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Human Evolution
Evolutionary Theory
Discovery of a lifetime?
One fossil discovery above all has been used to transform the views of how we became human. But who was Lucy, and why has she become so important to human evolution?
Lucy was discovered in 1974 by anthropologist Professor Donald Johanson and his student Tom Gray in a maze of ravines at Hadar in northern Ethiopia. Johanson and Gray were out searching the scorched terrain for animal bones in the sand, ash and silt when they spotted a tiny fragment of what they believed to be an arm bone. Johanson immediately believed it belonged to a hominid. The term hominid refers to a member of the zoological family Hominidae. Hominidae encompasses all species originating after the human/African ape ancestral split, leading to and including all species of Australopithecus and Homo. While these species differ in many ways, hominids share a suite of characteristics which define them as a group. The most conspicuous of these traits is bipedal locomotion, or walking upright.As they looked up the slope, they saw more bone fragments: ribs, vertebrae, thighbones and a partial jawbone. They eventually unearthed 47 bones of a skeleton - nearly 40% of which they believed to belong to a hominid, or humanlike creature. Based on its small size, and pelvic shape, they concluded that it must have been a female and named it 'Lucy' after 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', the Beatles song playing on the radio when Johanson and his team were celebrating the discovery back at camp.
An upright chimp
Like a chimpanzee, they believed that Lucy had a small brain, long, dangly arms, short legs and a cone-shaped thorax with a large belly. But the structure of her knee and pelvis made them question whether she routinely walked upright on two legs, like us. This form of locomotion, known as 'bipedalism', is the single most important difference between humans and apes, which they believed placed Lucy firmly within the human family. "Bipedalism is the most distinctive, apparently earliest, defining characteristic of humans," says Johanson, now director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.
These scientist came to believe that Lucy undoubtedly walked upright, but others, such as Randall Susman of Stony Brook University in New York, doubt that she walked with straight legs like humans. Instead, they argue, she kept her hip and knees bent, like chimps do when they walk upright. Chimps usually walk on all fours, but occasionally walk upright for short periods of time. Professor Robin Crompton of Liverpool University has used computer modelling to reconstruct how Lucy walked based on the proportions of her skeleton. He assumed that Lucy could either have walked upright with a bent hip and knees like a chimp, or with straight legs like a human.
The science of finding and identifying man’s “prehistoric ancestors” runs in a predictable pattern. A press conference is announced, the discovery of an ape-like “ancestor” revealed with an artist’s impression of what the creature looks like, and the discoverer becomes famous, earning money on lecture tours. The actual fossil bones are scanty and the imagination runs wild. Later, when more evidence is found, the “ancestor” turns out to be totally human or totally ape. The Neanderthal man is an example of one find that turns out to be totally human. Once this find is removed as an intermediate form, you can expect another great discovery to save the day. The latest discovery is “Lucy.”.
If you are of the impression that there are many intermediate ancestors to man, take notice of the following statement by an expert in the field: “The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed with room to spare inside a single coffin.“
This is still an exaggeration since it concedes that various specimens are part of human evolution. Australopithecines, for example, are not considered transitional forms anymore, but a branch of the primate evolutionary tree. True transitional forms are still missing. (“Transitional forms” refer to those creatures which represent intermediate states of development for a supposed ape-like ancestor down to man.)
But what about Lucy? This most recent discovery in Africa is being heralded by many as a true transitional form, typically a replacement for the outmoded australopithecines. Could this be hasty judgment? Let’s examine the evidence. Lucy is a partial fossil skeleton, about the size of a chimpanzee, supposedly female, discovered by paleontologist Dr. Donald Johanson on November 30, 1974, in Hadar, Ethiopia. It is more complete than most fossil finds in that about 40 percent of the bones of the body have been recovered.
The age is “estimated” to be 3.2 million years. The find includes a V-shaped jaw, part of hip and large bones, and other assorted bones with very little skull fragments. There were other finds at the same location, other skulls and U-shaped jawbones.
What evidence makes this creature a transitional form? According to Dr. Johanson, she walked upright! Her brain size is still small, ape-like in proportion, and most of the other features are predominantly ape-like. Some say that anatomically it is not different than a modern chimpanzee. The jaw, in particular, is distinct in that it is V-shaped, totally unlike human jaws.
And what evidence supports the idea that this creature walked upright? The angle that the upper leg bone makes with the lower leg bone at the knee. Looking head on, chimpanzee and gorilla legs have an angle of 0 degrees. Humans have an angle of about 9 degrees. If the angle is much greater it gives a “knocked kneed” condition in humans. Lucy and the australophithecines have a larger angle of about 15 degrees.
Does this make her an upright walker? Present day orangutan and spider monkeys have the same angle as humans yet are extremely adept tree climbers. Some experts argue that the higher angle makes her a better climber. This appears to be a knee-jerk reaction rather than clear scientific thinking.
But hold on, the story gets better. Dr. Johanson gave a lecture at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Nov. 20, 1986, on Lucy and why he thinks she is our ancestor. It included the ideas already mentioned and that Lucy’s femur and pelvis were more robust than most chimps and therefore, “could have” walked upright. After the lecture he opened the meeting for questions. The audience of approximately 800 was quiet so some creationists asked questions. Roy Holt asked; “How far away from Lucy did you find the knee?” (The knee bones were actually discovered about a year earlier than the rest of Lucy). Dr. Johanson answered (reluctantly) about 200 feet lower (!) and two to three kilometers away (about 1.5 miles!). Continuing, Holt asked, “Then why are you sure it belonged to Lucy?” Dr. Johanson: “Anatomical similarity.” (Bears and dogs have anatomical similarities).
After the meeting, the creationists talked with Dr. Johanson and continued the questions. Dr. Johanson argued that homology (particularly DNA homology) is good proof for evolution. Tom Willis responded that “similar structures nearly always have similar plans, (like) similar bridges have similar blue prints.” After more discussion along this line, Dr. Johanson gave this amazing reply: “If you don’t believe homology, then you don’t believe evolution, and evolution is a fact!“ he claimed.
What about Lucy? Just another partial find of some primate, put together to look like a human ancestor? Could the wide separation of Lucy’s bones (200 feet by 1 mile) better point to a catastrophic scenario – such as a world wide flood?
What about Dr. Johanson’s credibility? To his credit, he does talk about the tentative nature of this type of science. But another evolutionary writer says this about the search for humanlike (homonid) bones; “When it comes to finding a new ‘star’ as our animal ancestor, there is no business like bone business.“
Tom Willis, the creationist who attended the U. of Missouri lecture puts it this way, “By any reasonable standards, Johanson misrepresented the evidence and he did so for money! A businessman who made claims like those to sell his products would be charged with fraud rather than be paid an honorarium.“ Regardless of the motives involved for finding our evolutionary “ancestor”, we can be sure that when Lucy is acknowledged as an evolutionary dead end, there will be another press conference with another knee-jerk explanation.covered.
Decades after the initial discovery of Lucy and the fossil bones which where matched from gathered sites across several miles, a new find is calling to question much which was initially hypothosized because of the discovery of Lucy. This new find is named ARDI. Once again scientist are peicing together information about the life and daily habits of ARDI. In addition to hypothosyzing about the life of ARDI the habits and general physical attributes are also being estimated. Without actual physical proof scientist are left to interpret the data that is discovered.
Some Scientist believe that Homo ergaster evolved during an accelerated period of global cooling and drying that cleared more and more tropical rainforest from Africa and created a desert in the northern half of the continent.
About a boy
One of the best sources of information about Homo ergaster is a skeleton discovered in 1984 by Alan Walker and Kamoya Kimeu at Nariokotome in West Turkana, Kenya. The remains were found to be those of a teenage boy between the ages of 11 and 13 when he died. It appears that the boy's body sank into the marsh where he died and became fossilised. His teeth show signs of an abscess where his milk teeth fell out, indicating that he may have died from septicaemia (blood poisoning).
Nariokotome Boy, as he has been dubbed, was already developing a thick, bony ridge across his eyes. A pair of buck teeth stuck out from a large, projecting mouth below a long, wide nose.
Long limbs
He was about 160 centimetres (5 feet 3 inches) tall and would have stood at 185 centimetres (6 feet 1 inch) had he reached adulthood.
This was clearly a strapping lad, with a body shape that was perfectly adapted to an active life in the sun. Human populations living on equatorial grasslands today, such as the Masai in Kenya, have the same tall, linear physique. This body shape creates a large surface area over which the body can cool itself more easily, preventing Nariokotome Boy from overheating under the blazing Sun.
Cool customer
Some Scientiest believe this hominid was probably the first to regulate its temperature through sweating. For creatures that must remain active at midday in a sunny, dry habitat, sweating is the most effective mechanism for maintaining safe body and brain temperatures. Homo ergaster's body was probably smooth and largely hairless, since heat loss through sweating occurs most efficiently through naked skin. Its skin was almost certainly dark, to protect it from the Sun's harmful rays. Homo ergaster travelled long distances on foot to find food.
The outdoors type
Homo ergaster travelled long distances on foot, as it worked hard to scavenge enough meat to feed its growing body and brain. In order to increase the energy efficiency of muscles involved in upright walking, ergaster developed a narrower pelvis. But its snake hips came at a price.
Firstly, the narrowing of the pelvis caused the lower part of the ribcage to narrow. In order to prevent constriction of the lungs, the upper part of ergaster's rib cage expanded, giving its chest a human barrel shape. Secondly, and more importantly, the narrowing of the pelvis constricted the female birth canal. This single anatomical change seems to have had profound consequences for human relationships.
Reasons to be faithful
A tight pelvis could have caused problems during birth. As brains increased in size, mothers had to push increasingly big-brained infants through an already tight pelvis. The solution was a trade off. While chimpanzees are born with their brains almost fully mature, humans are born with a comparatively immature brain. This makes human babies helpless and vulnerable during their first year of life as their brains make vital neural connections.
As a result, human mothers need to be well nourished to keep up with the demands of their babies, making them increasingly reliant on the support of their male partner and other members of their social group. Many experts regard this shift as the beginning of the nuclear family.
Modern values
Less differences between the sexes in Homo ergaster may reflect a distinctively human pattern of sharing and cooperation between males and females. Homo ergaster probably communicated using gestures combined with a limited range of sounds. The vertebral canal of Nariokotome Boy does not seem developed enough to have given him the control over his breathing needed for complex speech.
The small cheek teeth of Nariokotome Boy suggest that ergaster relied more on stone tools for processing food. To begin with, ergasterused primitive 'Oldowan stone tools,' which are little more than chipped rocks with sharp edges. But by around 1.6 million years ago, ergaster developed symmetrical, heart-shaped handaxes known as 'Acheulean bifaces', which gave the hominid greater control over the butchering of meat for food.
Out of Africa
Shortly after Homo ergaster appeared, humans began to leave Africa for the first time and migrate to other continents. Early humans reached Dmanisi in ex-Soviet Georgia where they encountered cool, seasonal grasslands where African animals such as ostriches and giraffes mingled with Eurasian species such as wolves and the sabre-toothed cat Megantereon.
Humans quickly spread east as far as the Indonesian island of Java. The hominids that inhabited subtropical Asia at this time belong to the species Homo erectus. This early human learned to survive in the bamboo forests that covered this region of Asia. The paucity of stone tools from Southeast Asian hominid sites suggests that erectus may have created a technology based on bamboo, a strong and versatile material.
Bamboo tools
"They may have used bamboo to make spears for hunting and poles to knock animals down from the tall trees", says Professor Russell Ciochon of the University of Iowa.
Homo erectus shared these bamboo forests with pigs, a type of elephant called Stegodon and the biggest primate that has ever lived - the giant vegetarian ape Gigantopithecus. It's possible that Gigantopithecus may even have been hunted by early humans in Asia. "They probably wouldn't have taken on the big adults, but they may have targeted juveniles. If we look at people who live in forests today, they also eat apes", says Ciochon.
Early arrival
Dates for the arrival of Homo erectus in subtropical Asia are highly controversial. While erectus was clearly established throughout the region, some sites suggest an earlier date for its arrival. A hominid jaw and stone tools unearthed at Longuppo Cave, China, may date earlier. Similar dates have been established for hominid sites at Mojokerto and Sangiran in Java. This newfound wanderlust may have been dictated by an increasing reliance on meat for food. Carnivores generally need much larger home ranges than similar-sized herbivores because carnivores have fewer total calories available to them per unit area of their territory.
In Western society, the educational system and media teach and promote that man is, at best, nothing more than a highly evolved ape, and as their trump card, parade a string of supposed apemen fossils as the knock-out punch to anyone daring to doubt this tale. Is there really convincing fossil evidence proving that man has descended from the apes, or is this just another example of one-sided indoctrination into scientism, a materialistic philosophy that demands natural explanations for all phenomena in the cosmos? Put another way; is it possible that the scientists who promote human evolution are not objective in their interpretation of the fossil evidence?
Paleoanthropologist Milford Wolpoff writes: ‘In my view, “objectivity” does not exist in science. Even in the act of gathering data, decisions about what data to record and what to ignore reflect the framework of the scientist.’ Evolutionists John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas acknowledge: ‘… we must admit that the history of palaeontology does not read as a shining example of the pursuit of truth, especially where it was the truth of man’s origins that was at issue’. They later say: ‘… we do know that the popular image of the scientist as a dispassionate seeker after the truth could not be further from reality’. Lastly, consider the following comment by Roger Lewin, author of the book Bones of Contention: Controversy in the Search for Human Origins:
‘It is, in fact, a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. If this were the case, then each scientist faced with the same data would necessarily reach the same conclusion. But as we’ve seen earlier and will see again and again, frequently this does not happen. Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions. And the interesting question then becomes “What shapes the preference of an individual or group of researchers?” not “What is the truth?”’
Scientists, both evolutionist and creationist, tend to interpret what they see in the world through their own peculiar lenses, which represent their framework, worldview or ideology. If the lenses have evolution written on them, then the data will usually be molded to fit that preferred framework. The author believes evolution to be false, and that only through a biblical worldview is our true origin properly understood. According to the Bible, God ‘made of one blood all nations of men’ (Acts 17:26). There is no room for any ‘apemen’ pre-dating humans because ‘from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female’ (Mark 10:6). Therefore, all the supposed apemen belong either to the genus Homo, and are descendants of Adam and Eve, or they belong to extinct apes. The article gives evolutionary ages for the purpose of putting the fossils in an evolutionary context, but in no way implies agreement with these age dates.
Homo habilis is suggested as consisting of fossil specimens that can either be classified as extinct australopithecine apes or as humans, with some of the latter displaying Homo erectuscharacteristics. The fossils classified as erectus are believed by evolutionists to be the next evolved stage towards modern humans, with habilis the likely ancestor of erectus in this scenario. Using the rule of logic, if fossils attributed to erectus were not those of ‘apemen’, but fully human, then the case for human evolution essentially collapses, as there is an unbridgeable morphological gap between the australopithecine apes and erectus humans, with no missing links in between.
Physical anthropologist John Relethford acknowledges that ‘Although their brain size was somewhat smaller than ours today, Homo erectushad an essentially human skeleton from the neck down, made sophisticated stone tools, and possibly used fire.’ The ability to make sophisticated stone tools indicates that a smaller brain size was no barrier to erectus possessing human intelligence. It should be remembered that Anatole France, who had a brain size of about 1,000 cm3, only fractionally above the erectus average, won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Literature. Hence, why would evolution (if it could) bother developing a larger brain, at great cost, when it would provide no obvious extra benefit to that of a smaller brain?
Evolution is supposedly all about adaptive value of new novelties (a minute few of which may confer some benefit) that are believed to be randomly generated by freakishly improbable genetic mutations. Hence, if a larger brain has no apparent adaptive value, then clearly it could not evolve even if evolution was possible. It has not been demonstrated how even ‘beneficial’ genetic changes can increase the functional information content of the genome, as these DNA changes generally involve only sorting and loss of information. Hence, the mechanism for ‘upward’ evolutionary change is a mysterious ‘black box’. The brain is almost infinitely complex, and to believe that some unknown natural force has been driving it to ever-increasing size during the period of alleged human evolution, without even any plausible adaptive value, is to believe in zero probability. Something else must have happened to explain the incredible variation in brain size of humans, and this was intelligent design by a Creator. The following quote by Holloway illustrates the dilemma for the evolutionist:
Skulls classified as erectus are considered by evolutionists to exhibit key characteristics that differentiate them from modern humans. Key characteristics include: prominent browridges; insignificant chin; large mandible; forwardly projecting jaws; a flat, receding forehead; a long and low-vaulted cranium; occipital torus; relatively large teeth; relatively large facial skeleton; and a thick-walled braincase. A major problem for evolutionists is that many (if not all) of the above-mentioned features, which supposedly differentiateerectus from modern humans, also occur in modern humans. This is illustrated in recent native Australians by the prominent browridges of cranium 3596 from Euston, and the closer affinity of the modern human cranium from Australia, WLH-50, with the Ngandong erectus, compared to modern human late Pleistocene Africans and Levantines. According to Shreeve,
‘While some of the early modern humans from Australia look much like people today, others bear all the markings of a more robust kind of human, with thick skull bones, swollen browridges, and huge teeth, even bigger than those of Homo erectus in some specimens.’
Examples of other typical erectus-type features in modern humans, such as flattish receding forehead and insignificant chin development, can be seen in a photograph of a living native Australian, published in the late Victorian age, when there was appalling racism within anthropology. Native Australians are as human and ‘modern’ as anyone else, and so the above erectus-type features cannot be considered ‘primitive’.
Other adult Neandertal features include a retromolar space, broad nasal opening and large dentition.102 While evolutionists regard Neandertal as a separate species, a creationist view is that ‘erectus is just a smaller version of Neandertal and the most unique aspect of both is their skull shape’. There are also non-evolutionary explanations for some of the Neandertal features, such as the stress of biomechanical forces influencing skull morphology. Additionally, in his book Buried Alive, Jack Cuozzo demonstrates disturbing instances of faulty reconstructions of Neandertal specimens. In one example he illustrates how the Le Moustier specimen has been assembled to make the jaw appear more ape-like than it was, and in another, Cuozzo presents evidence that the chin of La Quina 5 was cut off to make it appear more ape-like.
As mentioned previously, many of the features supposedly differentiating erectus and Neandertal from modern humans also occur in some modern humans. For this reason the proponents of the multiregional view of human evolution, in contrast to those of the Out of Africa view, believe that Homo erectus, archaic Homo sapiens (heidelbergensis) and Neandertals ‘should be reclassified into a single species, Homo sapiens, that is subdivided only into races’, because they are insufficiently distinct from Homo sapiens. Consider the following statement by proponents of the multiregional school:
‘Neandertals have much larger browridges than living Europeans, and they are always continuously developed across the forehead. A significant number of recent and living Indigenous Aboriginal Australians have large, continuously developed browridges. Does this make them more primitive than Europeans? Does this make the Neandertals modern?’ If you believe that certain skull traits are indicative of a more ‘primitive’ status, then the above questions pose a real problem.
According to Stringer and Gamble,
‘The Neandertals were not apemen, nor missing links—they were as human as us, but they represented a different brand of humanity, one with a distinctive blend of primitive and advanced characteristics.’
Homo habilis consists of fossil specimens that can either be classified as extinct australopithecine apes or as humans, with some of the latter displaying Homo erectus characteristics. Without the burden of having to fit fossils into an evolutionary scheme, there is no reason not to accept fossils such as those categorized as erectus, and Neandertals as belonging to the one human kind. Differences in skeletal anatomy may simply reflect a greater genetic diversity within the human kind in the past, and in some instances living under particularly harsh environmental conditions, or even dietary habits, may have influenced skeletal development. The stress of peculiar biomechanical forces, as well as pathology, may also have influenced skull and postcranial morphology in some instances. The Bible also indicates that people lived longer in the past, with longevity declining post-Flood. As most of the fossils would have belonged to early post-Flood humans, it is possible that their natural lifespans may have been greater than those of people today. Hence, it is unclear what effect longevity, and possibly a different rate of skeletal maturation, would have had on skeletal features.
A few crucial digs have given us a glimpse of the everyday life of Homo heidelbergensis, (an extinct species of the genus Homo which lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia). This early human was developing a complex mind - once this boundary had been reached, there was no turning back.
Our knowledge of human evolution has always been limited by the meagre quantities of hominid fossils that have been discovered. But a system of limestone caves at Atapuerca in northern Spain has yielded an embarrassment of riches by comparison with an otherwise patchy hominid record.
The pit of bones
Since the 1980s, archaeologists have recovered the remains of 32 individuals from a chamber at the bottom of a 14 metre (45 foot) shaft known as La Sima de los Huesos ('The Pit of Bones'). The bones, comprise 75% of hominid fossils.
"Atapuerca was a good place to live. There was a river nearby and it was high up, so it was a good vantage point for hunters. The cave shelters there provided them with refuge," says Professor José Bermúdez de Castro of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and co-director of the Atapuerca research team.
Oldest European
The remains at La Sima, Atapuerca Mountains located in Spain belong to a species of hominid called Homo heidelbergensis. But another site at Atapuerca, a territory in Spain, has produced the remains of the oldest human ever found in Europe - a partial skull belonging to a young male who lived years ago. This skull was discovered in 1994, when the Atapuerca team were excavating the site of an old railway cutting at the Atapuercan locality of Trinchera Dolina.
The specimen shares many similarities with Homo ergaster. But Professor Juan Luis Arsuaga of the Complutense University of Madrid and co-director of the Atapuerca research considers it different enough to give it a new species name: Homo antecessor. Not all palaeoanthropologists accept this classification because it is based on a juvenile specimen and key characteristics of a species often develop only in adulthood.
Professor Eudald Carbonell of the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, says recent examination of the Trinchera Dolina remains antecessor could not have been ancestral to heidelbergensis. Instead, says Carbonell, antecessor was probably extinct.
Who were the first Britons?
Another group of humans had reached Boxgrove in West Sussex, England. Although Boxgrove is not the site of the earliest human occupation in Britain, it is almost certainly the richest.
In 1993, archaeologists unearthed the shinbone of a heavily built male. The shinbone measured 35 centimetres (13 inches) long and had deep muscle markings, suggesting its owner stood around 180 centimetres (6 feet) and weighed 88 kilogrammes (196 pounds).
This individual belonged to Homo heidelbergensis. Skulls from elsewhere in Europe and in Africa show that heidelbergensis was developing a large brain, and the species is now seen as some scientist as an evolutionary link between ergaster and modern humans.
Today, Boxgrove is a gravel quarry. At one time there was a beach and limestone cliffs here, with a tidal lagoon tucked behind a headland. Horses, megaloceros (giant deer), rhinoceros, voles and wolves occupied the landscape, along with a resourceful group of early humans.
Homo heidelbergensis was not afraid to tackle big animals.
Axes and spears
Bones from large animals such as rhinos, horses and hippos were covered with cut marks where Boxgrove man used stone blades to slash and butcher the animals for their meat. Crucially, the cut marks were found beneath the tooth marks of carnivores, indicating that humans got there before the scavengers. To archaeologist Mark Roberts, who led the Boxgrove excavation, this implies the Boxgrove people were hunting, not scavenging.
"Each (carcass) would have weighed 675 kilogrammes (1,500 pounds), a magnet for other predators. Yet each carcass was skilfully cut up. Fillet steaks were sliced from the spine and the bones were smashed to get out the marrow. Only hunters who were in total command of their patch could have done that," says Roberts.
Archaeologists have unearthed tens of thousands of flint and bone tools from Boxgrove. Boxgrove is best known for the Lower Palaeolithic archaeological site discovered in a gravel quarry known as Amey's Eartham Pit located near the village but in Eartham Parish in northern Europe.The site was effectively a tool factory. But the manner in which so many intact tools were abandoned may open an intriguing, yet perplexing window into the minds of heidelbergensis.
Evidence of ritual?
"They (heidelbergensis) make these handaxes that to our eyes look perfectly serviceable. And yet, they've tossed them away. There's a lot of making things but not actually using them," says Professor Clive Gamble of the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of Southampton, England.
Gamble cites wooden spears found preserved in a bog at Schöningen, Germany, and are associated with horse bones. The spears provide the first hard evidence of human hunting and are weighted at the ends to be thrown like a javelin.
"I just wonder whether the Schöningen spears were ever used. Yes, there are horses at the site, but are the tips of the spears damaged? You'd think spears like that would break after they'd been jammed in a few horses," muses Gamble. For heidelbergensis, tools and hunting weapons may have played an important role in social display, one that we don't yet fully understand and may even border on ritual.
"They may have been more interested in making things as a demonstration of who they were and what was important to them. Killing horses was probably something they did once a week," Gamble remarks.
In 2003, the Atapuerca team announced the discovery of a single stone handaxe found buried amongst the human remains in the Pit of Bones. According to the researchers, its strange colour may mark it out as evidence of the first funeral rite, which suggests the hominids at Atapuerca were deposited in the pit deliberately.
Early deaths
The rich assemblage of human remains from Atapuerca offers a fascinating but more disturbing insight into the life - and possibly the mind - ofheidelbergensis. Since the cache of bones was first described in 1997, archaeologists have puzzled at how the remains of 32 individuals accumulated at the bottom of this narrow shaft.
The Atapuerca researchers conclude that the remains come from one group and were dumped there in the space of a year. Almost all are adolescents, with the exception of two adults and a child.
"It must have been a catastrophe. It could have been due to an epidemic, or various illnesses," remarks Bermúdez de Castro. Many bones display signs of poor health, including malnourishment, infections and abnormal growths.
But Carbonell thinks he can explain the large numbers of adolescents in the pit. "In my opinion, the death of many juveniles is very normal for populations living the Middle and Late Pleistocene periods," he explains." The is Plesitocene period is marked by the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. Females of 16-18 years may have died in childbirth. Males aged 9-12 years are at a stage where they leave the protection of their families but are still fragile in the face of nature. They are more likely to have been bitten or killed by wild animals," adds Carbonell.
However, Professor Peter Andrews of the Natural History Museum in London thinks that the bodies could have been sludged into the pit through a mudflow. "One has to put some caution into this because it has been suggested that this is a secondary deposit and therefore could be accidental," says Professor Chris Stringer, also of the Natural History Museum.
Mysterious mind
If the bodies were dropped into the pit as part of a burial ritual, Atapuerca, could provide the first clear evidence of symbolic thinking in an early hominid. "It is very hard to get colleagues to accept evidence of ritual for early humans," says Bermúdez de Castro.
These narrow glimpses into the mind and everyday life of heidelbergensisare at once fascinating and frustrating. But this early human was undoubtedly developing a complex mind. Once this boundary had been reached, there was no turning back.
What does the Bible say about Cavemen?
We have taken some time to discuss the whole contreversey about apes and ape-men and even other type of humans of many years ago. Of course many findings in human evolution can easily fit into the creation story. For example, the first apes that walked upright could just be other animals created by God. However, we have found not only ape-men but other species of human. While no evidence truly exists suppporting this theory it cannot be negated either since evidence that does exist could be interpreted in this way. That is one of the most interesting facts about fossils is that they really do not speak for themselves and much is left to the interpretation of the Scientific community to interpret.
Human evolution suggests that apes turn into humans. Of course these apes could be just other animal creations of God or a differentiated form of our very own genus as has been suggested of the fossils found in Asia. However, the following species are what we would recognize as Human (Erectus, Heildelberg, and the famed Neanderthals). These species are human in the human family, however they are of different species and lower intelligence than our species, but still human-like intelligence. Since many men of that day where either nomads or cave dwellers they would have had considerablly different skills compared to other tribes. Again if we reason to the varying difference in lifestyles can we suggest their different atributes is indicative of the regions they lives in, types of food sources they had available, dangers they faced, and living conditions? It would seem reasonable, since this is something we can still observe in today's world. People living in the United States very different lives with comfortable homes, jobs they commute to and technological advances, compared to individuals living in the Sahara Dessert. While each of these peoples may have intelligence their environments cause them to live very differently. It would be reasonable to suggest that ancient ancestors had similar circumstances during their time.
As part of the Scientific Method we should always be looking to prove and retest every theory or idea. One of the greatest hoaxes in the Scientific community is to suggest that something is true. If anything over the last century has been proved to be true is that everything can be questioned and advanced to a better undertsanding. At one time people though the world was flat and now we know that the world is indeed round. So many Scientific discoveries have changed over the years that we cannot say for sure anything that we truly see, since we now know that a whole life cycle exists around us that we cannnot even see. No laws is set in stone even if we suggest it to be that way. True Science is always asking why, where, how, and proving to see if it can be accomplished. Once you have settled you no longer will learn anything new. This can also be true of studying the fossil records. Clearly bones exists and we can see them, but what is interepreted surrounding the events that occured, features, lifestyle, habits, or anything pertaining to how and what really is left to interpretation. As a young Scientist yourself you should always consider to ask the question that is not odvious and persue truth that is not readily seen.
There are frequent news items that arise, that show the errors of those in the evolution community. February 25, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Reiner Protsch, an influential German scientist, a supposed expert in carbon dating, has been exposed as a forger and plagiarizer and his dating of the northern European "Neanderthal man" has been found to be bogus. During a routine check of Protsch's work last year, it was found that a skeleton he had dated at 27,400 years was actually that of a man who died 250 years ago. Another skeleton, which Protsch had dated at 21,300 years, is actually 3,300 years old ("Anthropologist resigns in 'dating disaster,'" WorldNetDaily, Feb. 19). Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory." Frankfurt University president Rudolf Steinberg apologized for the university's failure to curb Protsch's misconduct for decades, admitting, "A lot of people looked the other way."
For some time people wondered whether these other humans were just other races but as more complete skeletons are found we see that they have many different features and their DNA is different. While small variations in genetic make up has been detected it has not given us any impression that these ancestors were outside of the human genus. We cannot deny they ever exsisted, but how do they play into the bible story? Was the first human a Homo Erectus or were they other humans created around the same time? Did God make a bunch of different humans in his own image and then chose our species to live on? What does the Bible say about these other humans?
The "first man" in the evolutionist's mind is the typical cave man: dumb, wild, long hair, carrying a club, dragging his wife around by her hair, and living in a rough cave. The Bible descibes the first man as created in the image of God. Genesis 1:26, 27 says, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."