Posted on 11/17/2003 4:02:54 PM PST by blam
Ancient hearth tests carbon dating
Bob Beale
ABC Science Online
Monday, 17 November 2003
Rock art at Serra da Capivara National Park, home of the Pedra Furada site in Brazil (Embassy of Brazil, London)
People were keeping warm by a fire in a rock shelter at least 56,000 years ago, according to new analysis of what may be the oldest known human record in the Americas.
This is about 40,000 years earlier than generally agreed for when people first arrived in the Americas.
The international team of researchers dated charcoal from a hearth at the controversial Pedra Furada archaeological site in Brazil and reported its findings in the latest issue of the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.
They used a new technique that pushes back the so-called radiocarbon dating barrier, according to Dr Guaciara dos Santos and colleagues who ran tests at the Australian National University.
Scientists have been polarised about the age of the Pedra Furada site because estimates have been in "profound disagreement" with accepted wisdom about who, when, where and how people first arrived in the Americas. These were supposedly the Clovis people who walked from Siberia into North America across an Ice Age land bridge only 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.
"These dates are good and reliable and there's no reason to doubt them," Dr Michael Bird, a member of the team who developed the new dating technique, told ABC Science Online. "The question goes back to the archaeology. If they are hearths, they are very old indeed."
The site at Pedra Furada, in the Serra da Capivara National Park, is a rich archaeological area of sandstone rock shelters. It contains many prehistoric sites, including hundreds of rock artworks, stone tools and human remains.
Earlier tests on charcoal from the deepest layers of the excavations suggested that it was at least 40,000 years old, the traditionally accepted accurate "barrier" limit of radiocarbon dating. But scientists were still puzzled about the authenticity of the hearths as human artefacts and whether younger carbon sources could have contaminated the samples and skewed the results.
The new study says that thermoluminscence testing of the hearthstones showed that they "were heated independently from the stones found outside the hearths in the same layer; thus, refuting the possibility that the stones were heated by natural fires".
It revises the dates on those earlier charcoal tests using Bird's technique to decontaminate it first. The procedure is known as ABOX (acid-base-wet-oxidation) and involves chemically scouring a fine layer off the charcoal surface.
"[This] reliably removes contamination from charcoal and wood enabling credible radiocarbon dating to about 55,000 years before present," the report said.
Bird said the method had been used in the past two years to secure radiocarbon dates older than 40,000 years for archaeological sites in South Africa and Australia, notably the famous Devil's Lair site in Western Australia, which was redated at up to 50,000 years old.
Radiocarbon dates become progressively less reliable on older material and until the ABOX technique was developed, few scientists would accept their accuracy beyond the barrier limit, he said.
"At 50,000 years you have only about 0.1% of the original radiocarbon present, so contamination with younger material is a major issue," Bird said. "This is a much better way of pre-treating the samples to get rid of any contamination. It's becoming the gold standard in archaeology for getting good reliable dates that you can believe, particularly at these old time scales."
Out of seven Pedra Furada charcoal samples scientists took from the hearth structures in the deepest layers, five were beyond the limit of the ABOX technique itself, returning ages greater than 56,000 years, the report said. Analysis of the final two samples gave finite ages of 53,000 and 55,000 years.
It is. And yes, I've seen the creationist garbage which dishonestly tries to "prove" that it isn't. As usual, the creationists are either being stupid, or lying, or both.
then this could be interesting.
It is.
Then atheists, er evolutionists, would have a leg to stand on. Instead it's the same ole thing - crowing about nothing and no evidence to support it.
Actually, the "same ole thing" is the creationists coming onto science threads to spout their goofy conspiracy theories about "atheists, er evolutionists", without any real clue about the science they hysterically try to hand-wave away.
Thanks for spreading more creationist bulls**t. Come back when you have more to offer than your vague accusations about how you imagine evolutionary biology actually works.
In evolutionary wishful thinking, these "facts" have a nasty habit of reverting back to "theories" . Evolution is a godless fantasy world whose sole intent is deny God created all in a literal six day period.
I like a good paranoid conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but yours isn't very good.
Clue for the utterly clueless: The *majority* of Americans who accept evolution are *Christians*. I'm sorry if that makes your head explode when it shatters your childish beliefs about how evolution is a "godless fantasy" to "deny God"...
Can't you guys give it a rest for even a day or two? When you don't know what in the world you're talking about, it's best not to spew it at every opportunity and pollute the minds of others with your bitter propaganda. Leave that sort of thing to the Michael Moores.
I believe that which is supported by the evidence. What method do you use? From these threads, it appears to be, "ignore all evidence, and keep believing what you *want* to believe".
Ignore the flaws of carbon dating.
If you mean the "flaws" parroted by the creationists, those aren't flaws, they're creationist lies. I prefer not to pollute my mind with proven lies. You seem to wallow in them, as long as they allow you to hand-wave away real-world challenges to your preconceptions.
It is NO coincidence that the laws of science do NOT support your hypothesis, okay Ill be kind "theory".
Empty unsupported claim... You love those, don't you? Let's see you make a case for your rantings -- this should be amusing.
It is also NO coincidence that ALL prominent evolutionists are atheists.
What color is the sky in your paranoid fantasy world?
[From an article by Edward Babinski:]
Dr. Colling (fundamentalist Christian and chair of Biology at a fundamentalist Christian college) is O.K. with Darwinian evolution and has even composed a book on the subject titled, Random Designer: Created From Chaos To Connect With Creator. "It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods" when they say evolutionary theory is "in crisis" and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue," he argues. "Evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny...What the designer designed is the random-design process," or Darwinian evolution, Colling says. "God devised these natural laws, and uses evolution to accomplish his goals." "Random Designer" or "Divine Tinkerer?"It's amazing that you can keep repeatedly spewing complete falsehoods without ever *once* bothering to do even the most basic reality-checks on them.
Either way, Darwinism and God could be viewed as
overlapping hypotheses. For the full story see,
"Teaching Evolution at Christian College" by Sharon Begley, The Wall Street Journal (December 31, 2004) http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-olivet31.html
(The non-Christian Michael Denton agrees. Denton's book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, preceded Behe and Dembski's works, and made a big impression on the people who founded Origins & Design, but Denton no longer finds evolution to be a "theory in crisis" so much as a fact of nature. Denton even told the Discovery Institute that he wished to be taken off their role as an "associate" of that institute.)
MORE CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, ed. Keith B.
Miller http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/ (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003)--Essays by
I wonder what creationists and I.D.ists think of
Christians who accept Darwinistic evolution? (And who reject the anti-Darwinian arguments of creaitonists and the Discovery Institute?)
Dr. Colling (fundamentalist Christian and chair of
Biology at a fundamentalist Christian college) is O.K. with Darwinian evolution and has even composed a book on the subject titled, Random Designer: Created From Chaos To Connect With Creator. "It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods" when they say evolutionary theory is "in crisis" and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue," he argues. "Evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny...What the designer designed is the random-design process," or Darwinian evolution, Colling says. "God devised these natural laws, and uses evolution to accomplish his goals." "Random Designer" or "Divine Tinkerer?"
Either way, Darwinism and God could be viewed as
overlapping hypotheses. For the full story see,
"Teaching Evolution at Christian College" by Sharon Begley, The Wall Street Journal (December 31, 2004) http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-olivet31.html
(The non-Christian Michael Denton agrees. Denton's book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, preceded Behe and Dembski's works, and made a big impression on the people who founded Origins & Design, but Denton no longer finds evolution to be a "theory in crisis" so much as a fact of nature. Denton even told the Discovery Institute that he wished to be taken off their role as an "associate" of that institute.)
MORE CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, ed. Keith B.
Miller http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/ (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003)--Essays by theistic evolutionist Christians:
Terry Gray (Colorado State)
James Hurd (Bethel College)
Ted Davis (Messiah College)
Robin Collins (Messiah College)
David Wilcox (Eastern College)
Mark Noll (Wheaton College)
Jeff Greenberg (Wheaton College)
Laurie Braaten (Judson College)
John Munday, Jr. (Regent Univ.)
Loren Haarsma (Calvin College)
Howard Van Till (Calvin College)
Deborah Haarsma (Calvin College)
Warren Brown (Fuller Theological)
David Campbell (University of Alabama)
Jennifer Wiseman (Johns Hopkins Univ.)
Conrad Hyers (Gustavus Adolphus College)
George Murphy (Trinity Lutheran Seminary)
Bob Russell (Center for Theology and Natural Sciences)
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/Book_Ann.html
God and Evolution (Nov. 2004) by David L. Wilcox
(Ph.D. in Population Genetics, Professor of Biology, Eastern College, St. David's, PA.)
Darwinism Defeated? A debate between Phillip E.
Johnson (I.D.ist) and Denis O. Lamoureux (Ph.D.
biologist/evolutionist and Evangelical Christian
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/index.htm) Apparently Johnson does not offer copies of this debate book for sale at his website, or didn't, last I looked.
Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth R. Miller (Ph.D. biologist and Catholic Christian)http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html
Chance From a Theistic Perspective (The Perspectives of Two Evangelical Christian Evolutionists: Donald MacKay and John Polkinghorne)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/chance/chance-theistic.html
Fine-Tuners Who Reject I.D. Arguments
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/inerrancy.html
Darwin's Forgotten Christian Defenders
http://www.creation-science.us/creationism/darwin.html
Three Cheers For Christian Evolutionists
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/christian_evolution.html
From Abandoning Geocentrism To Accepting Evolution: A "Liberal Trend" Among Evangelical Christians?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/2/part12.html
Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, is a Christian who accepts evolution. He stated: "I am unaware of any irreconcilable conflict between scientific knowledge about evolution and the idea of a creator God; why couldn't God have used the mechanism of evolution to create?...In my field, biology, because of the creationists the standard assumption is that anyone who has faith has gone soft in the head.
When scientists like me admit they are believers, the reaction from colleagues is 'How did this guy get tenure?'"--Gregg Easterbrook, "Science and God: A Warming Trend?" Science, Vol. 277, No. 5328, Aug. 15 1997, p. 890-893
CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS ON THE WEB
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/murphy__van_dyke_dialogue.html#Theistic%20Evolution
http://www.bibleandscience.com
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm
http://www.meta-library.net/bio/hvt-body.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/anthony_garrett/esct.html
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s17040.htm
http://www.faithreason.org/
http://groups.msn.com/ChristiansForEvolution
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/136886.htm
http://www.berea.edu/specialproject/scienceandfaith/ess
ay03.asp
http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/evangel.html
http://zygoncenter.org/about_who.html
Voices For Evolution: Statements From Religious
Organizations
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/1028_statements_from_religious_org_12_19_2002.asp
Either that or dating methods are just unreliable!
Yeah, so? Are you under the impression that SCREAMING IS GIONG TO make your babble actually relevant or helpful to your position?
Back in the lab Schweitzer and her technicians demineralized the dinosaur skeleton fragments and low and behold the 68 MILLION year old skeleton dissolved and TRANSPARENT vessels were left behind. It was soooo SHOCKING that they did it 17 times because they couldn't believe it.
YES, it IS UNUSUAL for SOFT MATERIAL TO be FOUND in FOSSILS (can we stop randomly screaming now?). But again, how is this supposed to help your case?
There is NO way in the world that soft tissue would be in bones that are 68 MILLION YEARS old!
ROFL! Why, because you say so? Feel free to prove your empty assertion. We'll wait. It's quite uncommon, yes, but hardly impossible under the right conditions.
Of course you are free to believe that they are 68 MILLION YEARS old - even though, again this hypothesis denies reality and turns the laws of science on their head.
No it doesn't. Come back when you have a clue, and actually know enough science to make statements that are grounded in the real "laws of science", and not just your creationist cartoon-version of them.
It's no wonder that the U.S. is trailing other countries in science and math in the education arena ...
...because the creationists keep trying to "dumb down" science like the way you're doing now, *and* spread lies about it, to the point where the general public and students are so confused by the propaganda that they don't know what to believe. Good work, you guys...
nonsense like this 68 MILLION years old SOFT TISSUE is utter nonsense
Nope. But you obviously want to swallow the creationist lies about how it "must" be impossible because that would allegedly "disprove" those fields of science you personally don't want to believe. What *arrogance*...
and THAT is what you base your premises on - evolution and outcome based science to fit your ridiculous world view - to hell with reality and I add common sense.
Actually, that *perfectly* describes what you're doing right here! You pick and choose what you want to accept, based entirely on just what you think you can use to *support* your pre-existing beliefs, and what you have to reject for the same reason.
Just look at yourself -- you uncritically accept claims (from creationists, note) that "science" has "proven" that soft tissue cannot possibly persist for several million years, while rejecting scientific findings that yes, it can. Do you base your rejection of one conclusion and your acceptance of the other on the actual research and evidence. No, you aren't even *familiar* with the actual research, nor do you care. Instead, you pick-and-choose based ONLY on which one allows you to have a cheap excuse to ridicule and reject *other* findings you don't want to have to deal with or think about.
This is exactly what you ridiculously accuse me of: "outcome based science to fit your ridiculous world view". It's utterly pathetic.
Project much?
Today's inhabitants might have no relationship to those of 50k years ago. "They" probably came to America from many places at many times. Those tat we think of as "originals" are just the group that was dominant in the middle of the last millennium.
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Note: this topic is from 11/17/2003. Thanks blam. Just a re-ping, since it had been a while.
Interesting.
IMO carbon dating is as much junk science as global warming. Some day they will admit as much.
The “Clovis first” crowd will not be amused. :D
An oldie but goodie . . .
They appear to be humorless anyway.
The report said that 3 of the samples tested as earlier than 56,000 ya, but could not be read. The other two were in the 50 to 55 kya range. Part of the lack of evidence is the unwillingness of people to look at evidence they have rejected out of hand. I was talking with an anthropologist/archaeologist (not sure which) on the east coast who had worked in California. She said there was evidence there she believed was at least 200,000 years old, but nobody wanted to touch it.
I have seen photos of primitive Brazilian tribesmen who look more European than Asian. Doubt they were the children of modern Europeans.
All that means is that the fires weren't created by South American Indians. Perhaps the Indians wiped out some other "native" people who were here first.
Who says the 56k old people were necessarily of Mongolian stock? The 40k Australians are/were not.
The 200K California finds *may* refer to the Calico site, which was one of Louis Leakey’s digs.
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