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To: Messianic Jews Net
The article above also doesn't describe in detail how it dated the fossils. Well, yeah, it's a news article from a newspaper. The issue of Nature with the article reported on is out as of today, however, so you can go to your nearest academic library and read it. Only the first paragraph is available for free online, but fortunately in the standard format of a research paper that is an "abstract" which provides a brief summary of the whole paper:

Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia

IAN MCDOUGALL1, FRANCIS H. BROWN2 & JOHN G. FLEAGLE3

1 Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
2 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
3 Department of Anatomical Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA

Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to I.McD (ian.mcdougall@anu.edu.au).

In 1967 the Kibish Formation in southern Ethiopia yielded hominid cranial remains identified as early anatomically modern humans, assigned to Homo sapiens. However, the provenance and age of the fossils have been much debated. Here we confirm that the Omo I and Omo II hominid fossils are from similar stratigraphic levels in Member I of the Kibish Formation, despite the view that Omo I is more modern in appearance than Omo II. 40Ar/39Ar ages on feldspar crystals from pumice clasts within a tuff in Member I below the hominid levels place an older limit of 198 plusminus 14 kyr (weighted mean age 196 plusminus 2 kyr) on the hominids. A younger age limit of 104 plusminus 7 kyr is provided by feldspars from pumice clasts in a Member III tuff. Geological evidence indicates rapid deposition of each member of the Kibish Formation. Isotopic ages on the Kibish Formation correspond to ages of Mediterranean sapropels, which reflect increased flow of the Nile River, and necessarily increased flow of the Omo River. Thus the 40Ar/39Ar age measurements, together with the sapropel correlations, indicate that the hominid fossils have an age close to the older limit. Our preferred estimate of the age of the Kibish hominids is 195 plusminus 5 kyr, making them the earliest well-dated anatomically modern humans yet described.


115 posted on 02/16/2005 6:44:51 PM PST by Stultis
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To: Stultis

Oh Yeh??

Just because they say it's true doesn't mean it is. We need an eyewitness!

Sigh, you could take these guys out, let them collect the samples, prepare them, analyze them and collate the data and they still wouldn't believe it.

But if some guy in a robe appeared in a dream and said "Believe", they'd fall right into line.

Beer time.


116 posted on 02/16/2005 7:08:32 PM PST by furball4paws (It's not the cough that carried him off - it's the coffin they carried him off in (O. Nash -I think))
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