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Early clues to 'modern' humans
bbcnews.com ^ | nov-7-2001 | bbcnews

Posted on 11/07/2001 4:42:23 PM PST by green team 1999

Wednesday, 7 November, 2001, 16:35 GMT Early clues to 'modern' humans


Modern humans descended from African hominids

A collection of bone tools dating back 70,000 years is raising new questions about human evolution.
The discovery suggests that our early human ancestors were far more sophisticated than previously thought.

The bone tools and flaked stone points, possibly used as spear heads, were found in a cave on the South African coast, east of Stillbaai.

Until now, it was assumed that humans were not advanced enough to make such tools until long after they had emerged from Africa and migrated into Europe.

The appearance of bone, rather than stone tools, and signs of abstract and creative thought in the form of body decoration and art works appeared in Europe about 35,000 years ago.

But according to new evidence, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, ancient humans were already making bone tools in Africa more than twice as long ago.

The implications are that humans came out of Africa with fully developed "modern" technology and modes of behaviour.

'Modern' behaviour
Royden Yates, one of the team that discovered the tools, told the BBC: "Every indication that we have been able to gather suggests that we are looking at something between 80 and 100,000 years old.

"Artefacts very similar to this occur in Europe and they are dated to about 19,000 years ago."

The collection of 28 bone tools and related artefacts were found in Blombos cave, located on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean at the extreme tip of South Africa.

A yellow sand layer lying above the sediment containing the tools is thought to date to 60,000-70,000 years ago. The tools were found below the sand layer and are thought to be somewhat older.

Bone tools need a high degree of skill and labour to produce, which is why archaeologists consider them a significant indicator of human development.

New horizons
According to archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood, of the Iziko-South African Museum in Cape Town, the tools show that people in Africa exhibited "modern" behaviour as far back as 80-100,000 years ago.

"What has been suggested up until now is that modern human behaviour was a very late occurrence," he said.

"The implication was that though people were anatomically modern in Africa from about 150,000 to 100,000 years ago, they remained behaviourally non-modern until about 40,000 or 50 000 years ago, when they suddenly changed and then moved into Europe and elsewhere."

There have been a few claims of equally old bone tools found at other African sites, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But these have been either single finds or of doubtful authenticity.

However, while Europe has been extensively excavated, many sites in Africa have yet to be examined closely.

This find may mark the beginning of a new understanding of the human fossil record.

The main image on this page comes from the BBC's forthcoming series Walking With Beasts

for information and discusion only,not for profit etc,etc.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dmanisi; homoerectus; origin; origins
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To: Genesis defender

Your kind?
And what kind would that be?

The children of the Universe.  Made
from the constituents of the stars.
The universe contemplating itself.

21 posted on 11/07/2001 7:19:50 PM PST by gcruse
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To: gcruse
Pity. You know, my dog makes his own vitamin C. Why can't you?

And it's a pity that you resort to sarcasm and personal attacks.

22 posted on 11/07/2001 7:20:24 PM PST by Genesis defender
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To: mlocher
i see that you are still evolving

Humanity is.  As an individual, I
am not.

23 posted on 11/07/2001 7:21:44 PM PST by gcruse
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To: mlocher
i see that you are still evolving

Why don't you stop the personal attacks, too?

24 posted on 11/07/2001 7:21:49 PM PST by Genesis defender
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To: green team 1999
from goo
to you
by way of the zoo

yyyyaaaaaawwwwnnnn...same old fairytale.

read Romans chapter 1....'nuff said.

baa

25 posted on 11/07/2001 7:26:42 PM PST by woollyone
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To: *crevo_list; PatrickHenry; VadeRetro; RadioAstronomer
crevo_list bump
26 posted on 11/07/2001 7:29:36 PM PST by longshadow
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To: Genesis defender
Pity. You know, my dog makes his own vitamin C. Why can't you?

And it's a pity that you resort to sarcasm and personal attacks.

Hey, the guy said he was created in God's image, and you
can't do better than that.  I showed where my dog does
better than that.  I debunked his argument, not him.
What is your problem?

27 posted on 11/07/2001 7:35:51 PM PST by gcruse
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To: gcruse
"You know, my dog makes his own vitamin C. Why can't you?" br>I make furniture by hand, make $60k per year, make my bed each morning and make my breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day. Why can't your dog?

Looks to me that your dog was created diffently than humans. Or are you attempting to make the PETA, "a dog is a rat is a man is a liberal" argument?

What's your point?

28 posted on 11/07/2001 7:43:06 PM PST by woollyone
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To: woollyone

Looks to me that your dog was created diffently than humans.

You are saying humans were created without the
ability to make their own vitamin C, while a dog
can, but we are made in the image of God.
Then why can't we make our own C?
As far as I know, all the other mammals can.
Is there something godly about having
to eat fruit?

29 posted on 11/07/2001 7:52:40 PM PST by gcruse
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To: gcruse
I showed where my dog does better than that. I debunked his argument, not him

You showed and debunked nothing. mlocher claimed he was created in God's image. You replied by saying your dog makes vitamin C. Are you implying that vitamin C is "better" than a human? Or that your dog making vitamin C is "better" than God creating an entire human? That's why I had thought you personally attacked mlocher.

30 posted on 11/07/2001 8:39:33 PM PST by Genesis defender
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To: Genesis defender
... Most all mammals, except humans and two or three
others are able to convert glucose into vitamin C.
Humans have the first three enzymes but
not the fourth.

Now, why would God create only 3/4s of the
ability to make vitamin C and stop,
in humans only?  If we are, indeed,
in his image, does that make God
a vegetarian?  Uh oh.

31 posted on 11/07/2001 8:41:51 PM PST by gcruse
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To: gcruse
... Most all mammals, except humans and two or three others are able to convert glucose into vitamin C. Humans have the first three enzymes but not the fourth.

Now, why would God create only 3/4s of the ability to make vitamin C and stop, in humans only? If we are, indeed, in his image, does that make God a vegetarian? Uh oh.

You are assuming that God created us as we are today. It is entirely possible that over time, humans as a species lost the ability (through natural selection) to manufacture the fourth enzyme needed to make vitamin C.

32 posted on 11/07/2001 9:22:17 PM PST by Genesis defender
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To: gcruse
"You are saying humans were created without the ability to make their own vitamin C, while a dog can, but we are made in the image of God. Then why can't we make our own C? As far as I know, all the other mammals can. Is there something godly about having to eat fruit?"

what in the world does whether a human can make vitamin C or not have to do with anything? You have proved nothing, except that you're making no sense. Your vitamin C argument has as much relevance as the fact that I make my bed or that I make dinner each night. VitaminC? That's it? Your whole God-view is about vitamin C? That's STUPID!

33 posted on 11/07/2001 9:34:24 PM PST by woollyone
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To: longshadow
So that everyone will have access to the accumulated "Creationism vs. Evolution" threads which have previously appeared on FreeRepublic, plus links to hundreds of sites with a vast amount of information on this topic, here's Junior's massive work, available for all to review: The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [7.0].
34 posted on 11/08/2001 2:30:22 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: Ahban
I am quite skeptical of the claims of the article though. It is HIGHLY unlikely, IMHO, that there were humans running around 70K ago that had the exact same technology as those of only 19K ago. Modern humans make extrodinary advances in technology over geologically insignificant times.

Over historical times, human technological development has acted something like an exponential function. For much of human history, it was achingly slow. People died in approximately the same world they had been born into. No wonder the Book of Ecclesiastes asks who has ever seen a new thing! True novelty was very rare before, say, the Renaissance. The pace of innovation was halting through the Middle Ages, increased in the Rennaissance, climbed sharply through the Industrial Revolution, and has soared in the hi-tech present.

That's historical times. Pre-history figures to offer a near flat-line graph. Anything else would be a stunner.

35 posted on 11/08/2001 6:38:45 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: green team 1999; *crevo_list

Researchers zero in on date of early hominids

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers using techniques of magnetostratigraphy have determined that a rock formation in Israel called Erk-el-Ahmar is between 1.7 million and 2.0 million years old, making the hominid tools and artifacts discovered there perhaps the oldest in the world outside of Africa.

The findings by researchers from Oregon State University and the Geophysical Institute of Israel add important evidence about the timing and migration path of hominids out of Africa. It suggests that hominids migrated northward from Africa into Europe and Asia through the Levantine Corridor.

Results of the research have been published in the new (October) issue of the journal Geology. Shaul Levi, a professor emeritus of oceanic and atmospheric sciences at OSU, and Hagai Ron, an Israeli geophysicist, were able to narrow down the range of ages for the formation by studying the reversals of the Earth's magnetic field recorded in the sedimentary formation.

"The Earth's magnetic field has reversed its polarity numerous times in the past 50-60 million years," Levi said. "Some of these reversals, especially in the last 5 million years, have very good age control, so we were able to narrow down the range of ages to within 300,000 years. In terms of human history, that is a long, long time. But in geologic terms, it isn't much at all." Most scientists believe that central Africa was the springboard for hominid evolution in the late Miocene or early Pliocene - about 4-5 million years ago. However, there is much less agreement on when hominids migrated out of Africa.

One of the oldest, scientifically accepted hominid sites is the 'Ubeidiya Formation, about three kilometers south of the Sea of Galilee on the west bank of the Jordan River. Excavations there have yielded skull fragments, teeth, and evidence of early tools. Biostratigraphy and cultural evidence indicate an age of about 1.4 million years.

Other out-of-Africa sites with ancient hominid remains have been found in Java, Indonesia, and Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia. Scientists have been able to date the lava flows beneath the Dmanisi site at 1.6 to 1.8 million years, though there is no indication of how much later the artifacts were deposited atop the lava.

The Erk-el-Ahmar site is the closest to Africa and there anthropologists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have over time discovered core choppers, flakes of flint and other artifacts associated with Oldowan tools.

Located about 10 kilometers south of the Sea of Galilee, Erk-el-Ahmar rises up some 50 meters above the Jordan River. The entire region once was covered by the ancient Dead Sea, and when it receded, the rock formation was exposed to erosion by water and desert winds. What hasn't eroded are ancient lake deposits - layers of clay, silt and sand - that sometimes contain fish remains and other fossils.

That composition, Levi said, is what made Erk-el-Ahmar difficult to date.

"Carbon dating is good only back to about 50,000 years, and it depends on the availability of charcoal or other organic material," he pointed out. "Potassium-Argon dating can be used from about 10,000 years to more than a billion years, depending on the rock, but it requires volcanic material, such as lava flows or volcanic ash. Because the Erk-el-Ahmar Formation contains no volcanic material, and its age far exceeds the range for carbon dating, neither of these methods could be used. "Paleomagnetism, however, provides an additional avenue for dating," Levi added.

The first attempt to date the formation with paleomagnetism was made in 1990 by Doron Braun, a graduate student of Ron's, who was able to identify several magnetic reversals. When Levi and Ron returned to Erk-el-Ahmar, they conducted more comprehensive tests. These tests looked not only at the existence of magnetic reversals, but also at the degree of fluctuations of the horizontal and vertical components of the magnetic field.

In a "normal" period, such as now, the magnetic field is approximated by a dipole at the center of the Earth, and the compass needle points generally north, Levi explained. During "reverse" periods, the dipole configuration is opposite and the compass needle points south.

The magnetic field originates deep in the Earth's fluid core. The field arises from organized flow in the electrically conducting fluid, composed primarily of iron and nickel alloy, with additions of other lighter elements. What triggers magnetic reversals isn't understood, Levi said, and reversals from one polarity to another may take thousands of years.

Scientists have shown that during these transitions, the intensity of the magnetic field decreases dramatically from average values, he added.

All of these differences do, however, leave magnetic "fingerprints" on the rocks. And when Levi and Ron took 120 samples from Erk-el-Ahmar into the laboratory, where they demagnetized them to recover their original magnetic state, they had a series of markers from different depths of the formation that allowed them to hone in on a more precise date.

What they also discovered was that the Erk-el-Ahmar magnetic profile matched almost exactly a magnetic profile taken from the ocean floor in the North Atlantic - research conducted under the auspices of the Ocean Drilling Program.

"That validated our findings quite nicely and is worthy of further study, globally," Levi said. "The fact that the patterns found at Erk-el-Ahmar matched those from the North Atlantic core supports our interpretation that the age of the formation - and the hominid tools it contains - is between 1.7 and 2.0 million years old."

36 posted on 11/08/2001 8:15:46 AM PST by Nebullis
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To: Genesis defender; woollyone
You are assuming that God created us as we are today. It is entirely possible that over time, humans as a species lost the ability (through natural selection) to manufacture the fourth enzyme needed to make vitamin C.

Thank you.  And it is entirely possible that man was created
as in the graphic picture seen at the top of this thread and
has evolved into what we are today.  As a matter of fact,
the inability to make vitamin C suggests that at one time
the human diet was so overwhelmingly fruit that we
lost the need to make our own C.  Use it or lose it.

To woolyone:

Looks to me that your dog was created diffently than humans.

You could learn some things from your friend genisis defender.

37 posted on 11/08/2001 12:06:41 PM PST by gcruse
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To: gcruse
"You could learn some things from your friend genisis defender"

The premise about vitamin C production is such a trite non-issue as to be laughable. To attempt to spin that this somehow validates evolution is absurd. I needn't debate absurd moronic trite comments.

I already learned that the evos who desire to debate here at FR do so just to puff themselves up and to feed their incessant need to banter. Not productive. Believe me...I've learned. Just like your little snide remark is an attempt to bait.

more unwholesome chatter...*sigh*

38 posted on 11/08/2001 1:08:55 PM PST by woollyone
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To: woollyone
"You are assuming that God created us as we are today. "

What he said.

39 posted on 11/08/2001 1:16:33 PM PST by gcruse
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To: green team 1999
Is that picture an example of arab porn I have been hearing about? ;)
40 posted on 11/08/2001 1:18:29 PM PST by CathyRyan
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