On Thu, 09 Jan 1997 00:06:59, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>Stephen criticises me for suggesting that H. erectus built boats
>yet by his own words, he too must believe this.
Where have I "criticised" Glenn "for suggesting that H. erectus
built boats"? I try to only criticise Glenn's *theories* not him
personally.
Also, I have AFAIK always accepted that H. erectus may have
had some form of *water transport* while not conceding it was
a "boat":
------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Stephen Jones" <sejones@ibm.net>
To: "evolution@Calvin.edu" <evolution@Calvin.edu>
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 96 06:02:11 +0800
Subject: Re: ORIGINS: a new successful prediction for my view 2/2
Agreed, it would be a "major discovery indeed" if "archaic Homo
Sapiens actually built ocean going boats"... Of course it is
possible that families of "archaic Homo Sapiens"... may have had
some primitive form of water transport (eg. a raft or dugout log)
that was blown off course in a tropical storm. But it is already
currently thought that the ancestors of the Australian aborigines
travelled by sea about 30,000 years ago in "some sort of
watercraft": "The radiocarbon method of establishing the age of
camp sites of Aboriginals has demonstrated that their ancestors
arrived in Australia at least 30,000 years ago, and indications are
that they came long before. When the forebears of the Australian
Aboriginals in ancient times sailed across the sea lanes separating
Australia from South-East Asia they became the first known
navigators." (McCarthy F.D., in Edwards R., Australian Aboriginal
Culture", Australian National Commission for UNESCO, Australian
Government Publishing Service: Canberra, second edition 1974
reprint, preface)
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and
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From: "Stephen Jones" <sejones@ibm.net>
To: "evolution@Calvin.edu" <evolution@Calvin.edu>
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 96 06:03:56 +0800
Subject: Re: The overwhelming Silence.
[...]
GM>It means that anatomically non-modern humans had boats that far
>back and boat building is a HUMAN activity.
There is no evidence that they had *boats*. They may have migrated
to Australia by accident on very primitive watercraft from the
islands of modern Indonesia. But the making of watercraft is a "human
activity" but not conclusive evidence of *full humanity*.
------------------------------------------------------------
GM>Stephen wrote:
SJ>"...Their skill in making tools was limited: a flaked stone or
a crude ax was probably as good as it got." (Kluger J., "Not So
Extinct After All", Time, December 23, 1996, p64)
>
>The last sentence is relevant to Glenn's claim that a H.
>habilus/erectus named Noah built a 3-decker ark! :-)
GM>there is some evidence to suggest the possibility of boats being
>built by H.erectus and you are aware of it. There is no way to get
>to Australia except by boat. Even at the lowest sealevels
>Australia was never connected with Asia. It was at least a 70 km
>voyage. You are being very inconsistent here. As you read this,
>How can you possibly criticise me for what you, yourself must
>believe.
As usual, Glenn is caught up in his own word-games! :-) He seems to
think that a "primitive form of water transport (eg. a raft or
dugout log" is the same as a "boat". And since (in his mind) a
"boat" is the same as a "3-decker ark", that proves that " a
habilus/erectus named Noah built a 3-decker ark"!
GM>You wrote in another post tonight
SJ>There is good evidence that "the first colonizers of Australia"
>may in fact have been descendants of H. erectus:
>
>"Believed to have lived 10 kya, Kow Swamp fossils are noted for
>their robustness: sloping forehead, thick bones, heavy supraorbital
>torus, and so on..." (Nelson H. & Jurmain R.,... 1991, p539)
>
>"Most of these people of the Willandra lakes region were slender,
>with high-domed, thin-walled skulls...There is one exception in the
>form of a single find that was given the designation W.L.H.
>50,...a very large and heavy-boned male...it looks from that angle
>like a typically flask-shaped skull of Homo erectus...." (Wills
>C., 1994, pp148-149)
GM>When you combine your statement with Shreeve's:
Please note that these following marked "GM>" are Glenn's
quotes, not mine.
GM>"...For Wolpoff, Sangiran was stunning proof....Thorne had been
>trying to convince Wolpoff that regional features would appear first
>at the remote edges of the hominid range, farthest away from the
>African birthplace of the earlist hominids. And here sat Sangiran
>17, three quarters of a million years old and about as far from the
>African 'center' as one could get--but already full-fledged native
>Australasian."~James R. Shreeve, The Neandertal Enigma, (New York:
>William Morrow and Co., 1995), p. 102-103
Not everyone would agree with Thorne on this. Aborigines show a wide
range of variability, which may simply indicate a heterogeneous
origin:
"How much of this heterogeneity persists today is an open question.
The anthropologist Alan Thorne has compared the robust Kow Swamp and
gracile Willandra Lakes skulls to skulls of present-day aborigines.
He finds the recent skulls to lie somewhere in between those
extremes. Unfortunately, all the recent skulls used in his study
came from one small part of Australia, so they are probably not
representative of present-day variation....Argument continues about
whether the variety of physical types among the migrants to
Australia were the result of two or more migrations or whether the
first arrivals were themselves phenotypically heterogeneous- that
is, whether they had markedly different appearances. Alternatively,
the phenotypic variation seen among present-day aboriginals might
have been generated by selection and tribal fragmentation after
people arrived in Australia. It seems possible that some
combination of all three might be true." (Wills C., "The Runaway
Brain, 1994, p149)
GM>and with this:
>
>"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
I have no problem with "open-sea voyages by H. erectus". But I do
not see this as necessarily evidence for the building of boats.
GM>One must come to the inescapable conclusion that there is
>evidence that H.erectus may have built a boat. If the earliest
>inhabitants of Australia were erectus, Stephen, there is no way for
>them to get there EXCEPT BY BOAT! They would have had to have
>built it.
Glenn's word-game continues! As Glenn knows from a public
message sent to him directly to cut down on Reflector traffic, I can
accept that Homo habilis could have reached Australia by primitive
water transport, like a raft, while not yet accepting it necessarily
would be a "boat":
------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Stephen Jones" <sejones@ibm.net>
To: "Glenn Morton" <grmorton@gnn.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 97 20:50:44 +0800
Subject: Re: Archaic Homo sapiens in Oz 130 kya
Glenn
This is not a private message. I am sending it to you privately to cut down
on my Reflector traffic. Feel free to reply via the Reflector. Apologies for its
lateness.
[...]
Wills speculates that early man travelled to Australia from
Timor on bamboo rafts:
"The Australians are not seafaring peoples. Before the arrival of
Europeans, the peoples of the northern Australian coast did make
rafts of mangrove or driftwood, but these could not float for more
than a few hours before becoming waterlogged These peoples lost, or
never acquired, the technology needed to hollow out tree trunks to
make canoes. So how did they get to Australia in the first place?
Perhaps on bamboo rafts, which are as easy to make as bark boats but
float for a good deal longer. There is plentiful bamboo on the tropical
island of Timor, just to the northeast of the Australian mainland. And,
sixty thousand years ago, soon after the start of the last major Ice
Age, the sea level was at least 200 meters lower than it is now.
Today, Timor is separated from Australia by 600 kilometers of open
ocean. During the Ice Age maximum, a huge Australian coastal plain
extended almost all the way to the island. Migrants from Timor
would have been checked only by a narrow stretch of water some 70-
90 kilometers wide. This strait could easily have been crossed, by
accident or design, by peoples on bamboo rafts. But, if there were
few or no bamboos in the area when they arrived, it would have been
a one-way voyage. After their rafts had cracked and split in the sun
on the hot Australian shore, there was no way back." (Wills C., "The
Runaway Brain: The Evolution of Human Uniqueness",
HarperCollins: London, 1994, p145)
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GM>For you to criticise me for what you yourself is hypocritical.
I presume Glenn means here "for what you yourself" *say*? I am not
"hypocritical". First, I try not to criticise Glenn - but his
position. Second the above quotes show that all along I have been
consistent - I accept that H. erectus may have used "primitive water
transport" such as a "raft" or "dugout log" but not a "boat" (as that
word is normally understood). Third, Glenn tries to transform a
possible verbal error into a certain moral error. I call upon Glenn
to focus on *what* I say, not on *how* I say it, or *who* I am.
God bless.
Steve
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