Posted on 08/21/2004 7:25:32 PM PDT by blam
Neanderthal Man 'never walked in northern Europe'
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
(Filed: 22/08/2004)
Historians of the Stone Age fear that they will have to rip up their theories about Neanderthal Man after doubt has been cast on the carbon dating of skeletons by a leading German anthropologist.
Work by the flamboyant Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten showed that Neanderthal Man existed in northern Europe. Calculations on skeletal remains found at Hahnofersand, near Hamburg, stated they were 36,000 years old.
Yet recent research at Oxford University's carbon-dating laboratory has suggested that they date back a mere 7,500 years. By that time, Homo sapiens was already well-established and the Neanderthals were extinct.
Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory."
But Prof von Zieten, 65, the descendant of a famous 18th-century Prussian general, rejected the evidence from Oxford University last week.
"The new data from Oxford is all wrong," he told Germany's Der Spiegel. He said that the university's scientists had failed to remove shellac preservative from the specimens. As a result, the remains appeared to be much younger.
"Unfortunately, archaeologists and most anthropologists do not study physics or chemistry and therefore they cannot make judgments on carbon dating," he said. "Wrong measurements are made in all laboratories."
Prof von Zieten, who has a penchant for large Havana cigars and Porsche cars, has been considered an expert in carbon-dating techniques since the 1970s. He has tested hundreds of prehistoric bone finds from Europe and Africa over the past 30 years.
Now, however, important remains that Oxford scientists no longer believe are prehistoric include the female "Bischof-Speyer" skeleton, found near the south-west German town of Speyer with unusually good teeth. Their evidence suggests that she is 3,300 years old, not 21,300.
Another apparent misdating involved an allegedly prehistoric skull discovered near Paderborn in 1976 and considered the oldest human remain ever found in the region. Prof von Zieten dated the skull at 27,400 years old. The latest research, however, indicates that it belonged to an elderly man who died around 1750.
Germany's Herne anthropological museum, which owns the Paderborn skull, was so disturbed by the findings that it did its own tests. "We had the skull cut open and it still smelt," the museum's director, Barbara Ruschoff-Thale, said last week. "We are naturally very disappointed."
Concern about Prof von Zieten's carbon-dating estimates arose last year following a routine investigation of German prehistoric remains by the German and British anthropologists Thomas Terberger and Martin Street.
"We had decided to subject many of these finds to modern techniques to check their authenticity so we sent them to Oxford for testing," Mr Street told The Sunday Telegraph. "It was a routine examination and in no way an attempt to discredit Prof von Zieten."
In their report, though, both anthropologists described this as a "dating disaster".
The scandal engulfing Prof von Zieten goes further. Police are investigating allegations that he tried to sell 280 chimpanzee skulls from his university to buyers in America for $70,000 (£38,000).
Prof von Zieten denies the claims, saying that he legitimately obtained the skulls from a Heidelberg ethnologist in 1975. Frankfurt university last month suspended the professor from his post in the anthropology department while it runs its own inquiry.
Has your group been pinged yet??
If you're not going to church today, do you want to call all the other "E" folks over here to play?
Off topic, but there is a **beautiful** article in this morning's Atlanta Journal Constitution on the South Carolina Topper site (author: Mike Toner). It isn't on the ajc.com website yet.
Nuke
Laughing at what you don't understand and know little about only makes you look silly.
Bones from cows being called tens of thousands year old,
Please document this amazing claim of yours, and provide a citation to it. We'll wait.
living mollusks labeled 10,000 years old..
...because those mollusks get much of their carbon from dissolved limestone. Since limestone is very old, the radiocarbon results CORRECTLY gave a weighted log-average for the material in the mollusks, some of which was "zero" years old (i.e. still living), and some of which was ancient. This is why radiocarbon dating is not recommended for certain marine animals unless appropriate precautions are taken. Your creationist sources sort of "forgot" to tell you about that, didn't they? The classic reference for this issue is:
Rubin, M., and D. W. Taylor (1963) "Radiocarbon activity of shells from living clams and snails." Science. vol. 141, p. 637.Note the date on that article: 1963. What excuse do creationists have for misunderstanding or misrepresenting this issue, when it has been well understood in the scientific community FOR OVER FORTY YEARS? I guess the creationists are a little behind on their reading, eh?
If you want to correct more of your ignorance on the topic of radiocarbon dating of marine samples, read this.
Puleeze!
Is there any particular reason you chose to pretend that you didn't understand the meaning of this sentence from the post you're responding to here?
But like any measuring system of any sort, sloppy application will result in sloppy results.Radiocarbon dating marine mollusks and *not* taking into account their limestone absorption is an example of "sloppy application" of the technique.
But this in no way invalidates the accuracy of radiocarbon dating when applied properly. Try reading more science sources, and fewer creationist ones.
Sounds like we have a fraud.
One guy in Germany has been fudging, apparently sometimes completely skipping, the lab test procedures to pull dates out of his wazoo. All the evidence for Neanderthal Man from all sources has supposedly crumbled, along with every Carbon-14 date ever done.
A wisp of hope, and reason (even the ability to read) flies out the window. This kind of thing is also why I accuse creationism and its front movement ID of rooting for ignorance against the advancement of knowledge. Despite all the routine bland denials, one can see it plainly on this thread.
Creation/ID has nothing to offer but perpetual wilfull ignorance.
Out of curiosity (and to let you know something you may not . . .)
1. What is a GGG Ping?
2. Did you know that GGG is the name of an "adult movie" company in Germany??
Next time a Creationists evidence is universally accepted, then they are found out to be deceptive, I expext the same response from you.
Intellectually honest people are very disturbed, and those that are not wave their hands.
I posted it here.
I'm not aware of a Creationist evidence that has ever been anything close to widely, much less universally, accepted as being what some set of creationists offered it to be. Usually, by the time it gets a close scrutiny from someone not drowning in the creo Koo-Aid, it's a fraud or a misinterpretation. I see two problems for the creationist evidence pile: a one-hundred-percent reject rate and a zero percent remainder.
Intellectually honest people are very disturbed, and those that are not wave their hands.
All of this one individual's work (and that of the lab he ran) must for now be considered suspect. Anything important he ever did will have to be redone. Do I have it wrong? Am I being dishonest?
"You're quite mistaken. When performed properly, carbon dating is very accurate. The method has been calibrated and verified countless times, in dozens of independent ways.
Like any procedure, however, it's possible to f*** it up if you don't do it right."
forgive me for playing the devil's advocate here... how can you prove to me that the "f*** it up" aspect is the product of a misstep? how do you know they didnt do it over and over again, precisely the way they should? is it not POSSIBLE that the ones you havent heard about (that provide these claims) are in fact, valid as well?
and yes, i concede, i dont have the documentation to back it up, this is why i dont have names. i appologize for that aspect, but it was told to me some 9 or 10 years ago, i have better study habits now. it is possible what i was told was a lie, or mis-telling, but im relying on the idea that so is C-dating.
GGG stands for a ping list titled Gods, Graves, Glyphs. It is presently maintained by FReeper SunkenCiv.
"2. Did you know that GGG is the name of an "adult movie" company in Germany??"
No, I did not.
Thanks for the info.....
For one thing, we have some knowledge of nuclear science. That provides a theoretical basis, a predictive model. Then we have something called "calibration," where we see if the model jives with how things work in the real world. Carbon 14 dating has been calibrated against items which can be tree-ring dated, ice-core dated, and historically dated.
Then, after we have a tool based upon the preceding, we have the accumulated experience of using it for some decades, which gives us a data base of real problems and real problem fixes. That gives us some confidence that when one person consistently gets results that are far off-base, that person is doing something very wrong.
"Note the date on that article: 1963. What excuse do creationists have for misunderstanding or misrepresenting this issue, when it has been well understood in the scientific community FOR OVER FORTY YEARS? I guess the creationists are a little behind on their reading, eh? "
again, im going to have to play devil's advocate here. understand i know where you are coming from, but i simply have so many doubts on this issue.
you claim the scientific community knew something for 40 years. this is the same community that has spewed out global warming claims. this is the same community that backed up the Church's Flat Earth theory, along with Center of the Universe beliefe. they also, aside from the Church, but with it's backing had Alchemy as a respected study at one point, for centuries.
i do understand the context, and i agree with you that they found their mis-step. this, however, is not what i am attacking. i am attacking the idea of a 54 year old method as being held in standing with the Theory of Gravity. that one has been tried and true for generations. we still have the generation that discovered it walking around (though the respected Dr. Libby passed away before my time) this makes it less than classical science. it still needs a few more decades to become that.
"But this in no way invalidates the accuracy of radiocarbon dating when applied properly. Try reading more science sources, and fewer creationist ones."
why not simply read both in equal time? i do, and i stay skeptical of both to a degree. one source of info will get you a liberal's mind-set.
...
why not simply read both in equal time? i do, and i stay skeptical of both to a degree.
I'm guessing your skepticism of creation science has never been evident on these threads. Feel free to link the post that proves me wrong. I seem to remember you as just another impenetrably dense YEC.
"Then we have something called "calibration," where we see if the model jives with how things work in the real world. Carbon 14 dating has been calibrated against items which can be tree-ring dated, ice-core dated, and historically dated."
and if two or more of those calibrations dont agree? this is possible in a volitile region like the mediterranean. a man tried to provide proof the water level is rising based on global warming and put a time scale on it in relation to some findings about a 100 miles from a volcano. he didnt account for the volcano making the land masses different, making his timing wrong. in this case, two of his methods agreed. water level given the current rate, and the findings of some fishing equipment in the area. it did not hold together when one thing disagreed however, volcanic activity.
calibration is needed, but how does anyone know that every aspect is accounted for and agrees with the datings?
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