On Sept 27,2001, Zhu et al, published an article in nature on the 1.36
million-year-old site of Xiaochangliang in the Nihewan Basin which is 60
miles from Beijing. The site contained stone tools and cores (rocks from
which the flake tools are struck from). They used paleomagnetism of the
sediments to fix the age to the reversed magnetic period between 1.1 and
1.75 myr ago. Then using sedimentation rates they narrowed it down to 1.36
myr.
Having men living at 40 degrees north latitude 1.36 myr ago strongly implies
that they were able to handle a cold climate, implying that they had the
technology of tents, clothing and fire.
Now less than 2 months after this report was published in Nature comes the
report of another site in the Nihewan basin, 30 meters (100 feet) below the
level of the Xiaochangliang site. This site is called Majuangou and has an
estimated age of 2 million years! The report can be found at:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2001-11/09/content_108008.htm
The importance of this is that it places mankind all over the Old World 2
million years ago and it requires a technology more advanced than most have
been willing to grant to man this early. The record low temperatures in
Beijing which is near the Majuangou site is 1 degree fahrenheit with average
low temperatures below freezing from November until March! Men can't live in
that kind of environment like that without tents and clothing.
This site also has implications for when and where mankind arose. As many
here know, I have advocated that Christian apologetics needs to come to a
view which incorporates the human-like behavior of hominids as long ago as
2.5 million years. And I have suggested a view in which spiritual mankind
was around as long ago as 5 myr. Such a view would require that humanity be
more widespread at an earlier period and this is what the Majuangou site is
proving.
Just 7 years ago, no one took seriously the idea that mankind was outside
of Africa 2 million years ago. And 10 years ago the earliest accepted
evidence of mankind outside of Africa was that found at Ubeidiya, Israel
which dated at 1.25 million years ago. There were a few suggested older
sites that were easily dismissed such as Vallonet in France and a site in
Moravia (Pitts and Roberts, 1997, p. 143). In 1988 a claim was made for 2
million year old tools from Pakistan, it too was ignored. (Dennell et al,
1988, p. 498) In 1994 C.C. Swisher et al re-dated the Javan Homo erecus'
and showed that erectus was in Java 1.8 million years ago (Swisher et al).
But the resistance to the idea of an early migration of mankind out of
AFrica began to fall with the 1995 discovery of a 1.8-1.6 million year old
skull of Homo erectus which was found at Dmanisi, Georgia (Europe) Lat. 44
N. (Gabunia and Vekua). I reported on Dmanisi in 1996
http:www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199612/0142.html. Today, the average
temperatures in January are just above freezing in the region of Dmanisi.
What is happening now is that the Chinese are showing that mankind was in a
much more hostile climate early in his history, and that means that these
men had technology or they would have frozen. For a lot of reasons,
anthropologists do not believe that mankind has had anything approaching fur
for 2.5 million years. Thus to roam a region where the average nightly low
temperature is below freezing for 3 months of the year seems difficult to
imagine. This in turn implies that they were a very creative people,
something that too many apologists want to deny in spite of the evidence
before their eyes.
glenn
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for creation/evolution information.
references
R. W. Dennell, H. M. Rendell and E. Hailwood, "Late Pliocene Artefacts from
Northern Pakistan," Current Anthropology 29:3(June 1988)
L. Gabunia and A. Vekua, "A Plio-Pleistocene Hominid from Dmanisis, East
Georgia, Caucasus," Nature 373(Feb. 9, 1995)
Michael Pitts and Mark Roberts, Fairweather Eden, (New York: Fromm
International, 1997)
C.C. Swisher et al, "Age of the Earliest Known Hominids in Java, Indonesia,"
Science 263(1994):118-1121
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