On Tue, 01 Jul 1997 22:56:08 -0500, Glenn Morton wrote:
[...]
JB>That's the real problem I have with your framework. It just doesn't fit the data.
>How did God worshipping, fully lingual, complex speech man--fully functional 5
>million years ago--revert to the bipeds you have to strain to find "signs" of humanity
>within?
GM>As I have told you, If only you and 7 other friends were left here, you all
>couldn't maintain the technological status quo of a neolithic farmer.
>Remember that the 4000 Tasmanians were isolated for 8000 years from all
>other human contact and their technology became more and more primitive with
>time. Their technology consisted of only 24 items. If 4000 people can't
>maintain the already impoverished Aborigine level of technology, what hope
>do 8 survivors of the flood have? (See Josephine Flood, The Archaeology of
>Dreamtime, p. 185)
Firstly, you are always appealing to hominid technology to support your
claim that an Australopithecine/Homo habilis could have built a huge 3-decker
ark. But there is no evidence that such hominid technology died away. By
the evidence of your own posts it shows a steady increeasing sophistication.
Secondly, if Noah was an Australopithecine (as your championing of
the Lothagam jaw fragment indicates), then there is no evidence they
were all wiped out 5.5 mya. If they were not all wiped out, then the
world wasn't left with 8 Australopithecines (humans in your book).
Thirdly, there is no evidence that the Tasmanian aborigines ever were
neolithic farmers. They were probably of part-Polynesian descent and
lived like Polynesians:
"Tasmanians, an extinct Australoid population of Tasmania. Their
population upon the arrival of European explorers in the 17th and
18th centuries has been estimated at 2,000 or less. They were a
relatively short people, with very curly to woolly hair, flat noses, wide
nostrils, full, fleshy lips, and bushy beards. The island was divided
among several tribes speaking different dialects, each with a delimited
hunting territory. Subsistence was based on hunting land and sea
mammals and collecting shellfish and vegetable food. In warm months
the Tasmanians moved through the open forest and moorlands of the
interior in bands or family groups of 20 to 30 people; in colder
months they moved to the coast. Occasionally, bands gathered
together for a corroboree (a dance celebrating important events), a
hunt, or for protection against attack. Wooden spears, waddies (clubs
or throwing sticks), and flaked stone tools and weapons were
produced. Bone implements, basketry, and bark canoes for coastal
travel were also made. A few rock carvings depicting natural objects
and conventionalized symbols have survived, these may have been
associated with magic to increase the food supply. The two theories
explaining the origins of the Tasmanians suggest derivation either
from a group that formerly inhabited Australia who crossed by a
now-submerged land corridor, or from an early Melanesian
population who reached Tasmania by sea." ("Tasmanians",
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, ix:835)
"The original Tasmanians were an anthropologically interesting
Negritoid people, with the widest nasal index ever recorded and
shorter and broader heads than the Aboriginal peoples of the
continental mainland. They may have originally drifted across from
the mainland or arrived from as far as the New Hebrides, several
thousand miles to the northeast." (Scott P., "Tasmania",
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, 17:1072)
"The racial composition of the peoples of Oceania is a composite of
Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid elements; the Negroid peoples
have survived or been reported in remote areas of Melanesia, the
Philippines, Australia, and Tasmania." (Force R.W., "Oceanian
Peoples and Cultures", Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, 13:469)
The Tasmanian aborigines therefore provide no evidence that
neolithic farming and technology, once discovered, can be
completely lost. Besides, the Bible clearly indicates that farming
resumed after the Flood (Gn 9:20), technology advanced (Gn 11:3),
and cities were built both before (Gn 4:17), and after (Gn 11:4-8) the
Flood.
God bless.
Steve
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