African Artifacts Suggest an Earlier Modern Human

NYTimes ^ | 12/01/2001 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

African Artifacts Suggest an Earlier Modern Human

ore than 70,000 years ago, people occupied a cave in a high cliff facing the Indian Ocean at the tip of South Africa. They hunted grysbok, springbok and other game. They ate fish from the waters below them. In body and brain size, these cave dwellers were definitely anatomically modern humans.

Archaeologists are now finding persuasive evidence that these people were taking another important step toward modernity. They were turning animal bones into tools and finely worked weapon points, a skill more advanced in concept and application than the making of the usual stone tools. They were also engraving some artifacts with symbolic marks — manifestations of abstract and creative thought and, presumably, communication through articulate speech.

The new discoveries at Blombos Cave, 200 miles east of Cape Town, are turning long-held beliefs upside down.

Until now, modern human behavior was widely assumed to have been a very late and abrupt development that seemed to have originated in a kind of "creative explosion" in Europe. The most spectacular evidence for it showed up after modern Homo sapiens arrived there from Africa about 40,000 years ago. Although there had been suggestions of an African genesis of modern behavior, no proof had turned up, certainly nothing comparable to the fine tools and cave art of Upper Paleolithic Europe.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

African Artifacts Suggest an Earlier Modern Human

Taliban calls find unislamic, threatens jihad...

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Oh yea, click on the source link for the rest of the article, I was too lazy to paragraph out the remainder...

[Dallas]

I never believed in evolution until I saw James Carvelle on TV....

[Dialup Llama]

Now dont be diggin up any monoliths ok?

[stlrocket]

The African evolution thing must be false - here's Mary Matalin describing James Carvelles unit!

Mary M & Peckerhead

Scary

[Gordian Blade]

More than 70,000 years ago...

In an interview by telephone from the cave site, Dr. Henshilwood said: "We're absolutely convinced of the dating of the tools. Analysis of them makes us confident that what we have is evidence of a bone-tool industry, not just occasional pieces." [From the original article.]

Uh, oh. Gird your loins for an assault from the creationists.

[John H K]

I'd be interested to see what % of FR creationists are young-earth creationists...seems to be a bit lower % than what I would have expected.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Isn't this about the point where the people who say the Earth is 150 years old, and that the Sun revolves about it, are supposed to chime in?

[drstevej]

Homo sapiens arrived there from Africa about 40,000 years ago.

Do you ever resent being called a HOMO sapien? Wouldn't HETERO sapien sound better?

[onedoug]

"I'm more intersted in the Rock Of Ages than the age of rocks!"
Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit The Wind

'Kind'a partial to both, myself.

[Gladwin]

ping

[Cleburne]

Ah, that can't be right. We know humans wandered around for hundreds of thousands of years doing nothing, apparently, then steadily (or perhaps not so steadily) burst out of some primitive lingo, and eventually progressed to that shining glory, modern man. Obviously this find is fake, as it's far to old-we all know man was so primitive back then.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Isn't this about the point where the people who say the Earth is 150 years old, and that the Sun revolves about it, are supposed to chime in? LOL!!!

I believe only what my wife allows me to...

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Isn't this about the point where the people who say the Earth is 150 years old, and that the Sun revolves about it, are supposed to chime in?

LOL!!!

I believe only what my wife allows me to...

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Isn't this about the point where the people who say the Earth is 150 years old, and that the Sun revolves about it, are supposed to chime in?

LOL!!!

I believe only what my wife allows me to...

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Isn't this about the point where the people who say the Earth is 150 years old, and that the Sun revolves about it, are supposed to chime in? LOL!!!

I believe only what my wife allows me to...

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

What the heck happened?

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

What the heck happened?

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

What the heck happened?

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

What the heck happened?