Posted on 02/16/2005 11:01:16 AM PST by Alter Kaker
NEW YORK (AP) -- A new analysis of bones unearthed nearly 40 years ago in Ethiopia has pushed the fossil record of modern humans back to nearly 200,000 years ago -- perhaps close to the dawn of the species.
Researchers determined that the specimens are around 195,000 years old. Previously, the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens were Ethiopian skulls dated to about 160,000 years ago.
Genetic studies estimate that Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago, so the new research brings the fossil record more in line with that, said John Fleagle of Stony Brook University in New York, an author of the study.
The fossils were found in 1967 near the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia. One location yielded Omo I, which includes part of a skull plus skeletal bones. Another site produced Omo II, which has more of a skull but no skeletal bones. Neither specimen has a complete face.
Although Omo II shows more primitive characteristics than Omo I, scientists called both specimens Homo sapiens and assigned a tentative age of 130,000 years.
Now, after visiting the discovery sites, analyzing their geology and testing rock samples with more modern dating techniques, Fleagle and colleagues report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature that both specimens are 195,000 years old, give or take 5,000 years.
Fleagle said the more primitive traits of Omo II may mean the two specimens came from different but overlapping Homo sapiens populations, or that they just represent natural variation within a single population.
To find the age of the skulls, the researchers determined that volcanic rock lying just below the sediment that contained the fossils was about 196,000 years old. They then found evidence that the fossil-bearing sediment was deposited soon after that time.
Paul Renne, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, which specializes in dating rocks, said the researchers made "a reasonably good argument" to support their dating of the fossils.
"It's more likely than not," he said, calling the work "very exciting and important."
Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, said he considered the case for the new fossil ages "very strong." The work suggests that "we're right on the cusp of where the genetic evidence says the origin of modern humans ... should be," he said.
G. Philip Rightmire, a paleoanthropologist at Binghamton University in New York, said he believes the Omo fossils show Homo sapiens plus a more primitive ancestor. The find appears to represent the aftermath of the birth of Homo sapiens, when it was still living alongside its ancestral species, he said.
Did you know that the founder of the IQ test was a Darwinist and based his work on the writings of Darwin?
Just what is your idea of the "logic test?"
I imagine your statement above wouldn't pass the "logic test" since it presumes the Creator of time has time to waste. It might not even pass the "brain engaged" test.
There are ID'ers who are not Christian. They are few and far between, but they exist.
I would call ID a scientific theory that competes against evolutionary theory, that is compatible with what scripture tells us and that is also compatible with the evidence.
You characterize ID as a "ruse" and as a synomynous with "creation" so that you can ban ID papers from being published. And then having done so, you can mock ID for having been published.
Your post does not make sense.
He based the IQ test on the writings of Darwin? What people didn't take tests prior to Darwin? And people didn't think some people were smarter than others prior to Darwin?
What exactly about the IQ test did he derive from Darwin's writings?
Still waiting for evidence you have that this man's research is 'false propaganda.'
Then you would be wrong, at least as ID stands now. Provide some notion of what the designer couldn't have or wouldn't have done, and then you might have a scientific HYPOTHESIS.
Hey, that's neat! I was reading the newspaper at age 3, and I accepted Santa when I was 2 of my own free will. :-) (Probably Jesus as well, as we were Catholic.)
I think punching oneself it the face is pretty idiotic.
I'm not sure that Lucy was Homo Sapiens...I believe she was Homo Erectus, a distant predecessor.
BTW, I am still waiting for any observation that would be impossible if ID were true. I am logging off until tommorrow so I will be looking forward to hearing what observation would NOT be compatible with ID. Regards.
I used to think that they (Rabid Freeper Evolutionists) knew exactly what they were doing. I'm convinced that some of them know, but I'm not sure all of them do. I don't think they realize that they have handcuffed themselves after putting on a blindfold. The confusion centers around that mystical rule that science must exclude the supernatural. Do you think they could tell us who made that rule and what is its justification? IOW, sez who? Science encounters innumerable things it cannot detect, cannot measure, and cannot know, yet only those things dealing with a Superior do they reject. Not dark matter, not dark energy, not zpe, not mathematical dimensions, not green men from planet X, not the origin of the singularity, but only God. That's neither logical nor consistent.
They're called Muslims and there are more than you indicate. Doesn't help you with his point.
Ah Ah Ah! Let's not be bearing false witness!
Australopithecus afarensis, an even more distant predecessor.
In this cold weather you might have to let it warm up a little before you use it. Just think about it for a while. It will come to you.
I do not need scientific evidence to believe in God, but that is not the subject of the conversation.
You, and others here are quite consistent in changing the subject to the faith of the poster, to avoid the actual discussion of the issue.
What if the evidence leads to a designer? What will you do with that evidence? Ignore it, or try to find out what it means......even if it leads where you don't want it to?
Darwin's writings influenced his whole work.
You can't even provide me a statement that would falsify evolution. But you want me to falsify God?
Besides, that's like asking me to falsify my own mother? God's not just a theory, He's a person, and a neat one to know.
AFAIK, all of those examples are detectable & measurable as regularities in principle, if not in fact today. God is detectable & measurable only if he decides to let himself be detected & measured - and he sure isn't regular! Everything that we could detect about God would happen at his whim.
Please tell me how the scientific method could possibly detect & measure God in a way that would distinguish his characteristics from merely unexplained natural phenomena?
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