I chose the title for this post deliberately with the idea of being
facetious. I intend to show that what Hugh Ross has interpreted as a sudden
spirituality is due to nothing more significant than the invention of a tool
shape which is still in use today. Hugh Ross states:
"While bipedal, tool-using, large brained hominids roamed the
earth at least as long ago as one million years, evidence for
religious relics and altars dates back only 8,000 to 24,000 years.
Thus the secular anthropological date for the first spirit
creatures is in complete agreement with the biblical date."~Hugh
Ross, The Fingerprint of God, (Orange: Promise Publishing, 1991),
p. 159-160.
and speaking of the finding of complex (Upper Paleolithic-like), barbed
points found in 80,000 year old deposits Ross said,
How does this archeological data square with the biblical record
of humankind? As I discuss in my book _Creation and Time_, the
design and use of tools is a function of intelligence, perhaps
emotions and will, too, but not necessarily of the spiritual
dimension of a creature. Therefore tool design and use is
something all birds and mammals could exhibit, given adequate
intelligence." Hugh Ross, "Art and Fabric Shed New LIght on Human
History," Facts & Faith, p.2
and
"However, the dates for these finds are well within the
biblically acceptable range for the appearance of Adam and Eve --
somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 years ago according to Bible
scolars who have carefully analyzed the genealogies. Since the
oldest art and fabrics date between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago,
no contradiction exists between anthropology and Scripture on
this issue." Hugh Ross, "Art and Fabric Shed New LIght on Human
History," Facts & Faith, p. 2
Thus Ross has staked the Bible to the teaching that mankind could not have
been older than 60,000 years. What if Ross is wrong. No one I have asked has
been able to show me why the Bible teaches this. I simply do not see this in
my Bible. The reference to religious relics refers to the Venus figurines
which become abundant after 50,000 years. These are carved figures of naked
ladies (often made of carved bone or ivory) which are believed to have been
fertility symbols, strongly implying a spiritual aspect to consciousness.
Besides the fact that there is much evidence that Neanderthal man worshipped
the bear prior to 60,000 years ago (seeVictor Barnouw, An Introduction to
Anthropology: Physical Antrhopology and Archaeology, Vol. 1, (Homewood,
Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1982) p. 156-157) what Ross and other advocates
of this view miss in all this discussion of religious relics is that the
relics which are extant, are relics made of durable material, such as soft
stone and bone. To manufacture such a relic requires more than spiritual
awareness,(which it does) it also requires two technological advancements
which were not in existence prior to 100,000 years ago. The two technologies
are blade manufacture and then the manufacture from a blade of the burin.
A burin was a stone tool which looked like
_
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The sharp point makes an excellent engraving tool which is necessary for
carving the art work out of bone or soft stone. Anyone who has worked a
lathe, as I did in college, knows that the burin is still in use today. It
is now made of tempered steel and serves as the cutting tool on a lathe.
The sharp triangular point digs into the metal or wood as it turns in the
lathe.
The earliest burins I have been able to learn of, are found in Chatelperonian
sites from around 36,000 years ago. (See Brian Fagan, _The Journey From
Eden_, London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, p. 148) This of course does not mean
that there were none prior to this time. There is some evidence of the
existence of the burin much earlier. The burin's manufacture depends upon
another, earlier technological improvement. This is the blade making
technology. A blade is defined as a flake of rock which is more than twice
as long as it is wide. As time went by, the flakes were made thinner and
thinner. This can be seen in a chart of how much cutting surface could be
extracted from a pound of flint by various paleolithic technologies.
from a pound of flint: abbevillean obtained 2 inches of cutting surface
Acheulean obtained 8 inches of cutting surface
Mousterian obtained 40 inches of cutting surface
Magdalenian obtained 40 feet of cutting surface.
Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New York:
Thames and Hudson, 1993), p. 55.
The Acheulean was from 1.5 million to 200,000 years ago. The Mousterian was
from 250,000 years ago til 40,000 years ago. The Magdalenian was from 20,000
years ago til 11,000 years ago.
This technological improvement in stone-cutting meant that it was not
possible to make a burin with the necessary thinness until the blade
technologies were developed. Without a burin, no bone and ivory carving was
possible. Without the bone carving, religious relics could not be made out
of non-perishable material. Without religious relics, there is precious
little evidence for mankind's spiritual nature in the fossil record. This
lack of evidence is what Ross bases his view on.
In the above quotations, Hugh Ross is responding to the discovery of barbed
bone points from ancient (80,000+ year) deposits which look identical to the
points made by men Ross would consider spiritual. These bone points would
have required a burin to have been produced. These points are described as
follows:
" "Washington- Stone Age humans first learned to make tools in Africa
more than 80,000 years ago and not, as widely believed, in Europe many
thousands of years later, researchers say.
"Alison S. Brooks, a George Washington University Archaeologist, said
that bone tools with barbed points and blades dug up from an ancient
lakeshore in Zaire predate similar tools found in Europe from some 60,000
years later.
. . .
"The finding shows that early humans in Africa invented sophisticated
toolmaking long before their European counterparts. Barbed points like these
appeared in Europe only 14,000 years ago."
. . .
The age estimates ranged from just under 80,000 to more
than 170,000 years and Dr. Brooks, for convenience, referred to the ages as
'more than 80,000 years.'
Associated Press, Dallas Morning News, May 1, 1995, p. 9d<<
The reason I know that a burin is necessary to make these tools is the means
by which such barbed bone artifacts are made. A section of bone is cut,
giving a cylinder. Then grooves are cut into the bone lengthwise and the
groves are cut to the center of the bone. Looking at the bone end on, the
grooves look like
_\/_
/\ .
Each wedge of bone then becomes the blank which is further carved for the
barbs. Fagan writes:
"Reindeer antler is soft and easy to work when it is fresh from the
beast, or collected when recently shed in the wild. The Cro-Magnons were
able to rely on regular supplies of fresh antler, but the large beams and
tines were of somewhat limited use as tools. Tehy could serve as crude picks
or levers for digging up plants, for excavating soil for semi-subterranean
dwellins, or could be used for levering out lumps of red ocher. IT WAS NOT
UNTIL THE BURIN AND THE SHARP-EDGED BLADE CAME ALONG THAT ANTLER AS A
MATERIAL FOR TOOLS CAME INTO ITS OWN, BEING IDEAL FOR FASHIONING LIGHTWEIGHT
SPEARHEADS AND BARBED HARPOONS FOR HUNTING ALL MANNER OF GAME, AND MANY OTHER
FINE ARTIFACTS."
"The blade and burin made possible the so-called 'groove and splinter
techniques' that jproduced the necessary blanks. Armed with a sharp burin or
blade, the hunter would work twoo deep, longitudinal grooves into the beam of
a fresh antler, grooving carefully until the burin penetrated the soft,
spongy tissue that formed the antler core. The grooves formed a V-shape
through the tought outer layer of antler, and the long splinter could be
undermined, then levered out of the beam, thereby providing a rough blank
that could be cut and shaped very readily into any number of specialized
artifacts." Brian Fagan, _The Journey From Eden_, London: Thames and Hudson,
1990, p. 156. (EMPHASIS MINE)
To make the fine grooves in the bone, a burin is required. To make the
burin, blade technology is required.
And guess what, the first blade technologies were found in Africa, just
prior to the time that these first barbed points are found. Fagan writes:
"The toolkits used by Stone Age Africans after 100,000 years ago display
considerable variety, and include occasional collections of much thinner and
finer 'blades' of far more standardized size and shape, struck from carefully
prepared cores that were fashioned to produce considerable numbers of
versatile artifact blanks. Such blades (fine, thin, and often parallel-sided
blanks) often occur where local raw materials are of the finest quality, such
as the fine quartzites of the Sahara and of coastal southeastern Africa."
Brian Fagan, _The Journey From Eden_, London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, p.
46.
Prior to this time, the rocks off which flakes were struck were not prepared
to make blades. This blade making technology did not appear in Europe until
sometime after 50,000 years ago. The Cro-Magnons were the most eager users
of blade technology in Europe.
I might point out that it was not until the invention of the stone blade
technologies that sewing needles were able to be fashioned out of bone. A
burin with an extremely fine point is called an awl and these awls were used
to drill the eye in the bone needle. Thus, until this technology, no one
could sew clothing. Exactly how they kept their pants on, I have no idea.
:-)
Thus, in conclusion, what is often interpreted as a major spiritual change
point for humanity is probably nothing more than the invention of an
extremely important tool- the burin. What Ross' apologetic has done is
inadvertently and unknowingly identified the material effects of the
invention of the burin as the effect of spirituality. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
Unless and until Christian apologists are willing to dig into the smallest
details of a science to examine what data actually exists in that science we
will continue to propose views such as Ross has proposed which can be knocked
down by a study of the details. Unfortunately, I fear that Christianity has
depended upon the easy answers to the problem science presents. By relying
on the easy, non-detailed answer, we succeed in propounding easily destroyed
theories, and we succeed in appearing to be uninformed. This is not meant to
be harsh, but Christians should not expect our adversaries to be charitable
to our failings, intellectual or otherwise. And we should not accept anything
less than the best answer we can find.
glenn
16075 Longvista Dr.
Dallas, Texas 75248