First off, man was told to fill the earth. Homo erectus filled everything
except australia and the Americas and thus he should get credit for being
the first to occupy the majority of the land area on earth. I think he was
Adam and a case can be made for it which I will make at the very end.
For Europe the 2 million was a bit of a roundup. The earliest evidence of
stone tools in Europe is around 1.8 MYR. While I wouldn't take too hard a
stand on the earlier evidences of stone tools in Europe, they are there and
stand out as anomalies in the current views. And even if one discounts the
European evidence I will present below, one must still deal with the very
firmly dated evidence for Homo erectus having populated most of the old
world between 2.0 and 1.6 myr ago. Here is the data
Java 1.8 myr
(~ C. C. Swisher III et al, "Age of the Earliest Known Hominids in Java,
Indonesia," Science 263, Feb. 25, 1994, p. 1118-1121)
Georgia (in Russia) 1.6 Myr ago
(Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, The Wisdom of the Bones, (New York: Alfred
Knopf, 1996), p. 233)
Africa at 1.9 myr
(Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, The Wisdom of the Bones, (New York: Alfred
Knopf, 1996), p. 240)
Wushan China at 1.8-2.0 myr
(Dennis A. Etler, "The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution in Asia," Ann.
Rev. Anthropol. 1996, 25:275-301, p. 276-278)
Stone tools were found there also (Ian Tattersall, "Out of Africa
Again...and Again?" Scientific American April, 1997, p. 60-67)
Xiochangliang in the Nihewan basin of Hebei at 1.6 myr
(Etler, Ibid.)
There are several well documented stone tools at Riwat Pakistan dating to
2.0 myr. (Richard G. Klein, The Human Career, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1989), p. 206-207; R.W. Dennell, H. M. Rendell and E.
Hailwood, "Late Pliocene Artefacts from Northern Pakistan," Current
Anthropology, 29:3, June 1988, p. 498)
Now for Europe,
The first site discussed is Chilhac, France.
"If we consider the chronological situation of the earliest human remains
in Europe, we find that the oldest tools (Chilhac, France) appear as early
as 1,700,000 years ago." ~ Jan Jelinek, "Was Homo Erectus Already Homo
Sapiens?" Colloques Internationaux du C.N.R.S. No. 599--Les Processus de
L'Hominisation, pp 85-89, p. 87
Orce is a bit older at 1.8 million years. Orce is not a popular name among
anthropologists. At one Orce site, Venta Micena, there was a huge
controversy concerning some fragmentary 'human' remains from there that
involved a discussion about the fractal nature of cranial sutures. Most
people did not think that these were human remains. A few fellows did.
However, the stone tools at Orce seem to be a lot less controversial than
the human remains. There are some issues concerning the dating of this
site. Some say it is actually one million years old. They are very
primitive and so have not been widely accepted yet. Bower writes:
"Gibert places one Orce site, Barranco Leon, at about 1.8 million years
old. It has yielded more than 100 flint artifacts, most simple implements
sharpened on one side and flakes chipped off larger pieces of stone.
Barranco Leon excavations have also yielded a partial hominid tooth and a
hippopotomus skeleton, according to the Spanish researcher." B. Bower,
"Ancient Roads to Europe," Science News, 151, January 4, 1997, pp 12-13, p.
12.
Zihlman and Lowenstein report on the tools from Fuentenueva, one of the
Orce sites.
"Fuentenueva 3 contains three distinct layers of artifacts associated with
fauna including mammoths and horses and a faunal age estimated at about 1.6
million years. Cores, manuports, and small flakes characterize the
assemblage." ~ Adrienne L. Zihlman and Jerold M. Lowenstein, "A Spanish
Olduvai?" Current Anthropology, 37:4(Aug.-Oct. 1996), p. 695-697, p. 696
Another Spanish site leads to the possibility that there may be some
Australopithecine influence there. At Gran Dolina, in Atapuerca, Spain,
"The TD6 layer is about two feet beneath a level that has now been dated
by paleomagnetism to about 780,000 years ago. thus, the human bones from
Gran Dolina must be between 800,000 and one million years old--the oldest
such material in Europe, with the possible exception of tools and human
bone fragments from the controversial site of Orce, near Granada in
southern Spain, which may be 1.8 million years old. Since the Gran Dolina's
bones contain some very archaic features, including primitive dental traits
reminiscent of African australopithecines, the team is speculating that
they may eventually lead to the naming of a new species whose relation to
other hominids is still being determined." ~ Paul G. Bahn, "Treasure of the
Sierra Atapuerca", Archaeology, January/February, 1996, pp 45-48, p. 46-47
After the Orce sites there is much more evidence for the habitation of
Europe from 1 million years ago, at Vallonet and Soleihac France.
"In Europe stones that may be artificially flaked or animal bones that may
be humanly broken occur at several sites that are probably 1 million years
old or more. However, none of these sites provides truly compelling
evidence for human presence, and the oldest reasonably secure sites are
perhaps Le Vallonnet Cave near Nice and the Soleihac open-air (lake) site
near Le Puy in the Massif Central of southeastern France. At both sites,
horizons with artifacts have been dated by paleomagnetism and faunal
associations to the Jaramillo Normal Subchron, between roughly 970,000 and
900,000 years ago. At Le Vallonnet, the artifacts comprise a handful of
choppers and associated flakes; at Soleihac, the somewhat larger collection
contains several retouched flakes ('scrappers'), choppers, and one
'protobiface.' At Soleihac, a 20-m-long line of basalt blocks may
represent the oldest structural remnant in Europe, if it is truly of human
origin." ~ Richard G. Klein, The Human Career, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1989), p. 212-213
Why erectus must be Adam.
What follows is a discussion of why erectus must be Adam IF one believes
that Adam is the progenitor of the human race. The following will have
little force for those who hold to a solution like Dick Fischer's.
Given the widespread and generally accepted evidence for existence of Homo
erectus throughout the old world by no later than 1.6 myr ago, there is one
implication which becomes clear. Homo erectus MUST HAVE BEEN ON EARTH
CONSIDERABLY EARLIER THAN THIS TIME. It takes a long time for a paleolithic
population to increase in numbers to the extent to force such a large scale
occupation. Modern people believe that throughout history humans have
reproduced and increased their population at a 1-3% rate. This simply
isn't true. Stone Age societies do not have babies at the rate farming
societies do. The rapid population explosion that modern people have been
accustomed to is a post-agricultural revolution phenomenon. Cavalli-Sforza
et al write:
"Compared with populations that live in the same areas and have
traditional economies but more advanced systems, hunter-gatherers have the
lowest birth rates." ~ L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paoli Menozzi and Alberto
Piazzi, The History and Geography of Human Genes, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1994), p. 106
Louis Leakey writes:
"In my childhood days, Kikuyu Elders would explain to young candidates for
initiation into adult status their law that a woman must not bear a child
more than once in three years by saying quite simply,'If a woman starts
another child before the previous one is more than two years old, then the
child that has thus been conceived, the growing child which she is nursing,
and the mother herself, will all suffer. Therefore, our law forbids a
woman to have a child until three years after the previous one, unless the
previous one has died in the meantime." ~ L. B. S. Leakey, The Progress and
Evolution of Man in Africa, (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 18
Given that menarch was generally late in such societies (18 years) and
given that most people died by the early 30s, a woman under these
conditions would bear at most 4 children. Then given the mortality rates
of children is such societies, the tribe was lucky if they raised 2
children to adulthood for every 2 adults in the community.
Population growth in the paleolithic was quite slow. This means that it
would take a long,long, time for Homo erectus to acquire the numbers to
conquer such a territory. How do we calculate the time? The world
population just prior to the agricutlural revolution was probably about
10-12 million people. This is the maximum number of people that hunting
and gathering can support. (J. Landers, "Reconstructing Ancient
Populations," in Steve Jones et al, editors, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Human Evolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 402)
Given a rate of 2% per millenium for the population growth, it would take
790,000 years for H. erectus to fill the old world. This would place his
origin at least back to around 2.8 million years. A 1% per millenium growth
rate would lead to 1.5 myr placing his origin around 3.5 million years.
It is not unreasonable for Adam to have lived a long, long time ago.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution