Posted on 10/08/2006 7:58:20 AM PDT by aculeus
Damascus: Swiss researchers have discovered the 1,00,000-year-old remains of a previously unknown giant camel species in central Syria.
“This is a big discovery, a revolution in science,” Professor Jean-Marie Le Tensorer of the University of Basel said. “It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago.”
“Can you imagine? The camel’s shoulders stood three metres high and it was around four metres tall, as big as a giraffe or an elephant. Nobody knew that such a species had existed.”
Tensorer, who has been excavating at the desert site in Kowm since 1999, said the first large bones were found some years ago but were only confirmed as belonging to a camel after more bones from several parts of the same animal were recently discovered.
“We found the first traces of a big animal in 2003, but we were not sure it was a giant camel,” he said.
A group of humans apparently killed the camel while it was drinking from a spring at the once water-rich site in the desert steppe, said Tensorer.
The site was first surveyed in the 1960s.
“It was a savannah more or less,” Tensorer said. “The camels then ate probably what they eat today.”
Copyright 2005 BCCL. All rights reserved.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Interesting. So, both humans (or hominids) were apparently in that region a million years ago. I'm assuming that they identified injuries to the skeletal remains consistent with human predation. Those are pretty well defined.
Another piece of the puzzle.
Goliath's girlfriend.
Considering that the history of life on earth stretches back about 3.5 *billion* years, a camel being recognizable as a camel a mere million years ago is not that surprising. Another example of evolution in action.
Was there a giant follower of the moon god right behind it?
Probaby more like 5,000 years old.
How many human years is 1,00,000 camel years?
That's nothin. Here at Jakes in Washington state we have the remains of a half man - half Crocodile.
Beat that!
All right, ladies and/or gentlemen, lets have a nice clean fight. No hitting below the belt, no biting or gouging. And may the best theory win!
I know which side I'm on, anyway...
Mohammads giant she camel, that came to preach to the people, but the wicked people ham strung her and ate it.
Allah ws not pleased, and destroyed the city.
LMAO! way to go, "researchers". The Muzzies must be going wild with this 'discovery'. Except the Koran says this camel is a mere 2-3 thousand years old.
And if you want to argue with them and their koran, well go ahead, stick your necks out...
The key item of note in this story is that it was SWISS researchers who made this discovery in Syria--not Syria ones. Arab science is an oxymoron.
I bet it was those darn aliens that do cattle mutilations today.
giant camal ping
Call us when they find a Precambrian camel. Carboniferous will do, actually. Cretaceous would be a revolution, actually.
"For the Designer so loved tiny cells without nuclei that He spent two billion years admiring them before He designed anything else. Then He designed big cells with nuclei, and they were good. He was playing with multicellulars within half a billion years thereafter."
Sounds like a story in a "Captain Marvel" comic book I had as a kid.
They misplaced a comma in the number, which is 100,000 not 1,000,000.
So much for the science writer at the Mumbai Mirror.
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