No I have not re-subscribed, and may not for a long time. But there are
several issues that will interest those on this list.
Several items of anthropological interest have come to my attention over the
past few days.
I reported earlier (on the ASA list) that Adcock et al had sequenced the
mtDNA of a 60,000 year old modern human and found that it was quite
different from modern human mtDNA. The DNA being quite different from modern
human mtDNA means that this human had an extremely old mtDNA, which strongly
implies interbreeding between H. erectus and H. sapiens. This of course
suggests the conclusion that we and they are of the same species. Details
can be found at http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200101/0123.html
The reason I cite that again, is because I finally got (from my library
service halfway around the world) an article from Science by Wolpoff, Hawks,
Frayer, and Hunley. They compared two eastern European skulls from Mladec
with the skulls of the reputed Out of Africa invaders (Skhul/Qafzeh people)
and with the skulls of Neanderthals. They also performed the same process
with an early modern human Australian (WLH-50) and compared it with Ngandong
erectus and with the Skhul/Qafzeh people. They scored each skull for a set
of traits, up to 30. They then computed a pairwise difference between the
groups. What they found was that the early modern humans at Mladec
resembled Neandertal more closely than the replacement Skhul/Qafzeh peoples.
THey also found that the early modern Australian resembled H. erectus more
closely than the supposed replacement population. The authors say:
“On average, WLH-50 possesses fewer differences from the Ngandong group (3.7
pairwise differences) than from either African (9.3) or Levantine (7.3)
groups. Mean pairwise differences between Ngandong and African, and Ngandong
and Levantine groups are statistically significant at the 0.05 level
(Mann-Whitney).” Milford H. Wolpoff, John Hawks, David W. Frayer, and Keith
Hunley, “Modern Human Ancestry at the Peripheries: A Test of the Replacement
Theory,” Science 291(2001):293-297, p. 295
**
“In sum, in its nonmetric traits WLH-50 is closer to the specimens from
Ngandong than to any other group. If Ngandong was the expected ancestor
under the replacement theory, this would disprove a dual-ancestry
hypothesis. However, it is not, and a Ngandong ancestry disproves the
replacement theory, so the conservative interpretation of these results is
that the dual-ancestry hypothesis cannot be disproved.” Milford H. Wolpoff,
John Hawks, David W. Frayer, and Keith Hunley, “Modern Human Ancestry at the
Peripheries: A Test of the Replacement Theory,” Science 291(2001):293-297,
p. 295-296
**
“The average pairwise difference between Mladec 5 and the Neandertal sample
is 14.8, and between Mladec 5 and the Skhul/Qafzeh sample, 14.0—virtually
the same. On the other hand, for Mladec 6 the corresponding comparisons are
7.8 and 11.6, so it is closer to the Neandertal sample.” Milford H. Wolpoff,
John Hawks, David W. Frayer, and Keith Hunley, “Modern Human Ancestry at the
Peripheries: A Test of the Replacement Theory,” Science 291(2001):293-297,
p. 296
**
“Another way to examine this nonmetric variation is in terms of its
distribution within and between the samples of putative Mladec ancestors.
Three of the nonmetric variables completely separated the Neandertal and
Skhul/Qafzeh samples. Of these, the Mladec crania were like the Neandertals
in two, and like Skhul/Qafzeh in one. Seven additional traits almost
completely separated the putative Mladec ancestors. Of these, the Mladec
crania were like the Neandertals in four, and like Skhul/Qafzeh in two. For
the seventh trait, one Mladec cranium was like each comparative sample. In
spite of the predominance of Neandertal resemblances for this subset of 10
traits, the normal approximation of the binomial distribution shows that an
ancestry hypothesis in which dual ancestry is assumed to be equal ancestry
cannot be rejected at the 0.05 level.” Milford H. Wolpoff, John Hawks, David
W. Frayer, and Keith Hunley, “Modern Human Ancestry at the Peripheries: A
Test of the Replacement Theory,” Science 291(2001):293-297, p. 296
**
“We do not doubt that many prehistoric groups were replaced by others, but
we conclude that the hypothesis that all living humans descended from a
single geographically isolated group during the Late Pleistocene is false,
and that the replacement explanation for the origin of these early modern
Australians and Europeans can be ruled out.” Milford H. Wolpoff, John Hawks,
David W. Frayer, and Keith Hunley, “Modern Human Ancestry at the
Peripheries: A Test of the Replacement Theory,” Science 291(2001):293-297,
p. 296
At the same time I received an article from the South African Journal of
Science discussing the state of Chinese Paleoanthropology. They too gave
evidence for the continuity of traits from H. erectus into modern
populations. At the site of Tangshan, near Nanjing, two skulls were found
in 1993 and 1994. They show some very interesting features including the
earliest evidence of syphilis and a common facial structure with modern
Chinese. These fossils are 500,000 years old. The article states:
“The most important recent finds of human fossils are two crania of Homo
erectus from Tangshan, 30 kilometres east of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province,
that came to light in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Local workers in a
limestone quarry extracted them from a cave deposit. They are significant in
being nearly identical in most important features to Peking Man from
Zhoukoudian. Together with the fragmented cranium from Yiyuan county,
Shangdong Province, they suggest that Peking Man-like people were to be
found from northern China to the territory across the Yangtze River during
the Middle Pleistocene.
“Tangshan I was found on 13 March 1993. It is gracile and thought to
represent a female. It comprises the anterior part of the cranium and
fragments of the occipital and parietal bones. Marked pathology is evident
in the frontal squama. The surface is uneven, showing bony loss and repair.
According to Lu Zun’e, this lesion is characteristic of the sexually
transmitted disease, syphilis. If he is correct, this woman would be the
oldest known victim of syphilis! What is more, the cranium preserves
portions of the face not seen in previous crania of H. erectus from either
Zhoukoudian or other sites. Although two Yunxian faces display more parts of
the facial skeleton, they are badly distorted. The vace is low and flat,
with a well-expressed canine fossa and horizontally oriented cheek-bone,
which forms a good mid-facial flexion such as is commonly seen in fossil and
extant Asian people. Tangshan II is a deformed male calotte.”
“No artefacts have been found at Tangshan, and there is no evidence that
the cave once offered shelter to prehistoric hominids. The date of this site
is about 500 kyr according to various dating techniques.” Q. Wang and P. V.
Tobias, “Recent Advances in Chinese Palaeo-anthropology,” South African
Journal of Science 96(2000):463-466, p. 463-464
For those who make silly, silly claims like Henry Morris does:
"When I was in school, I was taught that the three conclusive proofs of
human evolution were Piltdown man, Peking man and Java man. These famous
discoveries, however, are no longer taken seriously. Piltdown man was a
hoax, Peking man has been lost for forty years and Java man was later
admitted by its discoverer to be an artificial construct of a human
thighbone and the skull of a gibbon. other former 'stars' in the ape-man
extravaganza were Nebraska man (an extinct pig) and Neanderthal man (now
universally acknowledged to be modern man).
"The current 'star' in this long-running show is a supposed hominid
(ape-man) named Australopithecus (meaning 'ape of the south'), associated
with a varied collection of fossil evidence, including Leakey's Skull 1470
and Carl Johanson's Lucy, as well as Mary Leakey's Laetoli fossil
footprints." ~ Henry M. Morris, Creation and the Modern Christian, (El
Cajon, California: Master Book Publishers, 1985), p.181
they should remember that Tangshan recovered more fossils that are just like
Peking man.
The Wang and Tobias article also points out that China contains fully 1/3 of
the human fossils found to date.
This article also discusses the very controversial Longgupo site which was
claimed to have the oldest evidence of hominids out of Africa--a H. habilis
(a being prior to H. erectus). A mandible and a tooth had been found and
claimed to be human. The humanity of the mandible was challenged by several
authors, including Wolpoff, Schwartz and Tattersall. But the tooth appears
to be human. Here is what Tattersall and Schwartz have to say:
“As we pointed out at the time, the teeth in the jaw fragment bear a close
resemblance to the teeth of an orangutan relative known from a much later
site in Vietnam. Moreover, the incisor, although convincingly hominid, is
rather generic and difficult to assign to any particular species.” Ian
Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz, Extinct Humans, (New York: Westview Press,
2000), p. 157
But if the tooth is the remains of a hominid, then this is the earliest
evidence of humankind outside of Africa--the site is over 2 Myr old. Wang
and Tobias write:
“In the face of these doubts about the supposedly hominid fossils found at
Longgupo in the 1980s, more convincing artefacts were discovered during
excavations in 1997 and 1998. They provided strong supporting evidence of a
hominid presence at Longgupo. Most of the items are made from limestone,
massive and crudely worked, comparable with the Oldowan artefacts from
Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. As these artefacts seem to document the
presence, at some 2 Myr, of hominids in China, a long-dormant belief was
re-awakened, namely that Asian Homo erectus was rooted in Asia, not Africa.”
Q. Wang and P. V. Tobias, “Recent Advances in Chinese Palaeo-anthropology,”
South African Journal of Science 96(2000):463-466, p. 464
One other interesting article concerning the intelligence of fossil man (H.
ergaster--the African erectus) was the discovery, finally, of some acacia
wood left on some stone axes. It has long been known that erectus/ergaster
were using the stone tools for wood working, but never had any actual wood
been found on the tools. I will eagerly await the full article because from
the way the following abstract is written it sounds like the wood found was
wood used for hafting the stone to a spear, but this impression may be
wrong:
Did Homo erectus take shop? An assemblage of 1.5-million-year-old stone hand
axes unearthed in Tanzania says yes, contends Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo of
the Universidad Complutense, Madrid, who recently excavated the tools at
Peninj, a site west of Lake Natron. The axes, worn from heavy use, bear
traces of acacia wood on their blades, the world's earliest evidence for
woodworking. "Until now," says Dominguez-Rodrigo, "it was believed that our
ancestors' toolkit was limited to simple hand-held stone tools until about
500,000 years ago, when wooden tools and weapons appear to have come into
use. The oldest-known wooden implements, from 400,000 years ago, are a set
of spruce spears, found near Hannover, Germany, and a yew lance tip from
Clacton-on-Sea, England; a 500,000-year-old fossilized rhinoceros shoulder
blade with a projectile point wound was found recently at Boxgrove, England,
attesting the development of spears by that date. "That our forebears had
the ability to fashion wood into utensils a million years earlier than
previously thought," adds Dominguez-Rodrigo, "will cause us to reassess our
understanding of their ability to hunt and gather." As for what may have
been crafted of acacia wood at Peninj remains to be determined; no wooden
artifacts were recovered.--ANGELA M.H. SCHUSTER
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/wood.html
There is a report that men can fool women into thinking they are MANLY by
having a deep voice. See
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010129/manlymen.html
I mentioned a few days ago (on the ASA list) that there was evidence of an
upright being living 6 million years ago. Apparently the team has put the
fossils on display. see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1157000/1157536.stm
This fossil is supposed to be more human that Lucy with teeth close to those
of modern humans. It is sure to stir up controversy. I would like to point
out that I have for years argued that this was a likely
occurrence--eventually. The fossil's age, and classification are sure to be
attacked by others if for no other reason than the vitriolic argument over
who owns the rights to dig in the ground from which he was taken.
One note of archaeological/ Biblical interest, there is an account of
Finkelstein and Silberman's view's on the history of Israel at
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/02/07/solomon/index.html?CP=SAL&DN=1
10
The article says: "In the essay, Herzog laid out many of the theories
Finkelstein and Silberman present in their book: 'the Israelites were never
in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land[of Canaan]
in a military campaign and didn not pass it on to the twelve tribes of
Israel."
This comment is for those on the ASA list. If certain recent suggestions of
how to interpret Biblical history are to be followed, this lack of
concordance between the Bible and history will most assuredly NOT be of any
difficulty to theology as all those stories can be tales designed to convey
theological rather than historical truths.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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