I don't see how your conclusion fits. As I have pointed out over the past two
years to you a small population can live for a long time and not appear in the
fossil record. Once again here is the first and second appearances of various
things in the fossil record. In most of these cases the second appearance was
at one time considered to be the oldest when a new oldest was found. there is
no evidence of the animal's existence in between the first and second
occurrence.
The problem is statistical. Any object you find which becomes the earliest
occurrence is usually way, way before the previous earliest occurrence. I
have collected a bunch of examples.
earliest life on land
1.2 billion year old hollow filaments Arizona-oldest
800 MYR hollow filaments California
Horodyski and Knauath Life on Land in the Precambrian Science Jan 28, 1994 p
173
Caecilian bones
earliest 175-180 MYR
second 100 MYR
Farish A. Jenkins and Denis M. Walsh "Rare Fossils of Enigmatic Amphibian"
Science News 138 Oct 27, 1990 p. 270
Dinosaurs
oldest 240 MYR tracks from France
Oldest fossil 228 MYR from South America
turkey sized dinosaur tracks Ft Wingate fm New Mexico 225 (Oldest on North
America)
200 mry track from North carolina (second oldest on North america)
Matt Crenson "Geologists report oldest sign of Dinosaurs in NOrth America
Dallas Morning News, May 9, 1994, p. 8d
tarsiers
oldest Eocene from China
second oldest early miocene 30 million years later
oldest turtle 60 million years earlier than the previously earliest turtle
Eugene S. Gaffney Jame W. Kitching The Most Ancient African Turtle Nature May
5, 1994, p. 55
birds Archaeopteryx 147 myr
sinornis santensis 139 mil
Las Hoyas bird 132 myr
ambiortus dementjevi 125 myr
Paul C. Sereno Rao Chenggang Early evolution of Avian Flight and perching
Science feb 14 1992 p. 845
Oldest maya farming 4500 yr
second oldest Maya farming 3000 year
B. Bower Maya beginnings extend back at Belize site, jScience News, April 30,
1994
Since earliest examples of everything are always being found, it is highly
unlikely that we ever have found the very earliest example of anything.
Recently there was a case of finding the earliest evidence of weaving at
80,000 years I beleive. Previously the earliest had been 19,000 I think. I
don't have time to find that reference.
>[...]
>
>>GM>The next piece of art is the golan Venus which we have talked
>>about. Microscopic analysis proves that it was man-made. It
>>represents the female form.
>
>Glenn also ignores my posts which indicate that Marshack is not now
>claiming that the "golan Venus" is the first example of art. He is
>now claiming that for an etching dated only 54 kya,000-year old, from
>Quneitra, Israel (see "Early Etchings", Discover, Vol. 17, No. 7,
>July 1996, p26)
>
See my post on my previous response to this ridiculous and sophmoric charge.
>BTW, in a previous post, Glenn, in order to salvage his 5.5 mya Noah
>theory, claimed that the Golan Venus was not the work of adults. Now
>he is claiming it is "sexy". Which is it to be?
>
No Stephen this is totally wrong.
on
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 15:18:37
From: grmorton@gnn.com (Glenn Morton)
To: sejones@ibm.net,evolution@Calvin.edu
Subject: Art and boats of H. erectus.
You raised the point:
>>No doubt, but presumably this "small stone figurine of a woman" was
>>the best that an *adult* could do, 330 kya.
>
I replied
>And who said it was made by an adult? And who said it was the best that they
>could do? Do you have knowledge of this that other people don't have? I know
>lots of modern ADULTS who are ashamed of how poorly they sculpt and draw.
>Their art, while extremely crude is not the best that humans can produce, but
>theirs, some day might be the only examples PRESERVED. Does this make them
>sub-human? Get real Stephen.
This is far from claiming it was not the work of an adult. It was merely a
counter to your statement that this was the best an adult could do.
>>GM>4. No mention of the lack of tear ducts in Neanderthal skulls.
>>So?? big deal. Orientals squat a lot and their legs have
>>slightly different shapes than ours. They develop squatting facets
>>on their tibia (see F. Wood Jones, Habit and Heritage, pp. 49-50.)
>>When I was in China and we sould stop on the side of a road to eat
>>lunch, all the Chinese squated on their haunches and contentedly
>>munched lunch. After about 5 minutes of doing the same, I was in
>>incredible pain. But the Chinese and I are of the same species. But
>>I am beginning to wonder about you. :-)
>
>Here is a good example of Glenn's straining at gnats and swallowing
>camels! :-). That *modern* "Orientals...develop squatting facets on
>their tibia" is an example of minor regional sub-specific variation.
So neanderthal noses arent that?
>They are still all members of the species H. sapiens and no doubt
>when they mate with Occidentals the "squatting facets on their tibia"
>would show up in their mixed-race descendants. But in the case of
>tear ducts, if *all* Neandertals lacked them and *all*
>contemporaneous H. sapiens had them, then that is evidence bordering
>on proof that H. neandertalensis and H. sapiens never interbred,
>which strongly indicates they couldn't interbreed, ie. they were
>different species.
>
>BTW "Orientals" developing "squatting facets on their tibia" sounds
>like an example of *Lamarckian* evolution, since it would no doubt be
>difficult even for Dawkins to claim that squatting conveyed a
>reproductive advantage?
No it is not Lamarkism because a Chinese raised here does not develop
squatting facets.
>>GM>GM>6. Why no mention of "shaman art," the only truly religous art,
>>which is AT MOST only 27,000 years old?
>>
>>Sorry, Science News, Oct. 5, 1996, which you cited, says 33,000
>>years ago. You should read more carefully.
>
>The man who winks at 4 million years (plus), finds a mere 4,000
>years as significant? Give us a break! :-)
>
More ridicule?
>>GM>I, and others view the Golan Venus as the first evidence of
>>religious art. By the way, body painting is also highly correlated
>>with religious ritual in primitive societies. It is religious art.
>>The first evidence of body painting is from 1.5 million years or so.
>
>That's interesting. What "body" complete with "painting" has been
>recovered that is dated "1.5 million years or so'?
"Ochre has no apparent practical or technological use until the
development of iron metallurgy sometime in the second millennium before Christ
when it becomes a principal ore for iron smelting. Nonetheless, many of the
Paleolithic period ochre specimens show evidence of having been worked or
utilized in some fashion. For example, the two lumps of ochre recovered at
Olduvai Gorge show signs of having been struck directly by hammerstone blows
(M. Leakey 1971). Howell (1965:129) states that the ochre specimen recovered
at Ambrona showed evidence of shaping and trimming, although Butzer (1980:635)
asserts this may only be natural cleavage. Still the ochre comes from the same
horizon as the famous linear arrangement of elephant tusks and bones and was
probably brought to the site by the hominids who are thought to have killed and
butchered elephants there.
"At Terra Amata, which was occupied around 300,000 B.P., de Lumley
(1969:49) reports a number of ochre specimens recovered from the two
occupation layers associated with the pole structures uncovered at the site.
Specimens of red, yellow, and brown were recovered and the range of color
variations suggests the ochre may have been heated. De Lumley also reports
that the ends of some of the specimens were worn smooth suggesting they had
been used in body painting.
"Clearer evidence of ochre use comes from Becov in Czechoslovakia. This
cave site, occupied ca.250,000 B. P., yielded a specimen of red ochre that was
striated on two faces with marks of abrasion together with a flat rubbing
stone with a granular crystalline surface that had been abraded in the center
possibly during the preparation of ochre powder (Marshack 1981: 138). Whether
or not the rubbing stone was actually used in the preparation of ochre powder
is uncertain,but a wide area of the occupation floor from which the ochre lump
had been recovered was stained with red ochre powder."~D. Bruce Dickson, The
Dawn of Belief, (Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press, 1990), p. 42-43
and
"The presence of worked ochre in Bed II at Olduvai Gorge suggests that the
beginning of this 'attack' may even predate the appearance of Homo erectus and
begin instead with Homo habilis or the australopithecines more than 1.5million
years ago."~D. Bruce Dickson, The Dawn of Belief, (Tuscon: The University of
Arizona Press, 1990), p. 44
>This is just the point. If there was "rape and intermarriage" we
>would expect a much stronger merging of features. That Neandertal
>man and a.m. Homo sapiens co-existed in the same area (eg. Israel)
>forp tens of thousands of years indicates that if they did "rape" and
>there were any children, they were sterile hybrids, like mules.
>
Maybe, but in eastern Europe there appears to be such evidence.
>Second features like shovel-shaped teeth on orientals and Native
>>Americans today corresponds with shovel-shaped teeth on Asiatic
>>Homo erectus.
>
>This is not conclusive for regional continuity: "shovel-shaped
>teeth" are not only found 'on orientals and Native Americans today":
>
No but it may be evidence of interbreeding.