Posted on 06/24/2007 6:39:42 PM PDT by blam
Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’
Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent
June 25, 2007
Our earliest ancestors gave up hunter-gathering and took to a settled life up to 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to controversial research.
The accepted timescale of Man’s evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus — mankind’s early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe — began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.
The point at which settlement actually took place is the first critical stage in humanity’s cultural development.
Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.
Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River Awash in Ethiopia, provide evidence of organised societies.
He believes that such sites show small communities of 40 or 50 people, with abundant water resources to exploit for constant harvests.
The implications for our knowledge of human evolution — and of our intellectual and social beginnings — are “profound” and a “staggering shift”, he said.
Professor Ziegert used potassium argon isotopic dating, stratigraphy and tool typology to compile his evidence. He will publish his findings this month in Minerva, the archaeology journal.
The news divided scholarly opinion yesterday.
Sean Kingsley, an archaeologist and the managing editor of Minerva, said: “This research is nothing less than a quantum leap in our understanding of Man’s intellectual and social history. For archaeology it’s as radical as finding life on Mars.
“As a veteran of over 81 archaeological surveys and excavations . . . Ziegert is nothing if not scientifically cautious, which makes the current revelation all the more exciting.”
But others were far from convinced. Paul Pettitt, senior lecturer in palaeolithic archaeology at the University of Sheffield, said: “Are they truly the remains of huts and not a natural phenomenon? Do they really date 400,000 years or are they much more recent? The site formation, age and implications are all questionable.”
He said that Homo erectus was a highly mobile hunter, that human remains can accumulate for a number of reasons and that the evidence to be published by Minerva does not indicate a year-round settlement.
Further scepticism was voiced by Paul Bahn, an archaeologist who specialises in the palaeolithic period. Although he believes that Homo erectus was quite advanced and capable of building durable structures, occasionally coming together in large groups, he remains to be convinced about settlements.
He said: “Homo erectus could have been there for a few days. He wouldn’t have carried the tools around. Inevitably, they accumulate. If hunter-gatherers found no cave or rock shelter, it makes sense that they might have built a shelter for a few days or seasonally. Just the fact that they’re made out of stone doesn’t mean they were permanent settlements.
Nick Barton, a lecturer in palaeolithic archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said: “No unequivocal dating evidence is presented except that based on the typology of the artefacts. It is entirely possible that the site represents a palimpsest of material spanning the palaeolithic to the neolithic.”
Homo erectus — a species that has been recognised since the late 19th century — lived from about 1.6 million to 200,000 years ago, ranging widely from Africa and Asia to parts of Europe. Most of the anatomical differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens relate to the skull and teeth, with the former having a jutting browridge, a wide nose and large teeth.
Professor Ziegert said: “The first archaeological revolution in fact was not triggered by anatomically ‘modern humans’ in the neolithic, or indeed in the technological and cultural revolution associated with the upper palaeolithic, but by Homo erectus, upright Man, an altogether different ancestral species making waves at the dawn of humanity.”
After decades of fieldwork, Professor Ziegert is convinced that future discoveries will uphold his conclusions. Under his direction, the University of Hamburg has scheduled a further programme of excavations at Budrinna and Melka Konture over the next four years.
1891
— The year in which evidence of Homo erectus was first discovered, in central Java, Indonesia
Before visiting the caverns, visit the basement of the Lincolin Memorial, then you will have a sound understanding of how much you are being defrauded by the propaganda presented at the caverns. The caverns happened in a short time, with much warmer, lime-rich water that is present now. The formation of Carlsbad cavern was a post-flood event, that happened quite quickly, just like the basement of the Lincolin Memorial.
Excellent point.
I think I saw that guy downtown the other day.
Where is the archaeological evidence!?
I think that at the stage of development being suggested, there were no "cities," only a group of long term shelters, with associated hearths, storage pits and the like. IOW, you would have a population formally believed to be strictly hunting and gathering nomads, following herds and seasons "suddenly" (funny term for the span that would have been involved) setting down roots hundreds of thousands of years earlier than anyone else on the planet thought to.
If they died off, as many populations did throughout the stone ages, plagues, drought, predation etc, such innovative thinking would have died with them. Of course such a hypothesis must be scrutinized with appropriate skepticism, but its intriguing nonetheless.
And you are assuming a long period without earthquakes etc is necessary for lamguage and writing to arise (then again it might explain California's retrogression!!). Writing apparently arose pretty much simultaneously in isolated areas despite lots of violence and stress.
I'm one of those Bible thumpers that doesn't find the age of the earth anywhere in the Bible. Attempts to use the Bible end up with a man with a calculator piecing together information . . . which isn't the word of God but is the word of a man with a calculator making assumptions based on the word of God.
It is true one cannot discern the age of the earth from the Bible because of overlapping periods of individuals lives. But if one is to believe the Bibles genealogy, then the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Is this possible? Sure. Is it factual? Well, one has to have faith (like me) to believe it to be so. You may believe whatever makes you feel most comfortable.
I also don’t think we know how long Adam was in the Garden of Eden.
Evolution and Communism
Another interesting facet of history is the connection between evolution and communism. With communism the struggle of “race” is replaced by the struggle of “class” as history is viewed as an evolutionary struggle.
Both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were evolutionists before they encountered Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” - (Dec 12, 1859) Engels wrote to Marx: “Darwin who I am now reading, is splendid” (Morris 1989, 83 quoting Zirkle). Like Darwin, “Marx thought he had discovered the law of development. He saw history in stages, as the Darwinists saw geological strata and successive forms of life... In keeping with the feelings of the age, both Marx and Darwin made struggle the means of development” (Morris 1989, 83 quoting Borzin). “There was truth in Engel’s eulogy on Marx: ‘Just as Darwin had discovered the law of evolution in organic nature so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history’” (Morris 1989, 83 quoting Himmelfarb).
“It is commonplace that Marx felt his own work to be the exact parallel of Darwin’s. He even wished to dedicate a portion of Das Kapital to the author of The Origin of Species” (Morris 1989, 83 quoting Barzum). Indeed, Marx wished to dedicate parts of his famous book to Darwin but “Darwin ‘declined the honor’ because, he wrote to Marx, he did not know the work, he did not believe that direct attacks on religion advanced the cause of free thought, and finally because he did not want to upset ‘some members of my family’” (Morris 1989, 83 quoting Jorafsky).
Other Soviet Communist leaders are evolutionists as well. Lenin, Trostsky, and Stalin were all atheistic evolutionists. A soviet think tank founded in 1963 developed a one-semester course in “Scientific Atheism” which was introduced in 1964. Also, a case can be made that Darwinism was influential in propagating communism in China.
Interestingly, according to Morris, Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University, the co-founder of the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution is a Marxist in philosophy, along with other distinguished Harvard evolutionary scientists and university professors across the country. One has to ask - could a person espouse the Marxist view and tolerate creationism?
References:
Morris 1989, 82-92
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/hscom.htm
You only bet on a sure thing, don't you? No, there is nothing there to indicate what amount of time passed in the Garden of Eden. But I do believe there was one.
So far, the cr/evo struggle in the subthread has remained pretty quiet. But that could change in a single post.
Nice summation.
Thanks for the ping!
Geological changes might have wiped out traces of earlier cultures. Just look at what two thousand years has done to Caesara Phillipi, present-day Banias in Israel. That’s from neglect, war, vandalism, and climatic wear-and tear. How much would remain of a Pompei-size city that was buried by volcanic ash 150,000 years ago? How much would remain of cities covered by the most recent ice-sheets? So I am open to a long pre-history of man.
Good point. I think I will go to bed. Night all!
Gee, and I thought there was no dissent among evolutionists about the ToE.
So who gets blacklisted now? The 10,000 yearers, or the 400,000 yearers? Young and old human evos?
So should we now classify man as a living fossil? Wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in their theory?
This guy uses the word “harvest” a touch loosely, I’m guessing. Does he have any evidence that these “settlements” engaged in actually control of the food supply (and storage for later use), or, as Popocatapetl notes, merely taking advantage of natural abundance where it was found?
There’s the difference: using what’s found as against making it.
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