/ the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.
The truth of the matter is this: if you don't believe that G-d originally created a perfect world which was corrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve; if the world came about instead through evolutionary processes, there is no foundation for Y-shua's sacrifice. Without sin, there is no need for Y-shua.
Theistic evolutionists, like youself, want it both ways and it's impossible. Theistic evolution is an oxymoron, kind of like "Palestinian peacekeeper".
My God. Let me ask this then. What do you believe in the Bible as actually happening?!? Heck, how is the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ any different?!? We weren't there. What about the Red Sea? Shadrach and his friends in the fire? Daniel and the lions? 120 apostles being touched by the Holy Ghost? 2 loaves and 5 fishes feed 5000? If you're going to start down this road how do you know the rest is not just a myth?
And herein lies the crux of the problem. Religions of any form of Christianity parsing the Bible up into parts they believe and don't believe are doing an injustice to the Word of God. The Flood happened. Lot's wife was turned into salt. Shadrach and the boys stood in the fire and were helped by God. Daniel lived through the lions den and Jesus Christ actually existed and did what the Bible said He did, died and resurrected for our sins.
This isn't theology, this is what happened. Historical, factual what happened. The Southern Baptists are having problems right now with this 'looser' reading of the word in some of their churches. And in every instance of these churches and 'their' interpretation of the Bible, it isn't to help them understand the Bible better, it's to condone actions that they know in their hearts God Almighty wouldn't condone. Not saying that's you, just what I've seen from experience in churches I've attended
Typical liberal clap-trap. When you tell the truth and people don't like, they call it "hateful".
You don't know a thing about my Priest who is a brilliant man or about me, for that matter.
I only know what you have told me about him, which is that he tells you that the first 11 chapters of G-d's word are folktales. Sounds like someone who is unfit to be considered a leader of Y-shua's people to me.
I see what you're saying however I guess I was speaking more of how the Holy Ghost works in a personal relationship with people on a daily basis after Christ ascended
You call me a "bible thumper" (which you meant as a derogatory term) and you have the audacity to call me "mean" because I call upon you to get your facts straight before you say somethiing online? Give me a break.
There you go stereotyping again. As a Southern Baptist, I fully support the right of Israel to exist and the Jewish race to fully take the land God gave them. Unlike this 'road map' to peace forwarded by some politicians. Try to put all Evangelicals into the CI cult because we're not as open about interpretation of God's Word eh?
Considering the fact that a good portion of my family is Catholic, I know more about them than you think I do. (Owning a Cathechism helps, too.)
"Liberal"? Get real.
Then cut out the "hate speech" stuff.
Why can't you use Jesus' name without the arcane spelling?
Because His parents didn't name him "Jesus", they named Him Y-shua.
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