>I find it a little hard to believe that even Homo Erectus could have built
>anything as sophisticated as the ark.
About half my problem is that Christian apologists have not educated the laity
about the capabilities of these ancient humans. I sent the privately to
Travis but I messed up on the date so it needs correction. The correct date
was 700,000 years ago (I fixed it below) I also need to mention that in order
for H. erectus to end up on Flores, he needed to cross two ocean stretches.
And if Australia was colonized 176,000 years ago, archaic homo sapiens must
have been making boats that long ago. Australia is over the horizon from the
nearest land and most authorities doubt that chance could take a being
there--witness the protection from placental mammals that the marsupials have
in Australia.
***
More to your point about the abilities of H.erectus, H.erectus is
found on the island of Flores, Indonesia in deposits dated at 700,000 years
ago. This is important because even at low sealevels during glaciation, there
is no way to the island except by boat. It is totally separated from land.
Some anthropologists have suggested that given erectus' work with wood, that
he made boats also.
"One of the stumbling blocks to accepting an early colonization has
always been that, because Australia was never attached to Asia, even at the
lowest sea levels of the Ice Age a journey there required an ocean voyage of
at least 70 km. But now the discovery of a stone-tool industry on the
Indonesian island of Flores, in a layer dated by palaeomagnetism to about
700,000 years ago, has provided good evidence for open-sea voyages by H.
erectus, so there can be no question that whoever colonized Australia was
capable of such a journey, even 176,000 years ago."~Paul G. Bahn, "Further
Back Down Under," Nature, Oct 17, 1996, p. 577-578, p. 578
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm