Many on this list are aware of my suggestion that the creation
and Flood of Noah occurred 5.5 Myr ago. This was suggested
because that is the only way that geology can be harmonized with
the Biblical account of the Flood. I suggested that there was a
long, long technological dark age between then and now, in which
what we observe in the archeological record is the slow re-
development of technology to and surpassing the pre-flood levels.
I based this suggestion upon the logical reasoning that if there
were only 8 survivors of today's world, the technology we have
all become comfortable with, would not be passed on to our
children. Each of us knows a small part of the technology of the
modern world but not enough to complete the process. This lack
of knowledge can be illustrated by each of us asking ourselves a
set of questions.
Do I know how to make gun powder?
Do I know how to make iron?
Do I know how to make electricity?
Do I know how to find copper ore?
Do I know how to make pottery? What kind of clay is required?
Do I know how to make glass?
One could continue this list indefinitely.
If there were only 8 of us, none of us knows enough technology to
be able to pass our level of technology on to our children.
Information would be quickly lost. Because of this assumption
that spirituality equals inventiveness (which is questionable in
and of itself), many have suggested that the slow change of
technology in the past means that Homo erectus was not spiritual.
Some have criticised this idea, assuming that modern humans were
smarter and would be more inventive than that. Humans, they say
could re-invent the technology rapidly. Thus the destruction of
the entire human race save 8 souls would have no real impact on
the technological status of the human race. Technology would
continue across this catastrophe.
There is an analogical situation from recent human history which
illustrates a lost of technology in an isolated population.
Assuming that inventiveness is equal to spirituality, the
Tasmanians would not be spiritual. Here is why. (Unless
otherwise noted, all references from Josephine Flood, Archeology
of the Dreamtime, Yale Univ. Press, 1990)
During the last Ice Age, Australian Aborigines inhabited all of
Tasmania, Australia and New Guinea, which, due to lowered sea
levels, consisted of one single land body. Sometime between 8
and 12,000 years ago, sea levels rose to the extent that it cut
Tasmania off from Australia. The Aborigines living there at the
time were rapidly isolated from all other humans. According
Flood, "No other surviving human society has ever been isolated
so long or so completely as were Tasmanian Aborigines over the
last 8000 years." (p. 173) During this period of isolation, the
Tasmanians developed several physical traits which were unique.
They had the widest nasal index of any people ever recorded.
Their heads were shorter and broader than those of their
ancestors, the Australians.
They lived on a cold 68,000 square mile, island, with a latitude
as far south of the Equator as New York City is north. Their
population was around 4,000 people, many more than would have
been isolated by the flood. Yet according to Flood, this is not
enough people to maintain even the primitive technology the
Tasmanians inherited from their Australian ancestors. As their
isolation continued they lost technology after technology and
their lives became more and more primitive. Rhys Jones calls this
the "slow strangulation of the mind" (p. 185)
The archeological record shows that in the beginning, Australians
made stone tools, some of which were attached to handles, a
process known as hafting. They also made bone tools such as
needles with which they poked holes in animal skins and then
sewed them together to make clothing. The Australian society of
8,000 years ago produced many fine weapons. Boomerangs, barbed
spears (called death spears), and axe heads made by grinding.
The Australian aborigine ancestors of the Tasmanians left some
art in caves. The first rock art in Tasmania was found in January
1986. (Flood, p. 115) It was in a cave and dated to 23,000 years
ago, long before the sea isolated the island. This represents the
skills of the Tasmanian ancestors. The only other rock art I
have been able to find out about on the island dates from 2000
years ago and it is open air rock art. (Flood, p. 186)
Eight thousand years ago, when the Tasmanians were first isolated
they were making one bone tool for every two or three stone
tools. The first Tasmanians caught numerous fish, at Rocky Cape
Cave, the lowermost deposits contain the remains of 31 species of
fish. The evidence shows that the Tasmanians used baited box
traps, and tidal traps made of stone. Such traps were also used
on the mainland. There is also evidence of the use of nets (p.
178).
In almost every way, the initial lives of the Tasmanians were
identical technologically to the Australians. But as the
isolation continued, the 4,000 Tasmanians began to lose their
technology. By 4,000 years ago, they were not making very many
bone tools. Instead of the original 1 bone/3 stone tools ratio,
only 1 bone tool for every fifteen stone tools is found in
deposits of that time period. By 3,500 years ago, Tasmanians
were no longer making bone tools. (Flood, p. 177)
The loss of bone tool technology had implications. No
longer were they able to use bone tools to sew their clothing.
The Tasmanians simply draped the animal skin over themselves and
tied it onto them with animal skin. Considering the cold climate
of Tasmania, this was rather poor clothing.
Stone tools were not attached to handles as was done on
Australia, but the Tasmanians held each rock and used it to cut
the trees. This is absolutely the most primitive form of stone
tool use and is less efficient than would be the case if the tool
was hafted. (Hafting is the process of attaching a handle to the
tool) Imagine if you can, chopping down a tree by holding a
sharp rock in your hand.
By 3800 years ago, the Tasmanians had given up fishing. In
spite of having a tremendous food source all around them, they no
longer ate fish. This means they had given up or lost the
technologies for nets, and traps. The Tasmanians had become seal
hunters. All they needed for seal hunting was a big club to
slaughter the young. During later times, the only fishing which
took place was the collection of shellfish. The women would
cover themselves with seal fat and dive for shellfish. (p. 181)
Boomerangs, barbed points, and ground axe heads were not
found among the Tasmanians. All of this technology, possessed by
their Australian ancestors, was lost.
Tasmania was settled by Europeans in the early 1800s (I
believe in 1803). The Europeans immediately began a campaign to
exterminate these primitive peoples. It was not until 1830, that
the first "scientific" observations were made of these people.
George Augustus Robinson, lived with the Tasmanians for 6 years.
The European war of extermination succeeded. In 1876, Truganini,
the last full-blooded Tasmanian died.
The small population meant that there was little evidence of
a religious life among them. There were no great gatherings or
ceremonies with lots of people. Other than dancing and a few
ceremonies, which were observed in the 1830's there is nothing in
the archeological record which would indicate a religious life,
yet all aborigines on the Australian continent have a thriving
religious life. Another thing lost. (p. 185)
By the time that Europeans were able to observe them, their
entire material culture consisted of about 24 items: "wooden
spears, throwing clubs, the women's club-chisel-digging stick,
wooden wedges or spatulae, baskets woven from grass or rushes,
possum-skin pouch bags, water buckets made from kelp, fire-
sticks, kangaroo skin cloaks, shell necklaces, canoe-rafts, huts
and a few stone tools." (p. 185) These people were among the
most materially impoverished on earth.
The Tasmanian material culture was so impoverished that in 1987
W. C. McGrew published, what has become an infamous article in
anthropological circles. In this article he compared the
toolmaking abilities of Tasmanians with chimpanzees. The
Tasmanians barely won the comparison! (see W. C. McGrew, "Tools
to get Food: The Subsistants of Tasmanian Aborigines and
Tanzanian Chimpanzees Compared," Journal of Anthropological
Research, 43(1987):3:247-258). Needless to say the author
collected many scornful comments. But the pitifully simple
technology of the Tasmanians is amazing.
There are three lessons to be learned from the Tasmanians.
First, if there was a flood which left only 8 people on the
planet, they too would be unable to maintain their technology and
pass it on to their children. If 4000 Tasmanians could not
maintain even a stone age technology, how could 8 people maintain
a Neolithic technology after the flood? The only logical
conclusion would be that the descendants of Noah would become
brutal savages. If the flood truly left only 8 people on earth,
the level of technology that they would be able to maintain would
be abysmal. A long, long technological dark age would follow
that catastrophe just as a dark age was enveloping the
Tasmanians. The decline would be much more rapid than the
decline of Tasmanian technology and it would be more complete.
This historical example clearly illustrates what life would be
like for the survivors of the Flood. A long time would be
required for technology to be re-invented.
The second implication is that these fully human people left less
evidence for their spirituality or humanity than did the
Neanderthals. Neanderthals lived more than 30,000 years ago.
Since wood rots rapidly and is rarely preserved in the fossil
record, there will be no evidence any "human-like" activities
left in 20,000 years. In Europe, the oldest open-air rock art is
no older than 20,000 years. This is because erosion rapidly
removes art from walls exposed to the weather. Older art only
survives in caves. The most recent aboriginal open air rock art
in Tasmania appears to be only 2,000 years old. In 20,000 years
or so, it all will have eroded away, leaving the future
archeologist no evidence of representational art among these
peoples. These people, who are fully human, fully spiritual and
fully in need of salvation, will appear to the future
archeologist as the Neanderthal's and erectus' appear to us.
There will be no evidence of art, religion, and certainly no
evidence of inventiveness. Since Neanderthal did leave some
evidence of a religious life (possible bear cult activities),
some evidence of an artistic life (flutes and whistles) and some
evidence of inventiveness, they will actually appear better to
future archeologists than will the Tasmanians. Christians should
not feel comfortable in rejecting the humanity of Neanderthals
and erectus' when the Tasmanians left less material for the
future archeologist to find than did Neanderthal. Yet we KNOW
that the Tasmanians were human.
The technological comparisions of the Tasmanians of 1803 with the
Neanderthals is interesting.
..........................Tasmanians Neanderthals
hafting of stone tools No yes
sewn clothing no no
bone tools no yes
fishing no yes
shellfishing yes yes
producing rock art no no
necklaces yes yes
Longest transport of tool 100 km 300 km.
(limited by island size for
Tasmanians)
Housing 3 m round huts 3 m round huts
components of most
complex tool (parts of
tool) 4 3
Burial of dead no yes
Some have claimed that Neanderthals did not make bone points very
often because they did not have a fully cognizant mind. Stephen
Mithen writes: "..in those very rare instances when Early Humans
did work bone, they chipped it as if it were stone. This implies
that if technical intelligence was indeed being used, it was not
working effectively, since chipping is an inappropriate method
for working bone." Prehistory of the Mind, p. 186.
Other technologies which are said to be indicative of
intelligence are hafting. Brian Hayden says,
"In and of itself, hafting is a strong indicator of curation,
foresight and mental templates of tool designs employing
different materials shaped to predetermined specifications."
Brian Hayden "The Cultural Capacities of Neandertals ",
Journal of Human Evolution 1993, 24:113-146, p. 115-116
Because of this, the supposed lack of hafting among early man has
been used to imply that they had different mental states than
modern humans. (See Mithen, Prehistory of the Mind, p. 122-123)
If one uses Neanderthal technology as a reason to exclude them
from the Human race, then one must be consistent and apply the
same standard to the Tasmanians. However, since the Tasmanians
were fully human, and yet lived with Neanderthal levels of
technology, how can technology be used to determine humanity?
Wilcox writes:
"The evidence for artistic or religious expression among the
Neanderthals is almost nonexistent. There is debate over whether
(and for what reasons) they may have occasionally buried their
dead, over whether they used ochre as paint, and over their
hunting methods... However, there is no evidence of art, no
ornaments, no symbolism, no indication of graving tools or
sewing, and clear indication of permanent settlements or trade of
raw materials." ~David L. Wilcox, "Adam, Where Are You? Changing
Paradigms in Paleoanthropology," Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith , 48:2( June 1996), p. 92
So does the lack of evidence for religious activity among the
Tasmanians of the 19th century imply that they are not human?
The third lesson from the Tasmanians is that the war of
extermination, a racist war of genocide, was carried out before
the publication of the Origin of Species. This shows that
evolution was not required for racism to exist.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm