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Topic: Really old head (Read 922 times) |
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BillRoh
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Really old head
« on: 2003-06-11 11:58:33 » |
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Found this at the BBC News - they got it from Nature I think. Most of us have been watching science for new info on our origins. For those interested in that field, you might find this interesting.
found: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2978800.stm
Oldest human skulls found
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News Online science staff
Three fossilised skulls unearthed in Ethiopia are said by scientists to be among the most important discoveries ever made in the search for the origin of humans.
Herto skull: Dated at between 160,000 and 154,000 years old (Image copyright: David L. Brill)
Enlarge image
The crania of two adults and a child, all dated to be around 160,000 years old, were pulled out of sediments near a village called Herto in the Afar region in the east of the country.
They are described as the oldest known fossils of modern humans, or Homo sapiens.
What excites scientists so much is that the specimens fit neatly with the genetic studies that have suggested this time and part of Africa for the emergence of mankind.
"All the genetics have pointed to a geologically recent origin for humans in Africa - and now we have the fossils," said Professor Tim White, one of the co-leaders on the research team that found the skulls.
"These specimens are critical because they bridge the gap between the earlier more archaic forms in Africa and the fully modern humans that we see 100,000 years ago," the University of California at Berkeley, US, paleoanthropologist told BBC News Online.
Out of Africa
The skulls are not an exact match to those of people living today; they are slightly larger, longer and have more pronounced brow ridges.
These minor but important differences have prompted the US/Ethiopian research team to assign the skulls to a new subspecies of humans called Homo sapiens idaltu (idaltu means "elder" in the local Afar language).
Herto reconstruction: What the ancient people might have looked like (Image copyright: J. Matternes)
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The Herto discoveries were hailed on Wednesday by those researchers who have championed the idea that all humans living today come from a population that emerged from Africa within the last 200,000 years.
The proponents of the so-called Out of Africa hypothesis think this late migration of humans supplanted all other human-like species alive around the world at the time - such as the Neanderthals in Europe.
If modern features already existed in Africa 160,000 years ago, they argued, we could not have descended from species like Neanderthals.
"These skulls are fantastic evidence in support of the Out of Africa idea," Professor Chris Stringer, from London's Natural History Museum, told BBC News Online.
"These people were living in the right place and at the right time to be possibly the ancestors of all of us."
Sophisticated behaviour
The skulls were found in fragments, at a fossil-rich site first identified in 1997, in a dry and dusty valley.
Stone tools and the fossil skull of a butchered hippo were the first artefacts to be picked up. Buffalo fossils were later recovered indicating the ancient humans had a meat-rich diet.
The most complete of the adult skulls was seen protruding from the ancient sediment; it had been exposed by heavy rains and partially trampled by herds of cows.
SEARCH FOR HUMAN ORIGINS
Map, BBC
The Herto skulls represent a confirmation of the genetic studies
Read more
The skull of the child - probably aged six or seven - had been shattered into more than 200 pieces and had to be painstakingly reconstructed.
All the skulls had cut marks indicating they had been de-fleshed in some kind of mortuary practice. The polishing on the skulls, however, suggests this was not simple cannibalism but more probably some kind of ritualistic behaviour.
This type of practice has been recorded in more modern societies, including some in New Guinea, in which the skulls of ancestors are preserved and worshipped.
The Herto skulls may therefore mark the earliest known example of conceptual thinking - the sophisticated behaviour that sets us apart from all other animals.
"This is very possibly the case," Professor White said.
The Ethiopian discoveries are reported in the journal Nature.
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BillRoh
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Re:Really old head
« Reply #2 on: 2003-07-08 13:47:06 » |
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I suspect that you are correct WandererWhite on the latter point. Nothing will convince a true believer - it wouldn't be faith if one lets facts interfere with belief.
Does it really matter anyway? For the creationists, proving creation is a life goal. I shudder to think what would happen if people so dedicated to their religion and god suddenly realized that their framework is so much hooey. Would they have the enough of the psychological structure necessary to keep them reasonably sane? For instance: If you are convinced that morals come from God, how does it affect your morals and sanity when you find out that they are not god given, but socially and genetically acquired? Lets face it, many think that us atheists are deviants, sickos and morally reprehensible. They think god never gave us our morals, so we acquired man's own homemade ethical morals. The worst place to get them (from the creationist perspective). I have to wonder how many good people would become dangerous or wild if they realized that god is not helping them, giving them moral direction, won't be there for them when they die, and that their dead loved ones are not in heaven, but rotting in a box somewhere.
Maybe denial is best for some people, and for us as well.
And welcome WandererWhite - I have not seen you before. I hope you are enjoying this wonderful lil' church.
Bill Roh
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